UK researchers have successfully used ad agency tactics in test ads designed to raise doubt over gambling offers. [Image: Shutterstock.com]

Ad casts doubt

A new English study has revealed that anti-gambling groups can beat operators at their own game. Researchers showed anti-gambling commercials that mimicked the delivery of ads from leading sportsbooks to a test sample. They proved effective in casting doubt over free offers. 

develop resistance to offers gambling operators promote

According to Swansea University, its researchers ran the study to test if viewers watching counter-advertising videos would develop resistance to the types of offers gambling operators typically promote. 

Psychologists from Swansea University joined by counterparts from the University of Bristol and Australia’s CQ University ran the tests and found the counter ads decreased the audience’s appetite for free offers.

The research team used gambling marketing skills and tactics in their test commercials to create doubt over gambling offers.

Trojan horse

The Swansea study focused on a group of 1,200 adult gamblers and prepared a marketing campaign using betting ad agency tactics to successfully push a cautionary gambling message. 

According to the university, the counter-campaign used engaging imagery, messaging, and satire. The result, it stated, was a video “that did not sell dreams but instead exposes the strategies used by gambling companies.”

The study continued to monitor the 1,200 gamblers and found they demonstrated an “increased scepticism towards gambling ads” and that they cut down on taking up free offers. 

Swansea University Lead Researcher Dr Jamie Torrance revealed his team had done their homework beforehand. Torrance referenced ads “plastered all over live sports” countless online pop-ups, and “chirpy jingles worming their way into your head.” He added: “The betting industry is always shouting for your attention” Torrance stated, an insight that informed the counter-ad video.

The video also triggered a significant fall in viewers taking up ‘free’ betting offers “with 21% of them stopping altogether.” Swansea believes this is a sure sign that “consumers can be taught to spot the hustle.”

Timely research 

According to Torrance, his university’s findings have come at the right time with UK “grappling with the uncomfortable truth about how deeply embedded betting has become in everyday life,” with UK viewers watching up to 1,500 TV and online ads and gambling advertisements a year.

A recent EPL season, meanwhile, featured match broadcasts in which a gambling-related logo popped up every ten seconds.

a multibillion-dollar industry “built on persuasion – and losses”

The doctor added that while gambling is sold as fun, it’s a multibillion-dollar industry “built on persuasion – and losses.” Professional football commentator Clive Tyldesley, meanwhile, stated the strategy of mimicking mainstream betting marketing to deliver important cautionary messages “will hopefully hit home every bit as hard.”

Tyldesley added that while gambling doesn’t give material gains, “it’s worth being reminded of its futility in the same language that it is sold to us.”