Bingo Godz, the new UK bingo site from the founders of Foxy Bingo, has gone live, supported with a multi million-pound TV campaign.
The new TV ad (screenshot above) depicts the eponymous Bingo Godz descending to Earth via a bolt of lightning, and features a voiceover from actor Brian Blessed, famous for playing the booming-voiced leader of the Hawkmen Prince Vultan in the classic 1980s movie of comic strip Flash Gordon.
Bingo Godz, which went live in early September, is the first major new launch from new listed igaming and social vehicle Gaming Realms, established by the original team behind Foxy Bingo.
Gaming Realms’ board and executive management includes the founders of Foxy parent company Cashcade, Simon Collins, Patrick Southon and Michael Buckley, who sold the business to bwin.party forerunner PartyGaming for £95.9m in 2009. The team also includes fellow Cashcade alumi Mark Segal and Noel Rowse and the former CEO of PartyGaming and co-CEO of bwin.party, Jim Ryan.
The company began trading on London’s AIM stock market on 1 August, following a £12.1m reverse takeover by Cambridge tech company Pursuit Dynamics.
Gaming Realms also incorporates social gaming business BeJig, which runs the Avatingo app on Facebook, and mobile casino operator AlchemyBet.
Bingo Godz is running on software developed by industry newcomer Bede Gaming. Bede is headed up by another ex-Cashcade executive, Michael Brady, working alongside Crown Bingo’s Joe Saumarez Smith (chairman) and Dan Smyth (COO).
The site incorporates 36 gift-bestowing Godz across six different worlds for players to collect, with progressively bigger prizes up for grabs as players advance through these worlds, a fresh format the Gaming Realms team hope will help it carve a niche in an increasingly saturated and competitive UK online bingo market.
888 recently announced a restructure of its bingo business was underway after announcing a second-quarter 23% decline in consumer-facing revenues, with Brian Mattingley blaming new entrants “just giving away bonuses ad lib”.
Monitoring agency Nielsen recently published figures showing UK online bingo operators were on track to spend £50m on TV advertising this year, more than double the figure invested in 2010, with Tombola alone spending £2.9m to the end of April. The owner of bgo.com and Costa Bingo, bgo entertainment, recently allocated £10m to marketing its brands, citing the “big budgets” being invested by the other major players in the sector.
The ad for Bingo Godz can be viewed here.
Article written by Katy Stirland
