Marketing in the News (BP#2)
I was interested in this specific post primarily because of its relatability to be. Although I use rival company Kalshi to live trade some sports events, Polymarket is a similar app with similar goals, to provide fast paced prediction markets. Also, this specific ad campaign features celebrity sports stars in almost every second of each commercial, another relatable aspect to me.
Despite some major NBA stars showing up in the advertisements, they were primarily pointed at advertising Polymarket's ability to live trade football, whether college or NFL, being the main takeaway of the campaign. This is because it is currently the middle of the traditional football season. Another takeaway from the campaign is that live trading is new and culturally relevant, explained through the use of big name celebrities. It must also be implied that this live trading is essentially sports gambling with the ability to cash out/ double down at any given moment with constantly updating odds. Lastly, Polymarket makes it known that its live trading service is not limited too football, but expands to things like technology, other sports, politics, culture, weather, and more.
Polymarkets value proposition is to provide legal and regulated live trading with an unbiased probability.
This campaigns marketing relevance is a new strategy to focus on the football aspect of live trading. To encourage users to live trade football contracts through the use of football (in the video) and big name sports celebrities, increasing viewer relatability. The theme of the campaign was to create a fictional Polymarket headquarters with tons of funny moments and chaos all centered around football related content, whether a funny big hit, or a funny football joke, and other celebrities showing how easy it is to trade, it demonstrates how to live trade football and create a relationship with the viewer.
I would say the two biggest challenges that this campaign suffers from is firstly, no call to action. There is no advertised reason to download Polymarket and trade there specifically. They could have tagged this football promotion with some sort of 5$ promo or something similar, instead Polymarket is releasing a relatable video and hoping that other companies don't make a better video or release any monetary promotion whatsoever. There are loads of up and coming live trading companies out there, and even one in more public spotlight that Polymarket right now. The live trading company Novig is currently in more public spotlight with their campaign, and any sort of monetary incentive to download polymarket might be able to sway customers from Novig to Polymarket. Secondly, there is virtually no difference to distinguish between companies. the major live trading companies (Polymarket, Kalshi, Fanatics Markets, Novig). They all offer real-time markets on the same collection of events. So the problems these live trading sites are facing is a struggle to distinguish themselves between another. This combines with the lack of a call to action and leaves potential downloaders like myself sticking with whatever app we already have.
This marketing campaign is unique because it puts a specific emphasis on football, which is currently in season. It attempts to paint Polymarket as "the place" to live trade football. It appeals to a specific buyer persona, football fans ages 18+ with relevant knowledge on live trading. The campaign uses friendly celebrities, which are well known by football and general sports fans to advertise Polymarket.
The marketing approach was good, it make good use of an opportunity to establish itself as 'the football trading site' during peak football season, advertising to a bunch of potential customers. Although like mentioned earlier, it would only really receive downloads from people without a live trading sites. Because all these sites are such direct substitutes for another, a call to action would be a great resource to get people to switch over from one site to another.
I wouldn't say I necessarily learned, but rather recognized today some terms that I learned in my business class and applied them to this assignment. I did recognize how I was the target audience and how this campaign didn't actually connect with me. I live trade on Kalshi, it's hooked up to my bank, I have money deposited. and without any call to action I have to reason to transfer to Polymarket. I also realized how each of these sites are direct substitutes for each other. They deliver the exact same product, and their popularity is almost in complete dependence of their marketing.
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