Poll results: Readers split on marketing value of new Sky Sports channels

EGR readers are undecided whether Sky’s decision to rebrand its sports channels will benefit sportsbook marketing departments.

Around 49% of voters said the changes would improve firm’s ROI, with the ability to target ads more efficiently being the main benefit.

Ladbrokes Coral’s director of marketing, Alexis Zamboglou, told EGR: “The advertising impact from this change by Sky will allow the industry to be a lot more strategic in terms of audience targeting and how we shape our TV advertising strategy to pinpoint niche sports fans.

“You’ll see a greater emphasis on sport-centric creative which will need to resonate with very different audience profiles.”

However 51% of voters were not convinced. Online gambling consultant Peter Marcus, for instance, argued that things like F1 were such niche betting sports compared to football that most firms probably wouldn’t bother targeting them anyway and would just run football betting ads on those channels.

Pinnacle marketing director Harry Lang also took a dim view of the changes, questioning whether media consumption habits were changing too fast for TV ads to really have an effect.

He said: “Sky is a huge commercial entity (and with significant rights fees to cover) so it’ll be interesting to see whether betting operators can benefit alongside rights owners, the viewing public and Sky themselves – or if this will simply make premium sports advertising in the UK even more expensive and drive advertisers towards streaming and digital channels.”