Wow. So many of you read the previous Promothon post that we checked to see if we indeed reviewed your advent calendars instead of accidently linking to the Pirelli Calendar. Nearly 300 unique views by key online gambling executives is quite a nice response. (no Thomas, we don’t have time to explain to you how big is 300 right now).

Quick reminder: the Hybrid Interaction’s team of retention marketing experts have been reviewing and benchmarking the Christmas promotional campaigns of some of the leading online casino brands. We grade each campaign based on:

• Design (worth up 20 points)
• Creativity (up to 35 points)
• Attractiveness (up to 45 points)

Ready for some more? Like we care.

Party Casino

Say what? “Easy-to-use Casino Calendar” with daily offerings providing different ways to opt-in.

Juice: Various types of prizes including cash-backs on slots, leaderboard tournaments and “15,000 Festive Freebies such as cash prizes, points and bonuses”.

Scoring:

• Design = 5. Seriously?
• Creativity = 5. Seems like a refurbished offering.
•  Attractiveness = 20. Most days’ offerings are similar. Prizes are not detailed.

Total = 30. I think I have died and gone to hell. In the most important campaign of the year, one of the links leads to a wrong page – one that explains a similar promo that ended on November 20^th.

PS: we were asked to remove all links to Party Casino. Hmmm….

Hang the DJ, and sooner the better.

PAF

Say what? A calendar with a twist – “Correctly answer the question of the day and play the game of the day at least once” to participate. Some of the questions involve the Eurovision contest, and some refers to the September 11 terrorist attack. (Finnish people – go figure). If you decide not to play the daily game, you can still win the daily gadget.

Juice: THE bomb – a DAILY raffle for a fully paid 2-week trip to Hawaii for two (flights leave from Stockholm) plus a list of every gadget known to mankind, including Sodastream!! Bubbly :)

Scoring:

• Design = 15. Lots of text, yet the graphics are adorable and on par with the overall branding.
• Creativity = 32. 10% deduction for still being a calendar, but otherwise – SWEET.
• Attractiveness = 40. Simple to opt-in, crystal clear terms, and a huge variety of prizes. Could have won the full 45 points if it wasn’t a raffle.

Total = 87. A new Hope. Considering that PAF is not one of the most well-known brands outside of their core markets, we find it remarkable that they have allocated the budget for such a rich and well-conceived promo. Being Santa’s neighbors through most of the year, maybe they have simply lifted some goodies that fell from the back of the sleigh?

Bet365

Say what? Comp race in which you win your reward based on how many points you have accumulated through December. Players must deposit $200 and proactively opt-in to participate. All other terms are more than reasonable and mostly fair.

Juice: Everybody wins. If you meet one of the 12 levels criterions, you are GUARANTEED to win a prize, which includes cash (20x wagering requirements), high-end vacations and amazing super cars. On top of that, all participants are entered in a raffle for an Audi TT.

Scoring:

• Design = 2. Meh.
• Creativity = 35. Perfect.
• Attractiveness = 35. More proof that bookies know their customers. However, as fantastic prizes as they are, the edge here is far from being generous (details below).

Total = 72. Apart from the non-existent design, it’s a great promo. They know their players are mostly small rollers, so they do offer some very achievable “cash in your pockets” prizes. Yet they also offer the mega-rewards so those players who can be stimulated by the bells and whistles keep on dreaming. And the nicest thing is it’s also a very economical promo! Let’s do the math (all metrics are well explained over here):

For a $50 cash prize, you will need to earn 2,000 points, or wager $20K. Using a regular 37 bet/deposit ratio you will need to deposit about $540 to hit the target. Once you do, you need to wager your prize 20 times. That means you will lose about another $27 using a normal 2.7% house edge factor for a total of about $567.

So the actual prize is 8.8% of your expected hard-cash loss (the same ratio is kept on all cash prizes) and most players will happily sign up for such a “lucrative offer”, which fully optimizes the Perceived Value concept. Is nice.

Intertops

Say what? A 2-month long leaderboard challenge to enter a raffle with online functionality to accurately check your position. Players must deposit $25 to participate.

Juice: Overall pool of $100K, with additional cash rewards ($20-$250) awarded to selected players twice a week through the event period.

Scoring:

• Design = 10. Childish, but OK.
• Creativity = 23. There was some kind of a thinking process involved, and we love real-time races.
• Attractiveness = 22. While $100K seems a lot, the promo lasts for 2 months and ends with a raffle.

Total = 55. Here is a sports-betting website offering small cash prizes to its clientele, yet it has a different look and feel. Yet as you might feel after looking at yourself in a mirror, just because something is unique doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good.  They do have extra pluses, such as earning equal number of points for high losses OR profits and a dedicated mini-site for the event. But eventually, what first sounds like a colorful and promising mega-prize flying in the skies, turns out to be the same old monotonous cat.

Everest Casino

Say what? During selected dates through December, different promotions will be offered with various means to opt into them.

Juice: Bonuses, but not only that— frees-spins (what?), and best of all, a “Mystery Giveaway” (mysteriously valued at $250… WTF?).

Scoring:

• Design = 12. Limited, but with nice animation.
• Creativity = 25. Nothing we haven’t seen in the past, but executed correctly.
• Attractiveness = 20. No idea what these guys offer on their regular days, but this one is quite poor.

Total = 57. All in all, a non-modern approach with unattractive rewards. Seems like someone here was driving a DeLorean to work.

All Slots

Say what? Each day in December has a Christmas promotion, switching among four different activities with varying qualification requirements.

Juice: Free-spins, random giveaways, 10% cash-backs and a total prize pool of $10K to 85 lucky players.

Scoring:

• Design = 20. Cute, plus a mini-site and nice graphics. This is how it should look.
• Creativity = 20. Pretty much like the difference between one slot machine and another.
• Attractiveness = 25. Nothing special, but possibly this fits a customer base that has a lower LTV on average?

Total = 65. Quite boring, but professionally wrapped up with superb looks. Like having a conversion with a blonde bimbo – we’d do it any day, but we wouldn’t be discussing quasi crystals.

BS Appendix

We have identified few irritating phenomena during our research (actually, this applies to most campaigns) and had to dedicate a section to them:

No Campaigns:

Some brands, like Spin Palace, or Win Palace, have no visible Christmas promos on their websites. With such a disrespectful Player Development Strategy in these palaces, we wonder if Thomas has been appointed as their king.

Mass Repetition: 

Some super groups of brands offer similar approaches through their portfolio of brands. For example, Titan Casino has the exact same terms as its previously reviewed sister site, Europa Casino, only with a much nicer presentation. So what do we do? Do we increase the score of the DESIGN parameter but reduce the score on CREATIVITY? We saw a similar case already with Mansion and Casino.com (also, with JackpotCity & Gaming Club), yet they haven’t even bothered with changing their images! Anyway, we will appreciate if you could comment and let us know what you think.

IMPORTANT: it’s official – we have a CRM people party in London on January 25. Interested? Let us know, as we are already running out of the final frontier.