India’s Inspirational Brands 2018-19: Pacific Gaming
Pacific Gaming aims to be the most exciting online gaming experience provider. Pacific Gaming wants to disrupt gaming traditions, innovate continuously in terms of gaming – Theory, Technology, Payments, UI / UX and logic. It is confident on getting 10 million active players per month by 2020.
Service Offering: Online Gaming.
Poker saint, Rummy saint
Upcoming Products
The Great Indian Casino , Ubet
Promoter/Directors:
Rajesh Dembla, Arvind Balakrishna, Archit Narayan (CEO), Kshitij Anilkumar , Dharmendra Saxena
Company Vision
The most exciting online gaming experience. To be the most trusted brand in the domain. Disrupt gaming traditions, Innovate continuously in terms of Gaming – Theory, Technology, Payments, UI / UX and logic. 10 million active players per month by 2020. Cross border platform by 2019
Company Mission:
Break the taboo surrounding gaming as a distractive platform and enable essential skill development through gaming.
Educate and create millions of new Gamers every month
Create earning opportunities for players
Baby boomers to Millennials, have products for all of them
Sports based gaming products to be introduced
Ethos of the brand:
Pacific Gaming has real time competitions and campaigns based on Game of Thrones, FIFA, Metallica etc. Just like the religious following of the 3 properties, players of Pacific Gaming love the time on the platform. A real experience that makes the player believe he is transported to another world, a world so passionate that the player is able to experience players from another realm, even though they are thousands of miles apart.
During this experience, the platform builds unshakeable trust amongst its players through its uncompromising financial policies, where the customer never gets let down. The company is Building a culture, engulfing customers and employees alike, into our universe
The unique value proposition of the product: the functional, emotional and differentiating product benefits that have contributed to providing an enduring brand experience to customers
The online gaming industry is a very competitive sector, Pacific Gaming has gained a considerable foothold in the country. The unique value proposition of being the most ethical, trustworthy and dependable brand in the online gaming domain has helped build a large and loyal customer base.
Functionality wise, the platform is top of the line with all the versions forms of poker, like Texas Holdem, Omaha etc. Tournaments and competitions on the Game of thrones theme, have helped build a strong emotional connect with the players.
Pacific Gaming has been a pioneer in bringing innovations like Instant Cash outs for the first time in the world. This is one differentiator that has really puts the platform in a position of great advantage. Instant gratification is a quintessential need and ensuring the players on the platform get this has been the teams primary focus.
What are the physical, character and personality attributes of the brand that have evoked and inspired consumers’ self-expression and personal identity?
As an online multiplayer platform, it becomes a challenge to address the issues related to players personal identity & self expression, owing to difference of opinion amongst players on this subject. As a brand, we let our consumers decide. The design of the platform gives the onus to the Consumers to make the choice of secrecy on the platform. Players also need a realistic feel of playing on an actual poker table, which is catered to with our unique UI. With features like the RNG based shuffling of deck, the user experience on our platform enables the players to Experience poker as a skilled sport.
Poker saint is seen as young, savvy and cool platform. Players can identify with their own personalities while on the game.
An insight into the brand marketing strategies that have effectively penetrated consumers’ psyche, established a meaningful relationship with the target audiences and ensured positive brand perception.
One of the most biggest reasons for our success has been word of mouth, Our players love us and they are talking about us because of the great experience they have on the platform. Also the trust we have built enables us to get reference traffic easily. From a Marketing Strategy perspective, we believe in staying in tune with the current times. Pop culture today has become a living room conversation in most households and provides for a dual brand connect with our Customers. For one, most consumers identify with a popular pop culture reference almost immediately, and to have our brand connect with such references enables a high brand recall value. As an ideal example, as most of us would be aware of the show Game of Thrones, running a tactical campaign associated with Game of Thrones boosted our brand value with both existing consumers and new footfalls.
How has the brand extended its presence to the frontiers of internet advertising and social networking? What is the level of significance the brand accords to utilizing social media as a competitive edge?
As we are all aware of the penetration capability of advertising on popular social media platforms, digital presence and advertising is at the core of every business today. Having said that, as an online poker platform, there are a number of restrictions imposed to advertise on such platforms. We, as a brand are constantly challenged to overcome such obstacles. However, we have tackled this with the oldest & longest running form of marketing – Word of mouth. Our digital presence on our users social media accounts & their pleasant experiences on our platform forms the crux of our internet advertising and social networking.
Please outline a few key marketing endeavors in the past decade that you feel have been landmark initiatives in reinforcing the legacy of the brand’s promise to influence consumer intent and enhanced the brand’s propensity to drive affirmative consumer action.
As outlined above, utilizing pop culture references underline the core of our Marketing Strategy. As an example of a few successful marketing endeavours, we have coupled that strategy with the intent of providing a carrot to our consumers to drive traffic to our platform. With online poker tournaments being organized with Game of Thrones themes, an advertisement headlining a statement such as “Get over the Iron Throne, play the Game of Thrones to drive home a Brand new Mercedes”, goes a long way in establishing our Brand’s legacy while ensuring our Consumers presence on our platform.
How has the brand derived strength from innovation as a sustainable differentiating strategy adding to long-term brand equity? Please provide a few instances of measures implemented towards this goal.
Pacific Gaming has always adopted new technology as its strength. Examples of this would be the usage of latest banking technologies to provide winnings to the user within 60 seconds, our plans to implement the latest quantum technologies in game play, our vision to diversify into virtual reality gaming and our vision to diversify into games that indulge all age groups across the globe are steps in that direction.
What is the key leadership values that drives the brand.
Leadership values such as Self Discipline, Integrity Speed of execution, Persistence have been driving the brand. Leadership is at the forefront of our Brands advent as one of the premier online gaming platform in India. We genuinely believe in the concept that Leadership stems from a hands on approach. Leadership associated with our Brand speaks the words, “Let’s solve this together”, and not in the traditional, “Bring me a solution”. It is this enveloping culture that enables learning and builds Leaders for our future. As a Brand, we want to build Leaders of tomorrow and not just today.
What type of employee satisfaction programs are conducted by your brand
“Performing employees do not remain employees, they become our Business partners”.
Business partners are who we need and have at Pacific Gaming. With a motto of “Let’s Grow Together”, we establish a culture of an unbiased, friendly and fun filled atmosphere at our workplace. Within this environment, a business partner satisfaction evaluation program, happens over a coffee or a team lunch. We invest time in constant satisfaction feedback instead of a cyclic process as this enables our business partners to resolve their grievances if any, immediately and in a friendly manner
How much does your brand emphasize on employee training & development, kindly elaborate.
We are intent on building leaders for tomorrow. As an initiative in this direction, we constantly enable our business partners growth and development on the job and externally. Equal emphasis is laid on training from a job specific point and from a personality development perspective. An elaborate yearly training plan is developed for each of them in 2 areas – Career related & Interest related. The career related program charts training requirements for the current role as well as future skill requirements based on a career path. The interest related programs range from a personality development point of view to building on existing hobbies/interests.
What are your brands most effective intangible motivational tools for employees.
A fantastic incentive system that shares the profits generously. Effective appraisal and promotion mechanism. The other intangible motivational tool we aspire to create is the culture and environment at our workplace. With the existing corporate culture of a 9 – 5 routine across sectors and the existing hierarchical & bureaucratic environment, most people treat their workplace with a passive-aggressive attitude of “I don’t want to be here, but I need to be here.” However, with our Business partners, we aim at creating a lively & friendly atmosphere where they feel at home at their workplace with a sense of belonging. Other key initiatives we focus on are Team unity building activities in the form of outdoor games (Paintball, Laser Tag) and team outings for lunch/drinks and incentivized team holidays.
Kindly elaborate on your existing & potential CSR activities.
Pacific Gaming, being an online gaming company; has consumers utilizing their strengths to master one or many skilled sports. Fundamentally, what we do as an organization is create ‘micro-entrepreneurs’ with our affiliate business models. Our goal is to extend this to our society as a CSR activity where we enable individuals from rural areas to become entrepreneurs and utilize their skills to generate business for themselves.
The most important area of social responsibility associated with our brand is creating awareness of Responsible Gambling among our Consumers. Being an online poker platform, we are socially responsible to create the awareness associated with Responsible Gambling. Whilst we aim at providing the tools essential to control one’s gambling, we cannot assume all responsibility for exercising that control. Individual personal responsibility plays a large part in using the tools we offer.