The future of football is inclusive

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The future of football is inclusive

Football fans around the world are gearing up for what promises to be a unique World Cup – the first staged in the Middle East and the first to be played in the northern hemisphere’s winter. To look ahead, we spoke to Julie Doleman, Entain’s UK Digital Managing Director, to hear about her plans to put Ladbrokes at the heart of the action and reach an ever more diverse range of fans.

“This World Cup will be different from any that have gone before it and with that is a great opportunity for us to reach a new audience of recreational players” says Doleman. “We want to offer a our customers a much broader, richer entertainment experience than has traditionally been the case with sports betting.”

Our Advanced Responsibility & Care programme (ARC) is an example of this personalised player protection approach. Using the latest innovative technology, we are able to identify risks rapidly and effectively in player behaviour to intervene before a problem develops.

This approach is reflected in Ladbrokes’ We Play Together advertising campaign, the third instalment of which launched in September. The latest execution of the cinematic campaign employs cutting-edge VFX-motion capture technology to recreate the iconic running montage from the first Rocky film. Original footage of Sylvester Stallone is intercut with a range of over 250 athletic characters and fans from across the sporting spectrum. A special World Cup cut of the campaign is also being produced.

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“We Play Together is all about shared experiences making the Ladbrokes brand truly engaging and inclusive. It is about fun and excitement and fundamentally about entertainment” Doleman added.

“But to be authentic, we have to deliver more than creative marketing, we have to make sure we provide our players with innovative and engaging products. That’s why we’re excited to be launching a brand new free-to-play game for the World Cup: Half Time Quiz.”

Half Time Quiz is a first for the betting and gaming industry, utilising live data feeds from the opening half of every World Cup match to produce an exclusive quiz based around all the action in the first 45 minutes. Players can compete for bragging rights by creating mini-leagues with their friends or see how they measure up to other Ladbrokes customers on the overall leader-boards.

“Half Time Quiz is all about putting fun into football and engaging with fans in real time by providing them with a great entertaining experience. It’s never been done before and we believe it will help us reach a whole new audience, bringing people together and creating new moments of excitement.”

“The We Play Together campaign and Half Time Quiz are great examples of how Ladbrokes is evolving to offering a broader experience and we have much more to come. We have also introduced a new era of personalisation, enabling our customers to select their favourite team and then deliver them a richer exclusive offer tailored to for them.”

“The future of football is inclusive. We only have to look back to the recent Women’s Euros to see how successfully it can be at attracting new and more diverse audiences. That is exactly the future we want for Ladbrokes, and we can’t wait for the World Cup to kick-off so we can all play together!”.

Half Time Quiz will be trialled during Premier League fixtures over the coming weeks ahead of the official World Cup launch on 20 November.

“We want to lead the way with new, exciting products and experiences for customers and use our cutting-edge technology to pioneer innovations in sport, gaming and interactive entertainment for the metaverse”

“We want to use our position as a global technology leader to help drive innovation more widely. Working with partners around the globe, Ennovate will demonstrate how Entain’s industry-leading technology can both revolutionise experiences for consumers and deliver real benefits to society”

Jette Nygaard-Andersen

CEO

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs)

We are currently developing these unique digital collectible assets for brands across the Entain group and Partypoker is set to launch its first official non-fungible tokens (NFTs) shortly, powered by Theta Labs. NFTs are unique, non-fungible certificates of authenticity of digital files, which could include items such as artwork, music, videos or tweets. Partypoker’s NFTs will showcase some of the most iconic video moments and tournament hands in the history of partypoker and partypoker LIVE.

Immersive experiences in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

Immersive experiences in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) will be shown and developed at the Ennovate lab. These will include a pioneering VR multi-sports club experience, which is expected to launch shortly.

VR (Arcades)

We are set to bring immersive experiences to customers on the high street, converting two of our locations – in Manchester and Shoreditch – into new VR retail experience zones. Customers will soon be able to try out ground-breaking new experiences in immersive sports and interactive entertainment for themselves. “Our goal is to bring the most exciting experiences in immersive sport, gaming and interactive entertainment to life as the metaverse takes shape. Working with partners we believe we can achieve great things faster, both for customers and to apply these technologies and skills to benefit wider society”

– Sandeep Tiku, Chief Operating Officer

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