Coral's Spectacular Spots Champions Every Type of Betting Fan

Leading British bookmaker Coral has today launched its new ‘We’re Here For It’ brand campaign, featuring a series of new TV ads for both horse racing and gaming. 

The ‘We’re Here For It’ campaign champions all the different types of racing, sports and gaming fans, and will use broader culture to help bring their world to life, starting with the Cheltenham Festival that commences on Tuesday 12th March 2024.

This new campaign is the first by Wonderhood Studios since they were appointed as Coral’s lead creative agency in September following a competitive pitch.

The first TV ad, titled ‘We’re Here For It – Racing Fan Derby’, is a 30-second spot, filmed at Newbury racecourse. It opens in the middle of a spectacular race, with mud flying and the ground shaking as the riders go past at speed. As the camera zooms in, we can see it isn’t normal jockeys that are competing, but a cross-section of horse racing fans. It includes dapper gents, glamorous ladies, a ‘stag do’ and even a glorious gran all racing neck and neck towards the finish line. 

A second ad is set in the everyday location of a Chinese takeaway where we see a gamer playing on his phone with his friends, enjoying a quick spin on one of Coral’s free-to-play games while they wait for their food. The spot introduces Coral’s industry-leading in-play proposition, Rewards Grabber and its industry-first product, Coral Coins.  

The ads will run on TV, video-on-demand and radio, and will be bolstered for the Cheltenham Festival through Out of Home media (OOH), print advertising and broadcast sponsorships with Racing TV and Sky Sports Racing. Coral will stage a branded takeover of Cheltenham Spa station over the four days of the Festival reaching thousands of travelling racegoers. Media for the campaign was planned and bought by the7stars.

Entain interim chief marketing officer Jeremy Hemmings, says “Coral is a brand with an incredible heritage and with legions of fans. Our new ‘We’re here for it’ campaign platform is in recognition of this strong customer relationship and serves as a reiteration of our rock-solid market position. 

“This first work in the new campaign represents a gear change for the brand as we project a richer, more entertaining personality, establishing a distinctive new territory within the category.” 

Guy Hobbs, joint executive creative director at Wonderhood Studios, says, “We’re super excited to be delivering this fresh brand platform to inject some energy into an iconic British brand.

“While the category often lacks authenticity, we set out to celebrate the real racing and gaming lovers of the UK. So to all the fans out there, whether you're an armchair expert or a stag do legend, we hope you see yourselves in the work.”

The ads were directed by Keith McCarthy from Object & Animal who has previously worked with brands including Aviva, Boots, BT, Google and Subaru.  

Keith McCarthy said, “I loved the scripts the moment I read them. It was Mad Max meets Martin Parr. Portraiture powered chaos. The audience wasn’t just observing the action. They WERE the action.”