Gambling advertisements have been largely discussed in the public in the last years, because of their unethical products and how they both approach and affect customers. Gambling by the consumer is no longer viewed as immoral, while the gambling companies themselves face critique for their immoral methods. This study aims to research how gambling advertisements, including both betting and casino games, approach customers through commercials before, during and after football games in Danish television.
In this study, 13 commercials from 10 different gambling providers have been used as a window into the world of gambling advertisements and different tactics deployed to attract new customers and retain the ones they have. The commercials have been sampled from one Sunday during the football season from 12pm to 10pm on the Danish pay television channel Xee. This study is not interested in customers' perception, but is solely dedicated to understanding how different gambling brands’ commercials are designed to approach new and current customers. This study takes a social semiotic multimodal approach to discover modes in the design which express discourse which will be collected to investigate discursive patterns across the wide range of commercials. With visual, audiovisual textual and commercial theories and the researchers’ own understandings of the commercials and use of different modes, this study concludes that gambling advertisements in Denmark use different actors, sounds and artefacts to deliver their messages. The results show that many commercials don't direct their customers to websites, but instead include a phone, tablet or other electronic devices to deliver the message of online gambling. It is also clear that the use of male actors is dominant throughout most commercials whether it be by voiceover, songs, text or celebrity appearances. Only one out of 13 commercials features only a female subject. Some commercials use bonuses for new players, while others simply don't approach the viewers, which is identified as low-involvement processing and therefore regular branding. Gamblers are in some cases also represented as being similar to football players which levels out the playing field of sport and gambling. Finally, references are used throughout most commercials as a way to tell customers about their products. The study also discovers that gambling commercials express a discourse regarding unity and convenience through use of a wide array of characters gathered and electronic devices. Furthermore humor is also expressed by use of satire and parody in some commercials.