The category competes on sign-up bonuses. We showed up with Vegas.
Vegas wasn't a look to apply, it was a feeling to build into the product. Tiered rewards, a trophy case, an exclusive Lions Club, and a platform that gave a third-place sportsbook a voice of its own.
ROLE
New Business Pitch Leadership · Creative Direction · Art Direction · Partner Agency Direction
CLIENT
BetMGM
AGENCY
BASIC/DEPT
SCOPE
Brand platform, OOH, digital, app, website, activation, experiential, social, design system
THE CHALLENGE
Sports betting leans on sign-up bonuses to pull people in, which leaves every brand sounding identical. BetMGM had slipped to third in the category. The opportunity was sitting in the name: draw on the MGM roots and build something that felt undeniably Vegas.
WHAT I DID
Took a line in a Slack channel and turned it into the pitch. Partner agency Highdive asked if anyone had time to throw a few ideas at a sports betting pitch. The ask was a handful of ways to uplevel the app and digital presence. I pulled in two designers and delivered that plus a design language for the entire pitch. It came back fast enough and finished enough that it turned into a much bigger assignment.
Mined the brief for opportunity. The brand was rooted in Vegas and nothing about it felt like Vegas, from the typography to the rewards. We took the existing brief and built a world around that gap, ownable to BetMGM rather than generic to the city, and packaged every idea with the aspirational charm Vegas actually trades on.
Directed the design and experience work. I directed a design and experience team of six, co-created the creative platform, Find Your Roar, with Highdive, and developed the strategic design pillars that shaped how we treated the brand: luxury, high-rolling, celebration, sophistication. I also directed partner agencies on pitch artifacts including AI-generated imagery and motion.
Showed it at scale. By the end the deck had the system running across OOH, digital, app, website, new-user activation and experiential. Proof the brand could scale, and a clear feel for what it could become.
IMPACT
Won the business
I was asked back to freelance on the account
The platform was designed to run at scale across out of home and online media, from wallscapes and transit to display, in every market BetMGM operated in.
Rewards across most sportsbooks are identical. The Trophy Case we conceived added enviable swag, real Vegas style, and standout moments the brand could actually promote, like a collectible championship ring you customize with your rewards over time.
The site put the platform in its home city and packaged a number of the experiences we pitched, including the exclusive Lions Club, positioning BetMGM as the sportsbook for everyone who loves sports betting.
State vs State turned rivalries into a betting experience only BetMGM had, giving fans side action and the brand something exclusive to talk about.
Highdive produced BetMGM's first Super Bowl spot off the platform. The confidence it runs on is the bet the pitch was won on, and it paid off: the highest single-day registration and deposit total of any Super Bowl Sunday to date.