Q&A: Peter Marcus on InterCasino's bold ambitions

Earlier this week InterCasino launched its new “personalised” website as part of a major rebrand for the long-running online casino. eGaming Review spoke to its chief marketing officer Peter Marcus to discuss the redesign and the decision to bring back the brand’s famous logo.

eGaming Review (eGR): What prompted this week’s InterCasino relaunch?

Peter Marcus (PM): InterCasino was bought just under a year ago and one of the first things Intertain did was ask customers what they thought was good and bad about the brand. We spoke to over 6,000 old, new and potential customers through surveys, focus groups and online forms and tried to find out what they wanted from a modern casino.

eGR: What were the main takeaways from this research?

PM: Three very clear messages came up. Firstly, trust is hugely important for a company which was established in 1996 and is one of the oldest casinos in the world. Secondly, they wanted simple-to-use software. What hit me the most was the focus groups were asked to draw their perfect online casino and what they drew was similar to Amazon or the Google homepage. We’ve tried to develop a modern day front-end for a casino that includes everything on one page and is only one click away, something the top ecommerce companies do very well. Thirdly, they really wanted customisation. The answer from the industry is that it wants customers to play more slots so it can make more money, but this isn’t actually what the customer wants. With InterCasino, if you only want to see certain games, you can go to ‘Customise Your Casino’ and that’s exactly what you can see.

eGR: And you decided to bring back the old InterCasino logo?

PM: InterCasino is one of the oldest in the world but I think it’s fair to say that it lost its way a bit. Bringing back the crown was a very important part of the rebranding. We spent a lot of time looking at the branding including colours, the crown and understanding what really makes the InterCasino brand. So we’ve brought the crown back and modernised the old brand which is very different to 10 years ago but still has a familiar look and feel to it. It’s a concept that shows to our older users who maybe left us, our newer users who remember us, or our old VIPs who are still with us, that we really are back and we’re back with power. It’s an extremely important part of the new strategy to bring back the best and modernise it.

eGR: How long did it take to complete the revamp?

PM: We worked with a brand agency for four or five months to understand both the brand and the business. We then worked with Amaya and later with NYX, after it bought Ongame, to produce this new software which I’m really pleased with. The most pleasing thing was it went live nearly without a hitch and within an hour-and-a-half we had the same number of players back playing on the site.

eGR: How confident are you that InterCasino can go back to its heyday?

PM: I wouldn’t be doing this job if I wasn’t and there’s no reason it can’t. InterCasino is a well-loved casino and what we’re doing is bringing back a modern version of a casino that everyone knows and loves. There are three very important parts to the InterCasino brand which are trust, customise don’t compromise and modernisation. The next big project is within the mobile and customised games space where we have a number of big projects underway right now.

eGR: What’s the plan from a marketing perspective?

PM: We’ve really upped our marketing in the last four months as I’m not a believer in starting from zero and going to 100, you need to do it gradually. It’s back to basics which means getting the affiliation working as it should, get the affiliates with us and understanding our brand. In the UK there’s PPC and SEO which we’ve been pushing quite strongly. My view has always been that the backbone of this is brand marketing which you need both inside and outside of the UK and we’ll go back on TV either in late spring or summer.