Keith McDonnell podcast transcript

Interview with Keith McDonnell of Bodog Europe

Speaker key:
RT: Ronan Tighe
KM: Keith McDonnell

RT: Hi, I’m Ronan Tighe, and welcome to podcast 13 in our Innovations series. This week I’m joined by Keith McDonnell, MD of Bodog Europe. Keith, first of all can you tell us a little bit about your background and Bodog?

KM: Sure, I’ve been in the online betting gaming space for about 11 years now, it’s seven years’ experience prior to coming to Bodog, primarily with the UK Tote and William Hill before that, which I thoroughly enjoyed, it was a great experience in helping the UK Tote to get their online betting site live, but at the time Bodog came knocking, I just felt I needed a change, so I didn’t need to be asked twice, I’ve long been an admirer of the Bodog global brand, and when we started speaking I was fully committed to exploring that opportunity.

RT: Can you explain how the Bodog licence works?

KM: Sure, there’s an organisation in Antigua, the Bodog organisation, Bodogbrand.com, that operates effectively like a franchise, so it seeks out both proactively and reactively organisations across the globe that it feels it wants to attach the Bodog brand to. To date we have Bodog Europe, Bodog Asia, both of those are betting and gaming companies, but we do look outside the betting and gaming market as well, so we have done deals and licensed our brand to organisations in mixed marshall arts fighting, music and other entertainment fields as well. The key thing for us is, we look at an organisation and we think, does that organisation or is that organisation capable of living up to the Bodog brand values? And if we think it is, then we will explore that opportunity. On the flipside, if an organisation feels that the Bodog brand can help it to take the next steps and benefit from being attached to the Bodog brand, then that’s where it becomes attractive to them, and it’s a virtuous circle, the more organisations that we have attached to the Bodog brand, the bigger that brand becomes and then we all benefit from it.

RT: Is your role purely in gaming, or will you be also responsible for the other products under the Bodog brand in Europe?

KM: At this point, my role is purely betting and gaming, so sports betting, casino gaming and poker, but that’s not to say that, under the Bodog Europe licence arrangement, we mightn’t attach ourselves to something else, but at this point it is purely betting and gaming, yeah.

RT: OK, the Bodog brand is particularly strong – why do you think that is?

KM: I mean first and foremost, a brand is not a trademark, it’s not a set of intellectual property rights, really the way we look at a brand is, how does it make the customer feel? We’re not in the business of selling insurance, and I should know that because I used to work in insurance before betting and gaming, and our view is, if the customer isn’t smiling, we haven’t done our job, so for us, we’ve put a lot of effort into giving excellent customer service, giving the customer a unique experience on the website by providing them with a nice looking dynamic website, I think a lot of people talk about that, but when you look at a lot of the organisations out there, they’re very similar, very consistent; we try to be different. That’s the customer side, and for us that’s always first and foremost; the scientific side is, a lot of thought and science went into coming up with the brand, Calvin Ayre, our founder, is a brand expert, he didn’t just wake up one day and say, “Bodog”, like eureka, he came up with a lot of names, a lot of ideas, swung them around a focus group and through feedback and through discussion came up with the word Bodog, so I think in priority order we think way more beyond the set of five letters, but there was a lot of science in coming up with those five letters as well.

RT: You mentioned that technology and the customer service is particularly important – is that technology developed in Antigua and then distributed throughout the group? – or will you be developing your own technology specifically for the European market?

KM: Bit of both, I think we don’t want to be shackled by alliancing ourselves to any one or the other strategy; we again, putting the customer first, will say “What does the customer want?” – if we can develop it internally, we will do, and we have done, we have our own casino, our own poker room; if we think though that the customer needs a certain type of sportsbook and we say, well you know what – we’re not an IT house, so we can buy that in and focus our own resources elsewhere, we’ll do that as well, but the commercials need to make sense, and the customer needs to get what they want.

RT: And you’re currently planning a major push into Europe – what do you think you can offer that other operators can’t?

KM: The first thing to say on that, Ronan, is we entered the European market with our eyes wide open, we don’t think it’s going to be plain sailing, we know it’s a very competitive market, the most competitive continent in the world, but we have on our team a number of people who’ve got plenty of European experience, so we know what needs to be done to be competitive. Our first priority is to be competitive, not to make lots of money within the UK space, which is our first focus. If we can do that, and if we can set ourselves up in the UK to be competitive, then that’s an extremely good platform for us to then kick on into Europe, and look at other continents, but we need to stay focused on what we want to do initially, and also be realistic about what our objectives are, just putting a bit of substance to that, one of the things I’m looking to do is, if we can harness the levels of customer service that generally exist in the US and North America as opposed to Europe and the UK, which tends to be higher, then I think we should be able to give a better level of customer service than the standard out there right now.

RT: And in terms of attracting players or punters – is there any matching strategy around how you’re going to do that?

KM: Yeah, again very common sense, Ronan, in the sense that a lot of our work initially will be around affiliates, through affiliates, search, and then customer retention, so we’re going to focus primarily on marketing that gives us a return on investment and that’s transparent, we’re not going to do a hell of a lot of brand building just for the sake of it, we will do some to complement what we’re doing online, but we want to build a business first in Europe, and then from there kick on and maybe start doing some high street billboards and stuff, but that won’t be where we start, we’ll be doing it primarily through affiliates and search.

RT: There’s been a lot of talk about affiliates and the kind of value they bring to operators – what’s your view on that?

KM: I think, I mean my view is, and I’ve got a background, I was the affiliate manager at William Hill, incredibly valuable acquisitions skill vehicle, more so now in my opinion than ever, retention is a totally separate matter, and I’ve heard the debates and I’ve heard the discussions and people blaming or praising affiliates for the type of customer they bring, quite honestly that comes down to the operator, and the type of affiliates they deal with, so we know, giving an example, we deal with Oddschecker in the UK, we’ll get a certain type of customer, if we deal with a network that has mass market penetration, we’ll get a different type of customer, so really I think the onus is on the operator to identify the types of affiliates they want to work with.

RT: And what type of customers are you after?

KM: Recreational, but again being realistic, we need to build critical mass here, we need volumes, we need to get players in, we know that when we open the doors, which we have done, we’re going to get a certain type of player first, because they’re the ones who are looking for the new operators, they’re the ones who are seeking best price, and that’s fine, we’ll bring them in, we’ll have faith in our trading director and the trading team to do what they can with those customers, and try and convert them down the casino and poker route, but, from a proactive marketing point of view, the recreational customers certainly, the one we’re after, and I think we’re best equipped to retain, because within the Bodog brand the sort of entertainment aspect, the look, the feel, some of the innovative products we’re going to be offering, we think we can do that.

RT: What type of products?

KM: In-running will be a big one for us, we’re looking to have the most dynamic in-running interface, but we don’t have it yet, but we’re looking forward to getting that out there in the next four weeks, and then we’re going to have a very cosmetic, easy to use, easy to look at, pleasing to look at, website. We’ve got things like Bodog Girls in our archive, and the target market we’re after for whatever reason, I say that in jest – they like looking at pretty girls, and we’ve got to use that, Bodog’s a sexy brand. So I think from a substance product point of view, in-running will be key for us, I think we’re going to have a good mobile product as well, but excellent customer service, a good-looking website, nice imagery, classy look and feel will help us retain those sort of customers.

RT: Is there any major difference that you have seen between countries in North America and in the UK?

KM: I think it’s dangerous sometimes to generalise, but if I am to generalise, and I will for the purpose of this question, the European player is shrewder, they do prize or bonus seek a bit more than the North American player, who tends to put things like customer service or convenience first, within Europe we’ve mentioned the site Oddschecker, and there’s a couple of other odds comparison sites, typically a lot of users will use that, they’ll have five or six or seven betting accounts for the purpose of taking best price, so I think as a generalisation European players are shrewder, but I think the onus needs to be thrown back on the marketing team to say, well what’s our marketing strategy here? – and if the strategy is to get recreational players, then that’s the route we have to go, and we need to deal with certain types of affiliates by certain key words on search, optimise our site in a certain way, and appeal to those players.

RT: Do you think that will change, if regulation happens in the US?

KM: Honestly I really am not qualified to answer that too much, I don’t have anything to do with the US business, other than the odd meeting with my counterpart for the Bodog licence in North America, so that could be the case, but I really don’t feel qualified, my focus is squarely on Europe and Canada.

RT: So then within Europe, how do you think the current operators are performing?

KM: Honestly I think Europe, as you know Ronan, is a big continent of a number of diversities, and I think the UK is different from Europe. I think in the UK it’s extremely competitive, it’s the sort of pinnacle of the European market in terms of competition. My honest opinion is, I think there’s a lot of “me too” competition, I think everybody’s striving to offer the same set of products in the same way, you look at the websites, there’s very little differentiation, I think the only way companies do differentiate themselves is by the variety and the depth of product they offer, but it’s actually all very similar. I think there’s a couple of continental bookmakers, let’s call them, I won’t name brands, that aren’t so big in the UK but are actually quite successful in Europe, and I think they differentiate themselves better, whether it’s through sponsorship, not sort of giving it away there, or other ways of doing it, but I think it’s a truly competitive landscape, but I still think there’s opportunity by doing things differently.

RT: So what do you think the biggest changes will be in the near future?

KM: I think in Europe, regulation is a day to day monitoring task, European member states, they interpret EU law in different ways, and have their own responses to, and I think that will take years before it homogenises itself. I think the biggest changes will be (a) in the product development side, so I think mobile, in particular with the success of the iPhone, and with Blackberry improving their initial stab at that. Those platforms, mobile and internet, will converge, and people will start using mobile phone like an internet, and I think that’s where the building of an internet site will need to cater for mobile, and be thinking about, I think that’ll be big. The other biggest macro factor, in my opinion, is of course when non-gaming brands start to have a big interest in the betting and gaming space, and they decide that they want to get involved in it, and throw lots and lots of money at it, I think that’s, when people talk to me about the competition, yes, I think of the established brands, of course I do, but really it’s the entertainment brands and the recreational brands that we need to be mindful of in the next couple of years.

RT: And in terms of products, you mentioned mobile – is that something you’re looking at, or do you currently have a mobile offering?

KM: We have a mobile casino offering, we don’t have sports at this point, but I’ve looked at this and considered it in detail over the last number of years prior to Bodog as well, and my honest opinion is, really it’s a case of technology being facilitative of that product, not the other way round, trying to force your product onto a mobile phone that isn’t right. Pre the internet mobile phone, you had to develop Java-based applications, and a number of versions of them for every single handset. New handsets are released every week, so you’ve got to adapt your application or pay somebody to do it for you. It becomes a fire-fighting task, and quite honestly, even if you’re successful at that, I’m not sure if customers know how to download an application, or if they do, where it goes to onto the handset, I’ve seen for myself people downloading applications, and not being able to find it on their handset. So I think we need to get away from the MIDP 1, MIDP 2 version of Java applications, and actually look at mobile being an internet device, and then I think there’s a real chance that that will work, and then that’s when we become very interested.

RT: And what other products in terms of, you mentioned poker, are you looking at bingo, or do you think that fits in with your demographic?

KM: Bingo, to answer your question, bingo on the face of it probably doesn’t fit with our current demographic, but that’s not to say that it wouldn’t, I think there’s either a marketing task there to make bingo cool, or make it masculine, or there’s a conversation for us to have, well are we only targeting males, and do we make ourselves more appealing to females, and the answers to those questions could go either way. At this point, bingo isn’t top of our list, but we talk about it every day. We’re looking at in-running, as I said, is very important for us, we see that as the growth area within sports betting, but also live dealer and casino, we think that’s pretty big as well, it’s already big in Asia, I think it will have its day in Europe, and that’s where I think the licensing model will also work, if we can share experiences across our licence holders, I actually learn from my counterpart in Asia and what works and what doesn’t work in Live Dealer, then I can apply that for the European experience.

RT: In terms of the European – in the future, once you get a hold of the UK, what other markets in Europe are you going to be focusing on?

KM: That’s a day to day evaluation task for us, although our site currently is based in the UK, we do pick up players from other European markets, and that in itself is important data for us, because it tells us that our brand has attraction in that market, or for whatever reason the products we’re offering are appealing in that market, and that, as much as anything else, will drive where we look at next, going back to what I said before about customers driving development. That being said, we know that there are certain markets where additional localisation will be required, ie, multi-language, not so much currency these days, because you’ve got your euro, which brings a lot of the countries in, but multi-language website, multi-language customer service, but I think what we’re seeing so far is there’s quite a lot of appeal from Scandinavia, and also some other countries in mainland Europe, and outside of Europe as well, that will really drive where we’re looking at next.

RT: As an Irishman, is there a focus on Ireland? – do you count that as the UK?

KM: No, we won’t go into that! There is, and as you know, Ronan, the product set required for Ireland is pretty much a replica of what’s required for the UK, in terms of sports maybe you need to add in GAA hurling and football, but aside from that, the product interests are very similar, if not exactly the same, and the same can be said for casino and poker, so I think Ireland very much fits into the category of, well, we’re going to pick up people from there on the basis of what we’re doing in the UK, but actually it could be pretty much the next country that we focus on from a marketing point of view, is what we can do.

RT: Excellent Keith, thank you very much for taking the time out, and I really value your thoughts and opinions, and best of luck in the future.

KM: Thanks Ronan, great to speak to you.

RT: Cheers.

Back to Keith McDonell podcast