Exclusive ICE VOX Preview: A Betsson Masterclass


Next week, all roads lead to the London Excel for the largest iGaming event in the world, ICE London, from 7th – 9th February.  

This will be a great opportunity to join an international community of over 35,000 gaming professionals to network, do business and learn about the latest industry trends. 

ICE VOX is the signature content programme, and an integral part of the event. A high-level conference powered by some of our industry’s premiere leaders, delivering detailed insights and solutions to key issues we all share as an industry.

Ulrich Gilot, Head of Media at Betsson Group, is a prime example of the impressive calibre of speakers ICE VOX has enlisted to deliver the content.

We caught up with him to hear more about why ICE is such an important event to attend and, most importantly, learn what attendees can hope to gain from his Masterclass Session.

The theme for ICE this year is ‘Stronger Together’. Is this why attending ICE is so important for you? 

“I am Belgian and my country’s motto is: “Unity is strength”. It is a bit of a paradox when you think that we speak three different languages, that we have three different communities and three different regions which do not have the same borders. However, I value our differences as a nation, as it has always pushed us to think creatively. It is through this creative mindset that we have often set precedents technologically, politically, and economically. 

“Naturally, the “create together” message that ICE carries is one that speaks to me very loudly. 

“The reason why it is important for me to attend ICE is to amplify the organisation’s message through a Masterclass I have been invited to speak at, but also to have the opportunity to listen to what my peers will share. It is often at events such as ICE London that the future of our industry is debated and shaped.”

What are the key benefits of going to an event like ICE?

“Many of us come from different backgrounds and have gone through different experiences, which when leveraged and exposed efficiently in a setup such as ICE London can shed light in areas we would otherwise overlook in our day-to-day life. 

“One could choose to stay in the office and think within a box; or choose to get out of it and embrace the unknown. ICE facilitates conversations and collaboration. It is there that I most often identify blind spots that I would have never been able to identify at the office. These “ah-ha” moments often come up through a conversation or a Masterclass that I attend at the event.”

You will be delivering a Masterclass at ICE VOX on Tuesday, 7th February. What topics will you be discussing?

“The Masterclass keynote I will present falls into the ‘Customer Journey’ track which focuses on optimising the customer experience “from start-to-finish”. 

“My session will dive deeper into the understanding of players’ emotional and personal needs. I will discuss media trends to look for, or keep an eye on, audience segmentation and profiling and best practice examples from different countries and industries. 

“At Betsson Group we work with large advertising agencies, who supply us with extremely valuable insights. I will share these insights with my audience, focussing on the value that advertising agencies can bring to iGaming. 

“I am also thinking about presenting the topic through the lenses of a real case study, whereby we leveraged advanced AdTech and media solutions to place an ad, safely and responsibly, in a media marketplace that was new to iGaming. I am itching to reveal it.”

As an industry, is there more we could be doing to understand our customers’ emotional and personal needs? What are the biggest hurdles stopping us from achieving improved customer profiling and engagement?

“One of the very first lessons I have learned in my career when on the agency side was to make sure that I would not base a strategy on personal assumptions. What I mean is that one could easily profile a target audience based on gut feelings, but guts are often not representative of other people’s truth, and can lead to the wrong profiling.

“A strategy needs to be validated through quantitative data to evaluate its size and accuracy. 

“As an industry, I feel that we tend to stay in our bubble, or echo-chamber. We all eat and breathe iGaming but we might miss out on the opportunity to leverage insights other industries can bring to us that we don’t know.

“But at Betsson the partnerships we have built with media/advertising agencies allows us to tap into insights not available anywhere else. We get these insights outside of the iGaming bubble, from other industries that often target audiences similar to ours.”

Are there any other panels or Masterclass sessions at ICE VOX that you’re looking forward to attending? And if so, why?

“Among the four Masterclass tracks that are offered this year, ‘The Evolution of Safer Gambling’ is one that I am looking forward to attending. This is not to say that the other three tracks are not interesting, but rather to share the fact that I especially value safe gambling. 

“Media plays an important role in helping to make our industry safe. Age-targeted segmentation and geolocation are two among many parameters that we apply to ensure that we are compliant with safe and responsible gambling. 

“Personalised ads are a topic debated within the media industry as it impacts every advertiser. The aim of advertisers is to provide an optimal user journey to its consumers so that it drives better performance. Personalisation syncs very well with the Single Consumer View put in place in the UK. Can we connect the Single Consumer View with a Display Ad Unified ID? I personally think so.

“Can we prevent ads from being served to persons registered within the Single Consumer View? I think so too. 

“Piping the AdTech is possible. Stitching data is also possible. These connections should be explored further to be more effective in protecting consumers through either personalised ads or ad exclusion. Essentially, to make that possible, we need MarTech experts and legal experts to speak the same language. GDPR is a good example of MarTech and legal experts’ collaboration. The regulation aims to protect people’s privacy at a unique ID level. 

“People need to ‘explicitly consent’ to share private information and, in return, eventually receive personalised ads. We could explicitly request not to be targeted by iGaming advertisers similarly, just as we report an intrusive ad on Facebook and ask not to receive it anymore.”

Editor’s note:

Ulrich is not someone who sits on their expertise. Despite being an expert in his field, he recognises the fantastic learning opportunities available at ICE. With so many people–and so much fresh content available–there’s something there for everyone.

Relating to his upcoming Masterclass, understanding the needs of your players is an invaluable skill – and improving this can only help to push your company and the industry forward as a whole. 

We highly recommend you attend Ulrich’s session to find out more. It’s definitely not to be missed. We look forward to seeing you all at ICE next week.

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