TV advertising: Bring in Hollywood

In recent years there definitely seems to have been a formula to television advertising in the poker industry. Whether it is Phil Ivey moodily staring down an opponent over the felt in stylised black-and-white adverts for Full Tilt or Daniel Negreanu comparing the skills of world-class poker players to sportsmen for PokerStars, the prevailing trend has been celebrity endorsement with a focus on the offline poker world. The customer aspires to have the lifestyle, the reading abilities and other deadly skills of individuals who can pick up millions of dollars in offline tournaments. You can beat these poker heroes online, says the message - and maybe become the next poker superstar yourself.

In June, however, PartyGaming strived to deliver something very different. Extensive worldwide customer research helped the company develop a new proposition for PartyPoker.com and PartyCasino.com that is delivered through the new strapline 'Feel it'. The research identified 'it' as the intense rush as the river card is turned, though 'it' may be something different for every player. At the heart of the campaign are thrilling TV commercials for PartyPoker.com that show players caught up in a whirlwind of excitement. The whirlwind captures the fun journey of the game as players enjoy poker in a virtual world.

Poker thrills

'Our brief was to present poker in the online world, rather than rely on the traditional offline imagery,' said Nick Jackson of Leeds-based agency hôme, which won the pitch for the campaign. 'It was a very ambitious brief. We wanted to show the sheer scale of the online world and capture the rush and excitement of the game. Hundreds and hundreds of virtual tables were featured on the storyboards.'

Hôme secured the biggest stage at the famous Shepperton Studios in the UK where many blockbusters, including the Bond movies are shot. The action was overseen by Hollywood film director Paul WS Anderson - his experience in directing Event Horizon, Resident Evil and AVP: Alien vs. Predator was key to delivering the action-packed footage. 'Any normal ad sees 10-20% of the work being done in post-production but in this case it was 80%!' added Jackson. 'Paul specialises in action movies and is an expert at using wire and CGI special effects.'

Rather than flying aliens, however, the adverts feature flying poker players, cards and chips, and aim to capture the emotions of the players as they look down at their cards. 'We had 60 to 70 crew on the set at all times and 12-15 people working full time for two and a half weeks in post-production,' says Jackson. 'It is fair to say it would have been an easier task to produce a smoky offline ad but we're delighted with the results.'

PartyGaming is not the only company that has made recent moves to present its poker product in an online rather than offline context. Next-generation poker room PKR has recently launched its version 1.9 software and has developed new television advertising to accompany it. Simon Prodger, marketing director for PKR said: 'A key part of our advertising strategy is to feature in-game footage - we want to show our key product differentiator. If anything, we think our advertising is closer to standard television advertising for video games. Compared to other poker rooms we are lucky as we have a lot of different views of the table to show off. We are a next-gen product - we don't have to concentrate on saying we are one when we can hammer home the message by showing our product in advertising.'

Online or offline?

It really does seem that there are two distinct schools of thought developing in regard to advertising online poker rooms. On one hand, there is the focus on the 'shuffle up and deal' glamour of the live circuit, and on the other the arguably more difficult path of presenting the online world to potential customers. It will be interesting to see how the two strategies develop going forward, but current evidence suggests we are entering a period where operators are more focused on capturing the online world.