PokerStars launches new marketing campaign

Posted by Steve Ruddock on Dec 28, 2011 Posted in Poker Promotions, Poker Room News | No Comments »

The world’s largest online poker room (and second place isn’t even close) has just launched a new global marketing campaign targeting players from all over the world, including the growing Latin and South American markets. The new television ad campaigns feature the slogan “We are Poker” and incorporate some of the biggest names in poker into the ads.

It’s scary to think that PokerStars has grown to dominate the online poker market without this type of worldwide media blitz. With the stable of poker pros the site has under contract from around the world my guess is this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the “We are Poker” television spots, and more ads with country-specific players will be appearing in the near future.

The first spot focuses on the South American and Latin American markets, and is titled Nacho vs. Brazil –a reference to team PokerStars Pro Jose “Nacho” Barbero, who is perhaps the best known South American poker player, hailing from Argentina. In the spot “Nacho” is taking a young Brazilian (who is meant to represent the online poker community of Brazil if I have my symbolism correct) who takes down the Argentinean in a heads-up match. Other cameos in the avant-garde spot include Team PokerStars Pros Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Liv Boeree.

The Second spot is aimed at a more global audience with a combination of Eastern and Western culture represented in the crowd and features the face of PokerStars, Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu, and is titled East vs. West. Once again the young player representing the poker community as a whole bests the Team PokerStars Pro in the end as the campaign’s tag-line “We are Poker” is spoken by the narrator. In the second spot I only picked-up one cameo by Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso who appears during a scene showing the “Lady Maverick” hotel (?).

The new campaign highlights the shifting focus of the online poker market, as previously untapped regions like South America, India, and China have become the main focus of the online poker industry now that the US market is essentially out of commission for the time being. These burgeoning markets are ripe for quick growth and will likely make up the vast majority of the online poker industry’s marketing and advertising budgets in 2012 –perhaps coming out of the poker rakeback budget???

Another noticeable change from previous marketing campaigns is the use of the PokerStars.com brand, and not PokerStars.net, which signifies that these spots are meant for countries and regions that have passed online poker legislation.

You can take a look at the two new spots by visiting the PokerStars Blog