The Moroccan Market: Dynamism and the Advancement of Sports
La Marocaine Des Jeux et Des Sports or MDJS is one of the two state-owned lottery monopolies in Morocco, a lottery market growing double digit year on year; it has the monopoly of sports betting and instant games and 76% market share. INTRALOT Maroc is the single technology supplier and commercial operator of both lotteries
and is contractually accountable to MDJS to grow its brands, i.e. Cote&Sport, TotoFoot, Grattez&Gagnez and Chrono.
MDJS mission is to advance sports and the values of sports in the Moroccan society, and it has even incorporated the phrase ‘l’esprit sportif’ (the spirit of sports) within its corporate logo. It is distributing all its profits to the National Fund of Sports Development and it is sponsoring the development of sports all around
the country (rural and urban neighborhoods, women and men, the disadvantaged, the disabled, all ages, grassroots sports, etc.).
MDJS is a respectable, state-owned lottery that has been raising a lot of money for Morocco sports; its funding represents over 20% of the Ministry of Youth and Sports’ overall budget.
MDJS – INTRALOT partnership has been successful: sales have grown with a CAGR of
+23%, which is a truly spectacular result, based on which we have renewed our contract. This growth has been achieved under a serious market limitation; sometime in 2012, while in midcontract and after a public argument related to responsible gaming and the protection of minors, TV channels stopped airing any communication of games’ brands (e.g. Chrono, Grattez&Gagnez, etc.) and accepted communication only from the corporate brand (i.e. MDJS). Since 2012, game brands of MDJS have been growing in Morocco under a de facto TV ban.
Market Development & Brand Building without Television Advertising
Television reaches wider audiences than all other media. For most markets and businesses, TV remains the most effective and most efficient -highest ROI- medium. It builds awareness the fastest and brand equities the strongest way with the same investment, allowing marketers to convey lively, creative, compelling messages. So
how have we been growing and building equities without it? Despite the de facto TV ban, the awareness of the MDJS corporate brand and of each separate game brand increased because of two strategies: first, budgets were not cut; game brands communication plans became smarter and better spread across available media. Second and very important, MDJS corporate brand was relaunched and its communication was strengthened in a very conscious effort to drive credibility and ‘give a helping hand’ to the game brands.
But doing our separate jobs better was not enough for us. We had to join forces and share the accountability of brand building by establishing brand pyramids that would accommodate both corporate and game brands. We had to maximize the impact of each brand’s communication by creating spill-over, or ‘halo’ effects from one brand to the other. We shared our vision at top level and took our teams and our partners in a strategy and branding journey that lasted a bit over a year.
The milestones of this journey were 4 workshops:
1. ‘Common Language & Joint Plans’ Workshop in Casablanca: it involved training into Brand Building and sharing of plans and ideas and located important synergies. Quick wins were identified and the roadmap to brand building was laid.
2. ‘Brand is a Beacon’ Workshop in Casablanca, facilitated by external experts.
Two ad agencies, two digital agencies, one media buying agency, three research agencies, lottery experts from INTRALOT and MDJS and marketing teams laid down the values of the Moroccan society, brand personalities, user profiles, concepts, proof
of positioning and reasons to believe and expanded brand equities to drive the values of sports MDJS aims to advance within Moroccan society.
3. ‘Brand Pyramids & Communication Choices’ Workshop in Athens, wherein teams finalized choices, i.e. aligned and put down the main dimensions of all brand pyramids. While making Communication Choices, we identified the value of exchanging experiences with other markets facing similar challenges and brought MDJS closer to Inteltek -Turkey’s successful fixed-odds betting operator.
4. ‘Reinventing the Network’ Workshop in Casablanca, facilitated by an external expert and attended by the marketing, trade marketing and retail teams of MDJS and INTRALOT, but also by the leadership of Inteltek. The workshop identified best practices & creative solutions to obstacles related to the POS, the sales agent and product placement and informed our action and investment plans for the year ahead.
“La passion nous rassemble”, or passion unites us
We were passionate to win, determined to overcome the effects of the TV ban. But in doing so, we sought to energize our teams in producing a whole that would be greater than the sum of its parts. All our brand communications in Morocco now tell inter-related stories and support common values. The extra bonus is that we have been building a sharing and learning culture. Our marketing teams are learning the most: inability to advertise games on TV has been helping them ‘sharpen the saws’, to increase their brand building capability. Teams have been thinking outside the box
to establish a more coherent portfolio and establish higher consumer relevance.
In Morocco, MDJS and INTRALOT Maroc have more than doubled the market so far
and keep setting inspiring targets. La Passion Nous Rassembe!
For details or information, pls. contact: Ms. Boudali (MDJS), Ms. Markou (INTRALOT Maroc) or Ms. Bouligaraki (INTRALOT SA)
*Established in April 2001, Inteltek is a joint venture between Turkey’s largest mobile phone operator Turkcell and INTRALOT, one of the leading companies in the global gamin market. On behalf of the Directorate of the Spor Toto Organization, under the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Inteltek has been successfully carrying out the work and related services for the establishment and operation of the central betting system for sports- and games-based fixed-odds betting.