MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS
together staff from already established operations can be a challenge and the amount of work required in this area can be sizable. Access to ready-made technology is often cited as justifying some mergers and acquisitions the more so in the gaming and gambling space which is so technologically driven. Tech can be a barrier as well as a facilitator of deals as large costs accumulated from developing platforms can be hard to defray. Technical compatibility aside, platforms created for different markets may deal with data and security differently depending on the prevailing regulation. Finally, there is a tendency to assume that successful products and marketing strategies will translate quickly and easily from one market to
another. Cultural differences mean that this is not always the case. Brazil and Africa are good examples of markets with big cultural differences. In Brazil, exciting real money games are as popular with female customer as they are with male, changing the kind of entertainment content that works. In Africa, legacy telephone networks are being replaced with a generation shift to mobile, meaning data-light products for the small screen are much more likely to succeed. Cultural differences also impact the marketing of gambling and gaming products. For these reasons and wide variations in laws around promotions, celebrity and athlete endorsements and advertising mean campaigns need to be crafted for individual markets. 2
PHIL SAVAGE Head of Publications and European Affairs, IMGL For information contact
+44 7778 635836 phil@IMGL.org
2 For more see https://www.imgl.org/publications/entering-new-markets-cultural-sensitivity-required/
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