Q&A: BetVictor's Shane Stafford & Kris Marshall

EGR MI talks to BetVictor’s head of brand Shane Stafford (left) and head of BI and analytics Kris Marshall (right) about recent changes implemented at the upwardly mobile bookie

From the moment Andreas Meinrad took the reins at BetVictor the winds of change have been blowing through the Gibraltar-based bookie. One of Meinrad’s main priorities when taking the hot seat back in February 2015 was to transform BetVictor into a more modern day operator, but to do so required the chief exec to shake-up his management team.

Enter former Paddy Power creative director Shane Stafford and ex-Gala Coral business intelligence chief Kris Marshall, who joined BetVictor as head of brand and head of BI and analytics, respectively. Between the pair, BetVictor has freshened-up its brand, launched a new TV campaign centred on a new ‘simple’ message, and taken a far more data-led approach to marketing and CRM.

While the privately-owned bookie’s results remain private, numbers seen by EGR as part of its Power 50 compilation process shows the new approach is having the desired effect – the operator moved up five places to number 11 on this year’s list and it would appear BetVictor has the wind at its back right now.

There can be little doubt the operator’s in-house tech has enabled Meinrad to implement changes around product quicker than he may have otherwise been able to. In fact, Stafford points to BetVictor’s ability to innovate quickly as “the key driver” behind BetVictor’s uptick in fortunes with a raft of new betting products providing the operator with that all important cut through.

Coupled with its forensic use of data, BetVictor is now able to market to customers in real-time on site and segment players within just a few interactions – crucially enabling the firm, among other things, to bonus players at critical times in their lifecycles and pinpoint potential high-rollers at the earliest of stages.

EGR MI caught up with Stafford and Marshall to discuss the new brand direction, changes which have been implemented behind the scenes, and how this all feeds in to an improved mobile experience.

EGR MI: How does your brand refresh earlier this year fit in with your plans for product development and innovation?

Shane Stafford (SS): Our brand refresh was a move to emphasise our focus on making the betting experience simple. Removing unwanted information so it doesn’t get in the way of what’s important; the bet. Our key message, ‘Simple As’, reiterates that absolutely nothing should get in the way of making a bet.

This is the key driver behind all the product development and innovation that we do at BetVictor. Our aim is to use technology to ensure players have the simplest, most efficient experience when they place a bet with us. Really it’s about using data to create a 360-customer view so the customers’ experience is simply ‘Simple As’.

EGR MI: BetVictor built an enterprise data hub earlier this year with Cloudera, how are you using this hub and what can you learn from the data gathered?

Kris Marshall (KM): We are using the enterprise data hub to create a personalised experience for our customers giving them a simpler and better betting experience.  Modern data gives us the opportunity to interact with our customers in real-time using huge amounts of data. Before if you had a batch of data you would have to respond the day after, thus you might miss somebody or an opportunity to interact with them.

The most important thing we’ve learned is that we’re still learning. The opportunities are limitless. With the technology we have in place, we can now do things that we couldn’t before and that will continue to be the case; big data is fast-moving, exciting and competitive, and we aim to be at the forefront of the challenges that lie ahead.

EGR MI: At BetVictor you build your apps in-house. Why have you made that decision? What are the pros and cons?

SS: Yes, we try and do everything in-house. Native development is key because of the greatly improved customer experience it allows us to provide. The fact is that people play more and enjoy themselves more through native applications than on a wrapped version. We responded to that and have developed both iOS and Android offerings.

Building all our technology in-house also allows us to grow home talent and avoids the need to bring in outside contractors. By doing this we can react much faster to changing landscapes and can implement product upgrades as and when they are needed.

But we can’t obviously build a real-time database ourselves so we have to bring in outside help such as technology like Cloudera. We try to partner with as few people as possible though.

EGR MI: What have been the main challenges when developing native apps for mobile?

SS: Through having an internal development team that works across all platforms, from mobile to desktop, we have avoided a lot of challenges that could have arisen with the native app. If we didn’t have one central team then implementing the ground-breaking functionality of Quick Cash Out, where you can cash out straight from your notifications on iOS, would have been significantly more challenging. By developing the app in synergy with the other platforms we have been able to keep the ultimate aim, benefiting our customers’ experience.

EGR MI: In what ways, do you tailor your content for the customer’s needs on mobile? Is your product now embracing personalisation?

KM: This really goes back to how we utilise big data across all of our platforms. From the data, we get a greater understanding of player values, their interaction with us, and how we need to interact with them as we know what they respond to.

This allows us to target players in real-time across multi-platforms with offers directly in line with their historic betting practices. Through analysing our historic data, we can work out what the needs of the customer are to personalise their betting experience across all our platforms. We will look to big data and how we can harness its value to improve personalisation going forward.

EGR MI: Last year BetVictor merged the desktop and mobile teams – what impact has this had on the business? What was the thinking behind this?

SS: Our focus has always been on making the customers’ experience simple. By merging the desktop and mobile teams we have a dedicated development team now focusing on various formats to bring the very best experience to our customers. This has allowed us to provide a consistent experience for customers across all the online platforms.