00:00:03
make sure that players like what you provide which is a good product entertainment uh then you know again make sure that you are well exposed you know keep integrity and honesty in your services such as customer support because your reputation then will proceed and it’s good to have uh some good word of mouth out there doesn’t matter if you have a big big player VIP player or a small player that just joined both of them are equ important in what comes to their own opinion because you know the internet is open to
00:00:36
everyone so you just hope that you know people say good things about you and recommend you uh for what you do well thanks for joining us I mean we we already went there but can you just give us a short explanation of who you are what you do and what brenders does as well yeah absolutely first of all thanks for having me today it’s a definitely a pleasure to yeah be able to yeah introduce myself a little bit talk about what we do have a pleasant conversation and all that good stuff my name is
00:01:04
Ricard F don’t worry I’m not going to ask you to replicate the same accent my surname has been butchered many many times for me to actually care about it is your surname or yeah is yeah you can just ignore that part call me rard um yeah okay the accent comes from uh porch’s Origins I was born and raised in Portugal yeah pretty early in my life I knew that uh yeah I was I wanted to explore a little bit more and see what the world could offer me so around 2013 I decided to move to Cape Town South
00:01:37
Africa it was just pure luck uh I think it’s the appropriate word in this case luck that I actually bet pun intended I guess uh in um entering the industry of I gaming I started at an online lottery I found it quite fascinating it was something that uh I I was unaware you know that uh you know that many player players would be so interested in in in lottery in the lottery world something that yeah I pretty soon came to realize that it was a it was bigger than I thought stay there like about for four
00:02:12
years and then just like the common mortal I just uh decided to expand my horizons and I thought that yeah Casino would be the next big challenge yeah so I moved to Malta where I currently live and uh yeah opportunity generated opportunity I worked in a previous companies before branders then I joined branders it was 2017 uh as head of retention um yeah marketing was always my background and um yeah I’m currently the CEO of branders since January 20123 yeah I’m Still Loving it I guess oh that’s good to hear yeah and so so
00:02:54
currently the CEO of branders working on the operational side of the business so but also background in marketing so let’s start with the question how do you stand out in a saturated Market yeah I mean let me introduce to you uh branders in which I kind of forgot a little bit what we do and what we actually have so branders is an operator uh we have four casinos 21 casino playgr casilando and Slot Planet each one is very unique they were all designed to accommodate different kinds of uh targets or markets
00:03:28
let’s put it that way to if I can if you allow me to get analogy sure uh yeah 21 casino is the more let’s let’s let’s bring the topic music right we wanted different kind of tastes and to accommodate people with different kind of tastes so 21 casino is more like that classic classical rock that kind of rock music that everyone kind of likes it’s the Cool website it’s the most balanced website I guess Kazi Lando is the more funky if if you are more into pop music than I guess I would recommend that one
00:04:00
slot planet is a little bit more Spacey a little bit more out of the box or different so I guess there would be more for disco lovers I suppose playgr yeah that would be you uh and playgr uh I think it has a more mysterious Vibe so I guess you would you would think maybe you would put yourself in a a night club but for jazz music you know the lights dimmed out it’s a little bit more dark and more intimate yeah so these these four different brands um we operate them the same exact way but they were
00:04:35
designated to accommodate different you know different kind of people because everyone has a different vibe it’s all about the comfort that you have uh with this style with that skin that face because let’s be honest nowadays we all promote the same thing which is entertainment so we it is a reality uh that the real estate out there in terms of advertising players just choose whatever they feel like to there obviously the welcome offers and all that kind of stuff but there’s something
00:05:03
about the brand and the identity that can resonate more or less to the player to the individual saturated markets sometimes I actually think are there any unsaturated markets left that’s really what I’m I’m I’m trying to question but U yeah there were markets that uh yeah yeah that started that you know embraced that gaming uh a long long time ago more than other I I’ll I’ll answer that question with um I guess you know I still believe that there’s a place for everyone you
00:05:38
know with more or less market share and and and the whole saturation right but again it’s about presentation it’s about how you know believe in your product and believe that there’s a person that will like yours instead of the other so that kind of goes along with the line the line of thought that I was already mentioning it uh what we do try to um get away from is the the cannibalization aspect of things not so much right now which I believe is quite healthy but yeah um you could see a few years ago
00:06:10
that the welcome offers were just insane because industry was just eating itself you just go completely ballistic with uh surreal welcome offers just to attract play and that that kind of goes you know against uh what I believe it’s you know healthy competition out there so we never succumbed to that you know we know our goals we we don’t pretend to be something that we are not we just focus on our direction we learn with failures uh we learn with successes but we know you know where we can go and what we
00:06:43
should do which pretty much we call calculated uh calculated risk according to the direction that we want so we focused on um key markets you know from a legacy perspective we have always been very strong in the UK Market which is has always been one of the toughest for obvious reason and from there yeah we generate certain opportunities when when we search for them or when they are presented to us and we do explore them but you know we need to learn how to walk before we learn how to run so we take things with
00:07:14
cautious but we do we are very observant um we see what’s out there and how we can explore the space again in you know in a healthy way at least for us now the key I think is persistency you know partnering with the right people but focus on making the right connections we def find realistic goals as well I think that’s important and it’s also very good in my perspective um to just keep humble we recognize our place but that being said obviously we we need to uh have ambition to achieve levels in this case
00:07:47
of brand recognition and you establish business goals and that growth needs to go on a sustainable way now things can keep changing I don’t necessarily think that you’re focusing on just one market is enough because that can uh be a very heavy limitation if something happens to that market so you need to actually yeah you know open wide but also be realistic if you’re not really strong and your expertise does not go along with certain markets just don’t put effort where it’s
00:08:21
you know not your strength now the saturation yeah it is a reality but I mean just do your thing and again con space do you make sure that players like what you provide which is a good product entertainment uh then you know again make sure that you are well exposed you know keep integrity and honesty in your services such as customer support because your reputation then will proceed and it’s good to have uh some good word of mouth out there doesn’t matter if you have a big big player VIP
00:08:56
player or a small player that just joined both of them are equally important in what comes to their own opinion because you know the internet is open to everyone so you just hope that you know people say good things about you and recommend you uh for what you do well and I guess that’s that’s pretty much I guess our mindset yeah and things just just go uh life goes on yeah that’s what I would say I guess but do you see any difference in Market sophistic a levels or Market saturation
00:09:31
levels and do you do you have a different approach depending on the saturation level of the market or is it just let we do our own thing no look adaptation is obviously necessary what I just don’t like is those empty vague political words and cliches because you know everyone says yeah the world is changing and this is a global village this is something that you’ve heard like 10 or 20 years ago right everyone just keeps talking about you know the changes and all that kind of stuff but a lot of people just yeah
00:10:06
just live by that model but they don’t do really anything about it now what we do is we keep exploring things not just as Plan B but U enlarging plan a so we don’t just kind of fall asleep and accommodate to what we have the saturation yeah it’s true and things do change but we need to be a little bit of we need to be able to read the evolution of these markets and we we need to be able to predict uh some Trends and all that kind of stuff so what can we do to differentiate ourselves from others or
00:10:40
at least to remain competitive and provide what people are looking for so we know that I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow maybe we lose a payment method in whatever country or jurisdiction it is what we need to do now is already try to keep working every single day to enlarge the portfolio for example the payment methods like like I said it’s to plan ahead to have more now and not just as a plan B because that really really doesn’t work uh it’s about you know finding um our own truth in
00:11:11
things when we try a certain campaign allocated to a market and that really doesn’t work find a better formula but you know we keep our own identity the saturation like you said it’s a constant struggle but it’s not only to us again I think there’s a space it’s just it’s just how you explored and the Avenues that you pursued to find your space that’s important yes you change a couple of things in there uh it can be from a marketing perspective an acquisition strategy that can change but ultimately
00:11:45
I think that what wins is definitely the product that you have and if you really believe it it doesn’t really matter how saturated the market is you just uh you know people will recognize the value there and now because a good product it’s a good product everywhere it doesn’t matter if you’re in China or in Portugal or wherever it is you just you just need to make sure that people will see it and then let them decide let them judge uh but just keep uh keep your integrity who you are just you know the
00:12:16
identity I think it it does the work yeah fair enough so there’s yeah sorry go ahead no it’s just if you want another analogy it’s just like us you know the core of the person you know if it remains intact you know it is what it is but we also change as we grow right so it’s the same road you know we to walk it if we fall we fall if we but we need to learn how to get back up again find adversities uh you know and just explore you know how you can overcome the obstacles and they are real but they
00:12:50
are for everyone they are yes so mostly just focus on your own own product and and make iterations when necessary yes yes look it’s we know our level but I don’t I don’t like false presumptuous attitudes like we don’t pretend to be something that we are not and uh we just want to be ourselves and we want you know the audience to understand that and believe in that and see that uh we don’t try to copy things but we do like to learn with things but I think that’s a common practice really uh if we don’t do
00:13:24
our homework and you know there’s always someone more clever than you that thought about something that you have’t so it’s kind of a shared information and I don’t think I don’t see it as a problem right now you just take the learnings and the knowledge that you you can absorb out there and you shape it to your image and you know sometimes you generate something new out of someone else’s idea I guess but that’s how the world works really it is so what happens when an iteration or change is needed
00:13:57
how do you balance the risk and and maybe also the fear of change in players but also within the team and and playing it safe at the same time yeah okay that’s it’s always that question is always in our minds because we are as humans you know it’s our condition to be um you know we tend to like our habits we tend to stay in the comfort zone it’s very easy it’s very hard actually to you know to to adapt changes uh we create these processes and we like them I think yeah the risk of we need to risk things
00:14:31
they can be more or less calculated but that’s a whole different level of uh area right calculated risk in terms of should we invest more in that country because we can see something there uh yeah the data will tell you that but that’s no news to anyone regarding management style or the way we operate again I don’t believe you know that what what we have in place whatever everyone has in place is that their best possible optim way so we do uh I think we make our lives uh more interesting when we
00:15:07
take what we have how we do it and how we can make it better again this sounds a whole lot of uh you know cliche words and sentences and stuff like that but it really really works I can give you a couple of examples when when I was in yeah in retention I created the work sheets the way we operated and this and this and that and I believe that was uh you you know um we didn’t have that much risk of things going through wrong copy pasting or and that kind of stuff but then I I listened to the real users of
00:15:38
those working sheets the real Executives and you know by listening to them and their opinions I did find out that there was a better way of doing things more efficient faster with less risk of mistakes and stuff like that so I could have easily said no we will keep doing it the way I created it because that’s that’s why I created it’s f and you just started working here recently so your opinion you know is counts less n that that’s that’s just to be honest and I think you know you see that you
00:16:10
can learn with everyone that worked in the industry or out of the industry because everyone will bring something fresh yes sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t but you really got to try it and this can can be transversal to business decisions that we make yes complicated changes for example uh we operate world worldwide and uh you know India Latin America I already mentioned that UK is our strongest Market but we also have a lot of exposure in the Nordic markets uh Norway Sweden Finland Canada New Zealand
00:16:43
etc etc yes Sweden for example yeah we provide our services in in English that was a change and we want to keep retaining that market well there’s only one way to find out it really really it worked well but we could have just you know placed our mindset in our focus in acquiring and retaining in other countries and leave that one a little bit behind because yeah that changed to the it’s more to the player right because now they don’t see it their own currency and they don’t see it in
00:17:10
English but you you do have to try it and you have to be honest with them and say look this is the reality of things but aside from the language nothing is really going to change we will we’ll still you know provide the support that you need the fund that you want access to the campaigns um and everything will will remain as it is regarding uh another you know a hardest a harder Topic in terms of change yeah the complete drop of investing of a of a country for example or even a casino sometimes you just you got to let it go
00:17:44
it’s very hard because you know people spend hours days months years effort uh you know tears you know creating something building something and and you create an attachment and sometimes you just if it’s not working you just have to you know admit it and uh release it you otherwise yeah you’re stuck to something that not going to it’s not going to go anywhere and then you you shift the focus and that is the change that is necessary just knowing how to move on how to let it go you know and
00:18:17
grow stronger with that I think that applies really to everything uh earlier we were talking about how parallel business you know and work can be to life and if you apply the same uh good principles ethics and keep control of things uh yeah it’s it’s insane how you know similar things can be we just need to be aware observant realistic yeah and strong minded definitely but that’s interesting you changed the language to English but it didn’t change anything there wasn’t a drop in amount of users
00:18:52
or as you can see I think the product can speak for itself we didn’t know how it was going to perform um but yeah if you again if you communicate properly to the player inform them this is what is going to happen but you create realistic expectations like I said we are not just going to drop you or forget about you if something happens uh you know because that then it makes absolutely no sense I would rather and this is just a a small example I would rather for you know never if if you don’t provide your
00:19:28
website your whatever it is in the native language don’t try to pretend that you have some sort of native or similarities to their native language you know some I’m not going to name any anything out but some some use like Google translations and all that kind of stuff that’s just so just if you cannot do that just use an a universal language like English but at least you know it’s consistent and it avoids ambiguity of the message that you’re trying to sell it is just like that keep it simple less
00:19:59
comp but just keep it honest and I think that’s why we succeeded in that market where the expectations maybe I admit could have been a little bit low but uh but no fortunately for us uh yeah we the engagement is still there and um yeah the player loyalty level did not change so yeah that was a a case of success I guess that that I that I’m happy to share yeah that’s very interesting and and why did you decide it was a switch in language so previous it was native language but then you decided to go back
00:20:32
previously it was it was it was in a native language that’s why the the the mystery about on what what would happen ultimately so yeah that was a that was a positive uh it had a positive impact that change that we kind of feared yeah it worked out for us other changes like I said there are markets obviously where it’s not really our strength we invested in it we had to you know get some sort of proof of concept but again calculated risk we take these small steps because there’s a lot of effort you know putting
00:21:03
you know creating campaigns specify for that kind of jurisdiction uh so risk reward risk reward like I said baby steps if you see that there is the potential then you invest a little bit more but we don’t like to put all eggs in one basket because if it doesn’t work then you just put way too much effort way too much investment on something that you didn’t really know if it was going to work out so yeah you just got to be cautious and uh yeah face the risk but calculate it slowly and you
00:21:34
mentioned that you’re operating in multiple countries at the same time UK is the main um source of income I guess that’s the the proper term for it but also Australia New Zealand so where Canada and Canada and New Zealand yeah oh sorry are there particular regions where fraud preventions is more challenging and how do you deal with these is issues does it change per region at all as well or it’s that’s look there’s good guys and bad guys everywhere in the world you know what I
00:22:08
mean so so fraud cannot be you know simply allocated to a place yes there could be there might be some regions that are more um that can be a little bit more inclined to that I don’t know why uh but yeah there are some regions that have a little bit more syndication I guess so so groups uh that align their forces and their knowledge to cause some harm um some of them just uh you know have some sort of skills technical skills where they are they can actually be able to hack not us but for example
00:22:46
the games themselves the provid but that’s something that it’s a risk that every single company has really well everywhere that you know you can hack whatever it is and I guess gaming is no different every business suffers from the same thing when people want to cause harm and they have a Target that’s what they do I wouldn’t but I would not recommend us to uh just consider that that country uh has more potential for that because then you might be closing your attention or closing your eyes to
00:23:14
another country where some guy you know just has the same level of skills and do that so I think awareness uh it’s better just to be aware that everything can happen anywhere and and and that’s the thing now you use VIPs V VPN sorry so you can be in one country and attacking another one so what what does it change really nothing the risk the liabilities it’s really everywhere I don’t like to isolate cases in that sense in the end all countries are equal in terms of uh we want to make sure that we are safe
00:23:47
and we want to make sure that players are safe from all angles so yeah we don’t differentiate that not at all um I think what changes mostly is not not so much the fraud detection it’s more the protection I guess which is pretty much the opposite yeah the contingency or the due diligences they change for for example the ukgc yeah it’s quite strict everyone knows that it’s but yeah all the measures all the actions that we that we take to make sure that a certain player is playing and it’s that player
00:24:20
and not someone that stole the identity stole the card yeah that there are regs that are a little bit stronger but that’s yeah it’s more towards protecting the player than uh us getting hit by some uh some fraud activity so yeah the perspective is different it’s always to safeguard uh yeah the players we operate according to the regulations that exist that are not just mandatory for us to keep the yeah the Integrity of and secure a secure place for players to do their thing but yeah it it kind of
00:24:57
differs according to the jurisdiction but we take we take this obviously very seriously because because there’s no other way to to actually see it no and you you mentioned it before already that uh sometimes you may you try to go into a different country but you make a misstep or it doesn’t work so you have to draw back can you share one example of a misstep or maybe even an expected success you already mention it with changing the language to English in a specific market and what you learned
00:25:29
from it yeah uh so for example Canada and New Zealand when we localize those having their own versions um of the website with our currencies Etc and we found the payment methods that they could accommodate or that we could accommodate to them uh and now these are countries that you know they are not in in the European sphere so their time zones are completely different so we have to you know separate the market marting efforts something as simple as for example the send out times that they they have to be different the offers to
00:26:05
be fair they need to have the same length so they need to start in a different kind of period so these are little things they require time you know they require dedication uh Human Resources everything that needs to allocate that to actually you know make sense uh to customize or put some customization in our marketing actions Canada and New Zealand uh yeah in the beginning we didn’t see much coming out of it which I don’t want to call it a you know a contradiction to what I said before where if you don’t see something
00:26:37
happening then you should drop it no you also need to give it a you know a a fair amount of time for it to uh to start you know moving or growing or moving something so it took us quite a long time but once it engaged it just engaged it was so I guess what I’m trying to say is we need some patience as well uh we need to um not just quit uh if it’s not if something is not working there you might need to you know go back to the drawing board and see what what you’re missing out but look if you start
00:27:12
something from scratch better also not go in the dark so you know again learn from what’s out there see what the experts in that market are doing and uh you know learn from them there’s nothing absolutely nothing wrong with that if that’s the direction that you want to go and if you want to you know tackle that that region uh but yeah you got to be you got to study the consumer you got to maybe change a couple of Expressions here and there culturally things are a little bit different as well some
00:27:42
countries might be a little bit more reserved so the approach has to be a little bit different I guess uh what comes to you know a more friendly or formal or informal type of language uh so you kind of learn how to read these things as you go and minor tweaks in there can take you a long way so with those in with those in place eventually we started seeing some really good Traction in these countries and we started growing them this just started booming but yeah you learn as you go and you adapt to them they also adapt to you
00:28:15
it’s kind of a relationship there so those two cases yeah I consider those successful things that we that I can admit that we still struggle but again it’s because of uh yeah differences and focus the the it’s still quite fresh to us the Latin American market so we are currently operating in Argentina Chile unfortunately for example I cannot see Peru as a as a success story we had to drop it uh a while ago again you know the jurisdiction required U things that we were not uh willing to pursue in
00:28:57
terms of uh license and all that kind of stuff so it just didn’t make sense for us business-wise so yeah there was a lot of work a lot of customization a lot of effort that there was just lost but you know one battle at a time and as a chess player you know sometimes you need to sacrifice a pawn to to win the opponent if if you understand what I mean you just got to let it go only Magnus Carlson can win all of the game and and Alexander the Great and exactly but what iterations did you make
00:29:32
in in in the Canadian market for it to succeed the iterations okay so pretty much the campaigns that we have we try to make them I’m not saying that we are like psychologists okay but I do we do believe that there are Trends in in the behavior right if again like I said a good product is a good product so but we are also very aware uh that yeah we can do some customizations uh look game at a game level for example Canada they cannot play uh every single provider that exists some providers uh just don’t
00:30:08
operate or just are not accommodating that country so we need to select something that uh that you know that first is available second that they actually like uh and then yeah I think then data does its thing and then we study U how how you know what kind of games they like and then yeah we are very keen on you know again in terms of educating the players of what we are and what we have we’d like to remind them why they are there in the first place it shouldn’t be for the best offers in the
00:30:39
world it should be because of the fun that they can have in there it’s about playing casino games that that’s that’s why we have these things so yeah from a product perspective we we focus on showing them the games that they would that they like the games that maybe they would uh appreciate that they don’t know of again we we need to be uh aware also of their habits I guess uh some players from some certain countries that you know they like to have their fun times at a certain time some in the morning
00:31:12
some at lunchtime some at night Etc so we also got to learn from the players again when is exactly that they like to play Not only for marketing purposes but also for awareness because if something happens we need to have a customer support that is prepared you know if some something happens that most players from a certain region Canada for example or New Zealand that you know um the majority is playing at a certain time and maybe at that time we are you know asleep according to our own time zone
00:31:42
but someone should always be present in there to help them with whatever they need so I think that’s very very important it’s just uh again like just like every service when something happens and your internet uh goes out or something like that you should expect someone to help you out it you know doesn’t matter when it happens and yeah we keep that in mind and I think that is you know what defines a good service and and pleases a player from whatever region it is and just like Canada or New
00:32:12
Zealand we it’s the same Minds it’s the same principle across all the the jurisdictions really yeah there’s a standard list you go through to in order to say if we finish this list then we should probably decide if it’s not that is not working and we should quit in this uh yeah look we got to be realistic exactly we know our limitations if I would love to have you know who everyone would like to you know be the best in every single Market uh is that really true I don’t really think so I think you
00:32:45
know we have our strengths and the people behind the operations you know if they do something unique you know some players will like it some players will not like it the campaigns that we do the style of things or the kind of Engagement that we have just like everything in life you know it’s it’s good for St and it’s good things are always subjective right so we cannot accommodate the whole world but we are happy to accommodate some part of it it’s our philosophy again to understand what in general uh you know
00:33:17
the human person the normal human would like and we just keep it simple we did something in the past that did not really work because we tend to get excited hey what about this and they do this Mission and after this Mission they have to do that but I think life is already complicated as it is so what’s the point in complicating something that should be fun so we kind of now learn with that we learn with the mistakes and uh we just try to keep it really simple yeah there’s Simplicity in Innovation as
00:33:46
well we just uh you know but things should be grounded there’s a couple of examples that work really good for me if uh we enter in the Innovation sphere that can accommodate every single country because again I think people like it uh user friendly but yeah the Netflix um yeah the Netflix platform right it’s fun it’s easy to use it’s there you it shows you what you want to see what’s available and uh it’s very easy as well to see what other stuff is similar to what you already like people
00:34:17
also view this this is new this is what we recommend did you like this there’s more yeah you know the flow is genuine it’s natural and it’s so simple uh and yet so sophisticated uh and that’s how we think uh and that’s how we try to innovate it’s just yeah keeping it uh Stupid simple like like people say and I we like it that way yes so you have to pick your battles let’s let’s and end the end the episode with that you you have to pick your battles strategically so that you can win all of them just
00:34:47
like Alexander the Great so they say we always said we will not to see it we need to believe the books well I’m happy to believe it or thank you thank you for joining us ah it was my pleasure and uh yeah look uh looking forward to the yeah the following episodes I’ll stay in touch
