MERKUR Slots: Follow the Sun - Integrated Campaign

The Brief
MERKUR Slots aimed to increase brand awareness, drive new customer footfall to their UK venues, and boost app downloads. These objectives required a comprehensive and targeted marketing strategy to ensure maximum impact and engagement with the right audience.

Our Strategy
We implemented a multi-channel marketing strategy over a 12-week period, focusing on building brand awareness and driving app downloads and offer redemption codes in venues from highly specific and relevant consumers. Our goal was to ensure MERKUR Slots reached the right audience at the optimal time.

To achieve this, we delivered an always-on, fully integrated, multi-platform national campaign. We concentrated on digital marketing to create a laser-targeted campaign with zero wastage, thereby maximising spend and ROI. Our activities were focused around a two-week period each month, coinciding with payday, to maximise both budget and campaign response.

We targeted the core MERKUR audience within close proximity of the venues, allocating additional budget to 100 high-competition venues situated near direct high street competitors. This involved targeting their customers with digital outdoor ads and mobile campaigns. We utilised Skyrise intelligence for digital out-of-home advertising, identifying and targeting men aged 25-55 who have gambling apps on their mobiles. We then used phone targeting to re-engage audiences who had been in close proximity to digital outdoor or competitor venues.

Our approach leveraged Sky Adsmart targeting power to optimise budget usage and drive measurable results. For additional revenue uplift, customer engagement, and data collection, we deployed a competition mechanic inviting customers to scan in-venue QR codes to enter a holiday prize draw.

The Delivery
The campaign execution included several key components:

Sky Adsmart Campaign: We launched a TV campaign through Sky Adsmart, delivering creatives exclusively to targeted households, with a focus on measuring new customer acquisition.

Digital Audio Ads: To complement the TV campaign, we deployed digital audio ads targeting the same audience and locations across all UK stations and multiple devices. Platforms included DAX, Octave, Global, ITV, and Spotify, reaching both radio listeners and podcast audiences.

Programmatic Digital Out of Home Campaign: Advertisements were displayed on small and large format digital screens within a two-mile radius of MERKUR venues at key times, measuring customer footfall using mobile tracking GPS.

Mobile Display Campaign: This campaign targeted consumers exposed to the digital outdoor ads and devices that had visited Admiral Slots venues in close proximity to MERKUR Slots, again measuring customer footfall using mobile tracking GPS.

Video Ads on Meta and X: We used video ads on Meta and X, targeting lookalike audiences based on current customers with gambling interests located within two miles of all UK venues.

Social Media Strategy: Our social media strategy involved delivering high-quality creative assets across all platforms, introducing themes and templates in the creative style. We developed a new warm, engaging, and relatable tone for the brand on social media.

This comprehensive, data-driven approach successfully increased brand awareness, drove new customer footfall to MERKUR Slots venues, and boosted app downloads across the UK, achieving the desired results for the campaign.

By running a digital multi-channel campaign, successfully combining mass reach and precision targeting, we delivered over 18,725,046 million impacts across the campaign.

During a core period for MERKUR, the campaign delivered impressive uplifts in brand awareness, app downloads and new customers, successfully driving footfall into venues from the key target audience. This campaign is a testament to how a TV creative ad can effectively promote growth, brand awareness and customer loyalty in a competitive industry.