TORONTO — Comedian Russell Peters and actor Patrick J. Adams highlight theScore Bet’s kickoff to its fall campaign.
Peters, Adams and former Saturday Night Live star Jon Lovitz will all be featured in 15- and 30-second spots that will be carried province-wide in Ontario and across their own media channels. They’ll underline theScore Bet’s recently enhanced sportsbook offering with 10 times more wagering options along with advanced integrations with theScore media app.
Before the Ontario sports-betting industry’s full launch April 4, theScore Bet’s marketing campaign for its Get Into Bet Mode program included spots with Gerry Dee, a Toronto native and theScore alum, comedian Susie Essman and actor Rex Lee.
“We have some interesting names but it’s not like these are ‘conventional’ brand ambassadors,” said Aubrey Levy, Senior Vice-President of Content and Marketing at theScore. “For us, the strategy is, ‘OK, what is the message we’re looking to put out there? What’s the right talent to be the vehicle for that message?’
“When we were looking at the three specific spots we did to help push forward our Bet Mode campaign for the fall, we went, ‘What’s the best talent that would line up to tell this message,’ and we think we found three unique individuals.”
And three different approaches.
“If our objective was to shout from the rooftops … that’s what Jon Lovitz is doing and he helps promote the message, in my opinion, in a fantastic way,” Levy said. “And you get someone like Patrick J. Adams coming out and serving as our stat guru and helping our bettors resolve a dispute over whether it’s a good bet or not by using the data, news and stats.
And then there’s Peters, who plays a rather unconventional blackjack dealer.
“Casino is the natural extension of sports betting,” Levy said. “To bring that to life we’ve put forward an authentic and engaging, kind of fun-poking blackjack dealer and so it made sense to try and land another comedian, someone like Russell Peters, who brings it to life amazingly.”
Both Peters and Adams are Toronto natives.
Also included in theScore Bet’s fall launch is the 10X Tailgate Tour, which will incorporate visits to six southern Ontario cities through September and October, The first visit will be Sept. 18 in London, Ont.
Other visits will be made to Toronto, Windsor, Kingston, Oshawa and Hamilton. The tour will feature a 13.7-metre truck that can transform into an event space. Each event will be free for individuals 19 years of age and older and include games, prizes and giveaways along with a lounge area reserved for theScore Bet users.
“It’s this 10-times notion of how do we super-size the tailgate,” Levy said. “It’s with a 45-foot truck that turns into fully decked space where we have super-sized prizes every day.”
TheScore Bet’s approach in the past six months has been to take a fun and light approach to sports betting, which Levy said wasn’t by accident.
“At the end of the day, people bet because they’re fans, first and foremost, and sports are entertainment,” he said. “So when we look at what it means to offer with Bet Mode, what we’re really trying to accomplish is to enhance your experience, make it more entertaining, more engaging, bring you closer to the action.”
Levy said while being a local operator — the company is based in Toronto — in the province’s fledgling sports-betting industry has given theScore Bet an advantage in Ontario. But that’s come with a level of expectation.
“For sure, I think we’ve felt that pressure ourselves,” he said. “I think we’ve done our job to fulfil our fans of that brand expectation and we certainly have not taken it for granted.
“It provides us a strong starting point but we’re in a market where there’s a lot of strong starting points. We have to surpass expectations every time and keep showing our fans and audience why they love us and keep earning that loyalty.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept, 7, 2022.
