Social responsibility has attracted much attention in the iGaming industry in recent years. What does this really mean, though, and why do affiliates play such an essential part in ensuring marketing efforts get aligned with industry best practices?
In this week's column, I'm exploring why affiliates play such a vital role in promoting socially responsible gaming and why operators need to engage their partners to drive this forward.
What is Social Responsibility?
According to Google, this is loosely defined as: "Social responsibility means that besides maximizing shareholder value, businesses should operate in a way that benefits society. Socially responsible companies adopt policies that promote society's and the environment's well-being while lessening negative impacts on them."
It's easy to lay all of the responsibility of responsible gaming and social responsibility at the hands of industry brands and operators, right? After all, they are the ones in charge of the games they offer, their CRM and marketing functions, their advertising materials and KYC processes.
Wrong.
We are all responsible for delivering best practices and good customer experiences, and this is where affiliates play an important role in supporting the development of the industry as a whole.
Why?
Affiliates play a crucial part in the customer awareness and decision-making process, and it's vital that they assume ownership of the content, promotions and offers they are sharing. Affiliate marketers are also playing a much more significant role in driving this forward in the iGaming industry, and it will become increasingly important as the industry continues to grow.
Compliance Is More Prevalent Than Ever in iGaming
With regulatory changes evolving incredibly quickly in the iGaming industry - the need to get compliance right is more important than ever across the board.
Evidence suggests that some players with "harm indicators" weren't getting the support they needed. Affiliates have stepped in to help actively support social responsibility concerning how customers play and enjoy their entertainment time online. They also choose to work with reputable partners who adhere to gaming industry regulations and advertising practices helping players experience better service and support during their engagement.
Both operators and affiliates are under close scrutiny now to ensure that there was no deviation from the strong rules and regulations applied to online marketing in this sector.
Affiliates also take pride in providing additional service channels, helping customers access the correct people and adhering to the correct processes and procedures to deposit and play safely online, such as the AskGamblers Complaint Service.
Current Regulations in Place for Social Responsibility
According to the Gambling Commission, there are 3 core principles of responsible gambling. These are: to ensure that organized crime is kept out of the gaming industry, for gameplay to be conducted in a fair, transparent and open way and to make it a priority that children or vulnerable people under the legal engagement age are strongly protected from harm and exploitation.
Essentially, everyone participating in this industry has an important part to play, ensuring we are creating a safe environment for players and protecting our industry reputation and growth - including affiliates who operate within it.
Operators and affiliates are now taking a much more proactive approach to work collaboratively to meet compliance and regulatory standards at every stage of the acquisition and retention process.
This can include activities such as placing full terms and conditions on marketing materials and potentially getting some of the operator reviews sense-checked by the partnership team to be safe and secure in the knowledge they don't contain any inaccurate or out-of-date information. Extra care and attention has been paid to welcome bonuses and the minimum wagering requirements.
There are now also full license conditions and codes of practice (LCCP) rulebooks that the Gambling Commission has created. This very specifically covers advertising and marketing within the iGaming industry. Any marketing undertaken in this industry needs to comply with the UK Advertising codes that the ASA has issued.
What Does the Codes of Practice Include?
The LCCP includes a multitude of things, including ensuring any gambling ads that are pushed out online would not be of a particular appeal to children under the age of 18. This means that the industry has to pay great attention to detail regarding their marketing campaigns' imagery and wording. The same goes for the appearance of younger people in the video or other marketing materials. It is understood that anybody under the age of 25 should not be featured in any kind of promotion, including social media.
Strict guidance is also now in place when it comes to the sponsorship of sports. There can't be any ads targeted to young people within the sport; for example - you couldn't have an ad in the juniors section of a club's website. There also can't be any logo or branding associated with gambling on any merchandise that children could use.
More generally, the openness and transparency of marketing offers is key for both affiliates and operators. For example, if there is a bonus on offer, the full terms and conditions must be displayed, so they are fully legible and prominently within the promotion. Otherwise, the ads are misleading and put the brands at significant risk.
Why Good Affiliates Take This Seriously
For several reasons, affiliates need to, and in most cases are, taking action to ensure that they are only promoting brands that take social responsibility seriously. They need to, of course, ensure their own reputation is intact.
By promoting an operator that is not compliant, they are directly associating with that site and telling prospective players that it's safe to play on. If that operator is non-compliant, the affiliate will forever be associated with promoting that brand and become a less trustworthy source to the user. It can also impact their own business progression longer term.
From an ethical standpoint, just like operators, affiliates also have a duty of care to the people that visit their site. They must ensure that they are advertising in a compliant manner and sending them to operators at the top of their game regarding responsible gambling policies. They need to not only take specific care regarding the marketing material that is used as part of their promotion but be accurate in the information they provide in the written content they produce.
In reality, some of the elements outlined within the code provided by the Gambling Commission are directly relevant to the affiliate anyway.
Final Thoughts
With everything discussed so far, it is safe to say that a good relationship between affiliates and operators is not just important, but crucial. They need to be able to communicate with one another effectively to be able to ask questions should they need to and work together to get social responsibility right.
By being 'picky' and careful when choosing the brands they opt to promote and rate highly on their sites, the affiliates can in turn drive social responsibility forward in the industry. In addition, they can influence irresponsible brands and operators who don't follow the rules to improve their services, because otherwise they won't get good ratings on affiliate sites.
