Caesars Sportsbook Gets Some Work Done, and Says So
Clay Matthews turns up looksmaxxed in a new campaign that turns app upgrades into a cosmetic-surgery joke, which is a risky way to describe your own product.
Caesars Sportsbook, the online betting arm of Caesars Entertainment, launched a campaign on Wednesday called "We've Had Some Work Done," built to publicize changes to its mobile app and user experience.
The vehicle is former Green Bay Packers star Clay Matthews, appearing with an over-the-top "looksmaxxing" makeover: exaggerated features, unmistakably overdone, and already circulating well beyond the media buy. The gag lands because Matthews is one of the more recognizable faces of a generation of NFL players, and because the internet aesthetic being parodied is genuinely current rather than a marketer's approximation of it.
The strategy underneath is a familiar sportsbook problem. Product parity is close to total across the category, so the differentiator has to be either price promotion, which trains disloyal customers, or personality, which is harder to copy. Caesars Sportsbook is choosing personality, and using it to carry a functional message about app improvements that would otherwise be unwatchable.
The timing is the point. Launching in the opening weeks of the NFL season puts the work in front of the only audience that matters, at the moment account sign-ups actually happen.
The risk is real, though. "We've had some work done" is a joke about looking artificially different, and it invites the obvious retort that the app underneath is the same one. Self-deprecating campaigns work when the product change is substantial enough to survive the punchline.
If the redesign holds up, this is the sharpest sportsbook creative of the season. If it does not, Caesars Sportsbook wrote its own review.
Priya Nair
Technology Correspondent, BRNDWIRE. Covering campaigns for strategists and marketers worldwide.
