The Client

Pinnacle Sports is one of the world’s largest online bookmakers, with customers in over 200 countries. They offer bettors a unique, gimmick-free alternative to other bookmakers by focusing on offering the best odds and allowing the highest betting limits in every market they cater for.

The Requirement

Mirio Mella, head of Customer Engagement for Pinnacle Sports, had been looking at ways to use the 2014 World Cup to connect to their loyal global customer base and appeal to new visitors in key markets at the same time.

They had been developing an educational and informative approach in their outbound communications, using infographics in blogs and articles. This was proving successful. Investing in video marketing was attractive to them because of its much-reported potential to significantly improve attention, engagement and loyalty.

Why Webvideos?

Pinnacle Sports were keen on working with a company that had the expertise to:

• Produce 32 explainer videos at short notice
• Manage 4 local languages (written and spoken)
• Implement these videos in a bespoke customer player that took into account local formatting conventions.
• Host the videos and provide viewing analytics.

The Client’s Objective

Pinnacle Sports’s main objective was to reinforce credentials and build trust that would lead to new acquisition in these key markets (It should be noted here that an important part of acquiring new betting customers is about building trust; these videos will form an important part of that process.)
This is why, to contrast their competitors who mainly adopt a hard selling type communication, Pinnacle Sports wanted to emphasize their willingness to inform and educate bettors in the hope that they would see the importance of their unique selling points. The focus was therefore on:

• Pinnacle Sports’ background and reputation
• How their approach compares to other online bookmakers
• Explanations of betting principles
• Special plans for the 2014 World Cup

Approach

The development process started with an initial storyboard presented as a Powerpoint-type slideshow. The brief was for a series of 8 videos developed in English, then translated into Russian, Polish and Japanese with local language voiceover.
Some initial concepts were prepared and we quickly settled on an explainer-style treatment using the universal appeal of blackboard and chalk.
Timescales were short, so we developed the template and approach through rapid-turnaround of feedback and amends.

Planning

The most important benefit of this approach was developing the fine detail of our working process so by the time we had developed the third video, we and the client both understood what was required and were able to complete the remaining videos more or less first time in each case. From a bottom-line perspective this focuses the expert attention in their best areas.

Development

The voiceover scripts were written after the videos were approved as finished. Again, we tested using the first English video. Whilst the script was fine-tuned, we auditioned for voiceover talent, eventually settling on one from the initial shortlist.
As soon as all the English videos with voiceovers were signed-off, we rapidly prepped the foreign language voiceover scripts, taking care to identify places where time might be short for the translation to flow (as we knew it did in English) and how to approach these potential issues.

Implementation

As the videos were being developed, we worked with Pinnacle Sports to test different video players and how they performed in the different languages. An apparently small point of detail that had big implications was the shortened titles that needed to be written for each video. They had to make sense, fit within a confined space on screen and be legible. Add the matter of browser behaviour and how differently fonts can be displayed in them and suddenly you could have a barrier to entry issue in another part of the world.

Key Facts

Planning: 3 weeks
Development: 4 weeks
Foreign Language Videos: 8 weeks
Total Time from Start to Finish: 15 weeks

Critical Success Factors

A client with a clear brief and the flexibility to adapt
Who welcomed and embraced a collaborative development process
A production process with flexibility to support a rapid development process
By focusing on the clarity and therefore economy of the messages, a consequence has been a template that easily works in multiple languages – reinforcing the maxim of keeping it simple.
Enabling the design and graphics team to do their job after an intense period of initial joint immersion in the project.

Summary

This case study stops at the point of deployment. How did the videos do? The very first indications are that the videos are holding viewer attention spans, with some videos having over 80% still watching at the end.
We shall return to this case study in a few months time when the longer-term effect of these videos can properly be measured.