This story is sponsored by William Hill
William Hill boss Ralph Topping’s preference for axing the Sportingbet and Centrebet brands in favour of its own down under has been supported by the findings of a new study.
Hill’s £459m acquisition Sportingbet Australia, despite being the second largest online sports betting operator in the market, did not even make it into the top five most preferred betting brands down under, according to a new analysis by consumer research agency Global Reviews, reported by AdNews.
Hill’s first acquisition down under, Centrebet, also only achieved a 6% brand preference score among those surveyed that could recall betting brands without being prompted, lagging well behind Paddy Power-owned Sportsbet, which led the way with 34% and monopoly incumbent Tabcorp’s TAB.com.au with 21%.
The UK bookie’s third acquired brand down under, Tom Waterhouse.com, while scoring a high 43% initial recall rate, only came out as preferred brand in 12% of cases.
The findings appear to support CEO Topping’s recently widely reported view that William Hill would be best served by retiring the Sportingbet and Centrebet brands in favour of its own brand in Australia, and that Sportingbet suffered in the brand recognition stakes by being too easily confused in punters’ minds with Paddy Power-owned Sportsbet.
Topping also revealed to the Australian Financial Review that he had set his sights on monopoly incumbents Tabcorp, which has the largest market share of 22% down under, and Tatts, which claims around 7%, according to Nomura Equity Research figures. He told the AFR he saw them as weak, and did not expect them to invest sufficiently in online to stay at the head of the market.
William Hill-owned Sportingbet (21%) is the second largest online sports betting operator in Australia, followed by Paddy Power’s Sportsbet and IASBet (combined 20%) and Tasmania-licensed Betfair (14%), according to Nomura.
The bookmaker this weekn invited local agencies to pitch for its advertising accounts, also according to AdAge.
Article written by Peter Holmes
