FanDuel Casino leaders have been feeling victorious about their Winning is Undefeated marketing campaign. So glorious, in fact, that they’ve implemented its second phase, Daniele Phillips told Bonus on Sept. 29.
Phillips, FanDuel Casino’s vice president of brand strategy, answered questions from Bonus on Friday about the online gambling operator’s marketing campaign.
The Q&A covers how the FanDuel Casino marketing effort — created in coordination with ad agency Mischief @ No Fixed Address — has changed from its July 2022 inception until now. Phillips also explains why the online casino operator is interested in targeting ads to women gamblers.
Meanwhile, Michigan, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania residents may have already noticed the rollout of Phase Two of the marketing campaign. That’s because, on Sept. 21, FanDuel Casino announced the start of the “TV, social, and contextual OOH” ads.
“OOH” means “out-of-home,” like billboards. “Contextual” means ads are placed in the proper context, such as venues that may already cater to gamblers.
FanDuel Casino’s Daniele Phillips Speaks to Bonus
Bonus asked Phillips every type of case study question about the Winning is Undefeated marketing campaign.
We wanted to know which networks and streaming services FanDuel Casino leaders picked for the ads, what programming they chose for the placements, and how they measured the audience’s ad responses.
For example, a contextual OOH ad is pictured on the right.
Plus, get ready to see FanDuel Casino ads in dating apps.
What follows: Each question from Bonus is in bold.
Phillips responds below.
Can you share the results of the first phase of this campaign?
We are into the 2nd round of the campaign — so the results must’ve been good!
When did Phase One end?
Our previous “Winning is Undefeated” campaign was live in some channels, mainly TV, until Aug. 2023. It ran in the majority of channels from Nov. 2022 until May 2023.
You have commercials. Where and why did you decide to air them?
We are constantly optimizing our media plans to ensure we are in the right place to reach our target audience. We advertise across local networks and cable channels within our live states and across Hulu and YouTube, as we know most audiences are moving to on-demand streaming services. It’s been a real focus for us in the last year to scale our marketing into more digital channels and that continues to be a priority for us.
Did you have a target audience? Or was it a mass marketing effort?
We are excited that this campaign takes us into new territories like Tinder, Match, and Uber. It’s been important to us to ensure we target the female demographic, given FanDuel Sportsbooks have historically been male-oriented in the past. So some channels weigh more in favor of women to ensure we reach the Casino audience who generally are 50:50 male/female.
What sort of tracking did you do to show effectiveness?
To measure our campaigns we use a combination of brand and ad tracking, channel-level metrics like view-through rates, and then acquisition metrics like app downloads and conversion % ‘s. That really helps us understand both creative effectiveness and sentiment and bridge this with performance data.
It’s important for us to match our strongest offers/message with the strongest creative. So we continue to work out ways in which we can do that. As always, we use all our insights from across our marketing and insights teams to inform our next campaign briefs.
Is FanDuel Casino unique for running a campaign like this?
Yes! This is one of the most unique and creative campaigns. We continue to strive to build a solid foundation for FanDuel Casino that sets us apart from the competition. With our major campaigns to date, we haven’t utilized celebrities or talent. Instead, we have focused on building a major moment that new and existing customers can relate to. At FanDuel Casino, we know the ultimate feeling is always winning, and we are excited for the world to see our second installment of the “Winning is Undefeated” ad campaign across TV, social, and contextual OOH.
Why did you decide to do it?
Our aim is to continue to build the FanDuel Casino brand for those who love to play casino games in our key live states and to add new creative regularly so that we continue to drumbeat our brand into 2024.
What sort of brand awareness results do you have?
We find that typically when asked to name a casino, audiences are more likely to name one of the big legacy brick-and-mortar casinos than the newer digitally focused ones. So we have to be patient and build connections within the minds of consumers that FanDuel offers Casino. That’s our number one focus while giving them a reason why they should download our app over our competitors.
Do you think Phase One of your campaign moved you toward your goal?
Yes, we saw strong results from our initial campaign which is why we are excited that our second installment of our “Winning is Undefeated” ad campaign is out across TV, social, and contextual OOH. The goal of our second campaign is to bring new customers to FanDuel Casino and increase our brand awareness through the message that winning is the ultimate feeling, which is possible with FanDuel Casino.
What else should Bonus readers know?
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