The Ben Mulroney Show - Have online gambling ads gone stale?

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

GUEST: Paulo Salomão is the CEO of King Ursa Advertising Agency in Toronto If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠��⁠⁠https://link.chtbl.com/bms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Also, on youtube -- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@BenMulroneyShow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Insta: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠@benmulroneyshow⁠⁠⁠ Executive Producer:  Mike Drolet Reach out to Mike with story ideas or tips at [e-mail] Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by the National Payroll Institute, the leader for the payroll profession in Canada, setting the standard of professional excellence, delivering critical expertise, and providing resources that over 45,000 payroll professionals rely on. Well, whether you like it or not, you got to take the world as it is, and the world as it is, is a world where this country

and the province of Ontario have embraced online gambling. I think a lot of us have been surprised with how much advertising we have been subjected to, though. I think I did not expect this much, to be honest. And it's interesting. It is a social vice, much like some other, you could say alcohol. I don't see a lot of alcohol ads on TV or not nearly as many as I see for gambling. And so I think it's incumbent upon us every now and then to take stock of what we are consuming in terms of ads.

And my next guest, who's the CEO of King Ursa Advertising Agency in Toronto. Paolo Salamau has said that these ads are stale and has more than just that criticism of them. So welcome, Paolo. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me, Ben. So what do you mean by stale? I believe that I think what we're saying, yes, you know, people are there too many ads. I think a lot of people clearly feel that way right now and I think rightly so.

What I believe is that what they're experiencing is an entire category repeating itself. Yeah. And so people, I think, they're grouping, they will group that annoyance against this, the category. I think we're all knowing it, but I believe that's what's happening. The overuse of awareness when the message is all the same, and there are so many of them, so many operators going out there with the same message, you end up with people remembering a lot of, a lot of that a lot more than any other as that he would see right well and and see i agree with you it took you to say it for me for me to sort of take note but i just tune most of them out because it feels

and i only thought about this today they feel like they're just thrown together like that somebody you know someone was paid a few dollars to put something together in their computer and turn something out and it's about quantity not quality and i don't know what the value ad is and I don't know what the differentiators between the 50 operators and the 83 regulated sites. I have no idea. But for example, the one that does stick in my mind is an American company. BetMGM has very highly produced commercials with big stars. Not that you need big stars in them, but you want to stand out? In my mind, that's the one that does stand out. Definitely. I think the problem, Ben, it's a lot more complex when it comes to advertising.

Marketers today have a big, big challenge in their hands. CMOs, life spam is very short. I think we're talking about 1.7 years is the lifespan of a CMO who's under a lot of pressure to perform. And the question a lot of times is, you know, do you reuse? you know or do you keep it simple but you know elevate your awareness all there by you know blasting the same message over and over it is you know the repetition does it does work to a certain degree right like so it has worked for for many many years the problem is that um those plate the playbook that worked five years ago doesn't work anymore yeah and and i think there's uh

Unfortunately, CMOs, the decision of pushing those ads, which a lot of times come from different countries. So, you know, those companies who are established here and are regulated here, you know, they reuse advertising from other countries and sometimes do adaptation. And we see this a lot, especially in Canada. But the truth is, Ben, this is that. Like this is real factual data that shows that only of marketers today, I'm talking about North America.

Marketers today, there are only 35% of them meet the basic foundation knowledge to navigate the complex advertising world. And 65% of them lack the principles to actually perform well, to understand, to better understand what, the implications of the market, the changes of the market today. So, so, so, so you're saying that the people, the people who are populating sort of marketing agencies and the people who are helping spearhead campaigns are, don't know what they're doing.

I don't want to say that. I'll say it. It's a bit more complex than that as well. And I mean, there's a difference between, in mind you, I'm separating here, marketing and advertising, right? So marketing is functioning side corporations. And the, the problem is that. that advertising and the world of communication today has grown sporadically, right?

Because we're talking about the attention of people is limited. And there's more ads than ever. We're exposed to people are exposed to 4,000. Yeah. Over 4,000 ads a day. That's the exposure of an average person. That's what, honestly, that's why I bought, I got YouTube premium because I'm so tired of seeing ads on my on YouTube all the time.

So no more ads. It's a, it's a, it's a, and and I thought, you know, I honestly thought gone would be ads if, if streaming was the way to go. But there's ads all over my Amazon Prime and there's ads all over my Netflix and all. So they're everywhere. But when it comes to, to advertising for something that people, well, they are, it's an addictive, it's an addictive venture gambling. Some people are prone to it.

or not, do we even need advertising for something like that? Absolutely. So I'll tell you this. The case today is the case of a mature category. A few years back, you know, this, nobody knew about the operators and that were actually established. And, you know, people had questions about like to work as a safe to use these operators from other countries and so on.

the government of Ontario had done in a world-class job when it came to regulation, like 90% of wages today, 90% of all wages are regulated. And so using operators that Ontario government was able to regulate and give people the trust that it was needed. So once this has been established and everyone is aware of the actual, of actual those brands and those operators, that's when it's time to move on, move on to a different tactic, move on to actually engaging people with their, with their advertisement, talking about their differences. What is that you bring to the table that actually will make you distinctive

from other brands? And unfortunately, I believe most of those brands today are using the same tactic and still forcing awareness on people and, you know, and inundating, you know, repetition causes this, that we're seeing today. So isn't that an opportunity for one of these companies to break out and break through if they were to adopt sort of the tactic of a mature industry to then differentiate themselves from all these other people who seem to just be creating noise? Oh my God. You would not believe, Ben, the opportunity that any of them have on their hands.

And I'll give an example. It was in 2000 until up to 2000 for many, many years, the alcohol industry, all the ads were exactly the same. It was all about either parties or, you know, they all were about price, right? It was exactly the same until one day, and this is straight out of Canada, the I am Canadian. I don't know if you remember. Yes, of course. The 2000, the I am Canadian, the rent.

And that was the first ad ever to change a category and look at a category differently. So imagine that, like the power that there's, these companies have to actually not just bring a different message, but actually look at inwards to find features or define or bring innovation to their own platform. So actually offered something different, something unique to consumers, two people out there. Paolo, we're going to have to leave it there. But if any of the 50 operators or 83 regulated sites hear this and realize that they could do something

different and take off like a rocket ship and they end up calling you as the CEO of King Ersa advertising agency, I want a finder's fee. Thank you, my friend. Okay, well, we'll talk for sure. All right, take care. Thanks for the chat. I appreciate it.