Remember when Nicki Minaj became the global ambassador of MaximBet? I do. Nicki Minaj has one of the most devoted audiences in music, which was never the question. The question nobody asked was whether that audience had any interest in sports betting. And it turned out the answer was largely no.
The deal was big. The announcement was big. The reach numbers were enormous. Then MaximBet shut down in 2022. I am not saying those two things are directly related. I am just saying that reach without relevance is an expensive way to find out they’re not the same thing.
Exactly how did this campaign come to be? I would bet good money it was not a majority vote on the marketing team’s side. Someone with budget authority and the CPA knowledge of a golden retriever saw a follower count, liked the number, and decided that most of the annual multi-million-dollar spend was going on one name. The marketing team got the brief. The contract got signed. The invoice had a lot of zeros. Millions of living, seeing, completely uninterested eyes were delivered as promised.
Some brands asked the question first.
During Super Bowl LX weekend, Fanatics Betting and Gaming brought in Kendall Jenner, leaning into the Kardashian Curse associated with her sisters dating pro athletes (hilarious) and Fanatics CEO Matt King reported a significant increase in app downloads over that weekend. The campaign was self-aware and genuinely funny, which is important, because audiences know immediately when a brand is trying to manufacture a personality it does not have.
The timing was also deliberate, as Super Bowl weekend is the single biggest sports betting moment of the year. Kendall’s audience skews young, pop culture forward, and sports-adjacent in exactly the way a platform trying to reach new demographics needs. The concept gave her something real to do rather than just stand in front of a logo. The numbers moved, because the fit was genuine and the moment was specific.
Lionel Messi signed with Hard Rock International Gaming Corporation as brand ambassador in the summer of 2023, almost in line with his move to Inter Miami. Hard Rock is a Miami institution. Messi was becoming a Miami story in real time. His international audience was enormous and suddenly personally invested in Florida. The brand and the moment were the same and nobody had to explain why it made sense, because it made sense before anyone signed anything.
The difference between a partnership that works and one that doesn’t has nothing to do with how famous the person is. It has everything to do with whether the audience they bring already has a reason to care. Meanwhile, some version of that MaximBet meeting is happening right now at a sportsbook or casino operator somewhere. Someone is looking at a follower count and feeling very, very good about it.
You cannot outspend the wrong audience, but you can definitely find out just how much the wrong audience costs.
