November 8, 2005 – Online gambling site bodoglife.com today announced it will unveil four new TV spots that focus on common types of poker hustlers. The slick, colorful ads categorize and identify poker “predators” so players can be better prepared for their next poker game. The first two of the four ads debuted on November 7, 2005. The spots are the latest part of bodoglife.com’s multimillion-dollar integrated advertising campaign in the U.S. that encompasses print, radio, television and guerilla marketing.
Driven by a dramatic drum beat and quick cuts, each spot opens in a poker club, complete with beautiful people and upscale dÈcor. As the camera works its way through the swank poker club, it stops to point out one of four poker “predators” seated at a poker table: The Hustler, The Under Dog, The Ringer and The Wild Card. The voiceover identifies these predators and provides details on the specific poker tactics each uses to prey upon other players. But just as these predators prepare to use their specific stratagem, bodoglife.com Founder and CEO Calvin Ayre joins the table. As soon as he sits, the predator quickly realizes Ayre is nobody’s fool; the predator suddenly has become the prey. Each spot closes with Ayre giving this piece of advice: “Play poker the easy way and be the king of your jungle.”
Ayre’s starring role in the ads is another groundbreaking moment for bodoglife.com. In the world of online gambling, where leaders are mostly anonymous, Ayre stands out because he’s not shy about either the nature of his business or his role as mogul. Having its CEO appear in television ads is just another industry first that bodoglife.com can claim. However, as Ayre explains, the ads also serve to educate bodoglife.com’s customer base of recreational players.
“This new advertising creative is intended to aid players in their poker game by identifying and thus lessening the potential threat these poker ‘predators’ pose,” Ayre said. “While serving as a teaching tool for real world games, these ads also highlight the fact that bodoglife.com’s online poker provides a forum where predators are automatically disarmed and on the same level as everyone else.”
The first two of the four ads, “The Hustler” and “The Wild Card”, will run over the upcoming weeks on Spike, Comedy Central, USA, and GSN as well as on local cable affiliates during such programs as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, South Park, WWE (Raw) and Celebrity Poker Showdown. Starting on December 2, the ads will begin appearing in more than 150 movie theaters on over 2,100 screens prior to PG-13 and R feature films. These in-cinema ads will play over 150,000 times and will reach 6.6 million moviegoers during the peak film-going season. The ads will also be available for viewing on bodoglife.com.
The TV ads are just one part of the company’s multimillion-dollar integrated advertising campaign in the U.S., which launched in May 2005. Radio has aired on The Howard Stern Radio Show and print has run in national magazines such as Maxim, Stuff, Blender, GIANT, Spin, ESPN Magazine and Vice. The advertising campaign was created by Bodog Productions – Bodog’s own industry-leading, in-house creative department.
The ads are available for advance viewing by media online at:
http://www.sportz-images.com/predator/dotcom.html (Dot Com)
http://www.sportz-images.com/predator/index.html (Dot Net)
bodoglife.com, located in San Jose, Costa Rica, is federally licensed by the Costa Rican and UK governments. One of the pioneers in the field, bodoglife.com is the top-ranked US facing online gambling brand, with highest site traffic amongst multi-product US gaming web sites according to Hitwise.