Hyperion are pleased to announce that progress is continuing at an earnest rate in the construction of our new purpose built Islington office.

We will soon be based in the Highbury Studios development, and should take occupancy in the middle of April.

The below image doesn't paint a picture of beautiful vistas, but then we are sure the Taj Mahal didn't look "all that" when the Plasterers were in! 

We will get some more pictures up in the upcoming weeks, and after the new London office's launch we look forward to welcoming clients, candidates and friends over for a coffee.

Today saw the very positive news that Congressman Barney Frank is introducing legislation to overthrow the US UIEGA iGaming prohibition.

In the spirit of humour Hyperion features portraits of Barney Frank and other famous historical Barney's. 

Barney F.

Barney G.

Barney (Prehistoric Reptile)

Barney R.

Barney (Raymond Van)

For other less irreverent iGaming breaking features check out our Newsboard.

At Hyperion we are often asked how we came about our rather distinctive name. Way back in the end of 2006 when the Agencies’ two Co-Founders were setting the foundations of the business in place several names were espoused and dismissed. It was decided at an early stage that a business named after the surnames of the Directors ran the risk of being passé. We sought a name that was relevant to the industry that we have our expertise focused upon.

Hyperion’s Managing Director Alex Lafferty is something of a horse racing historian, and is credited with coming up with our moniker. For those lacking Alex’s level of racing acquaintance Hyperion was a horse who swept all before him in the early 1930’s. Owned by the Earl of Derby he captured the Dewhurst Stakes in his juvenile year, before winning dual classics in 1933, taking the Derby and Leger amongst other black type victories. Further information can be found here: Wikipedia

As a tradition newspaper racing correspondents go by a number of aliases from the Sun’s Templegate, Mirror’s Newsboy, and Telegraph’s Thunderer. To this day the Independent’s resident tipster is named Hyperion in honour of the chestnut horse that dominated his Classic generation, and went on to be leading stallion for six years.

Hyperion started his track career as a small horse, standing only fifteen hands tall, but by his skill and tenacity he excelled in competition, an example that Hyperion Gaming is following today.

At present the social media zeitgeist is firmly centred upon Twitter.com. The concept is simple, each post is a micro blog of less than 140 words, and users can choose to follow a myriad of other users.

Hyperion Gaming is active on Twitter, and both follows and is followed by several hundred iGaming specific Twitter aficionados.

If you wish to follow Hyperion Gaming on Twitter please join in the fun: Hyperion Twitter.

For any who aren’t already part of our Facebook community we always welcome new Facebook friends: Hyperion Facebook.

Recently I’ve been working on a number of Country Manager roles for various clients looking to develop their presence in emerging territories. The job description for these positions varies between operators but the general consensus is that they’re pretty vague. Key requirements are of course an encyclopaedic knowledge of the iGaming industry/ iGaming product in the territory in question and a long list of contacts in the industry/ local media.

A recurring theme is the conflicting stance of centralising all activity in a new market from Head Office or setting up a new office on the ground? I’m a believer of developing a local country-specific from the ground up (what do I know, I’m a recruiter, not a marketer!), but from experience some operators are often reluctant to give their country managers resources to allow them to fully exploit the market potential.

I understand that in the current economic climate, giving too much power to local managers could potentially be a very expensive mistake, but if the right people with the right knowledge are given enough freedom at the start, this is surely to most effective way to promote one’s product in an emerging territory?

Russia is a prime example of this. Ways and means of depositing funds and a general distrust of the gaming industry are key barriers to entry to the Russian market, so to me it makes sense to give more ownership to a well informed Russian Country manager. If key decisions are still being made in Kahnawake or Costa Rica and the Russian manager is acting as a coordinator for the marketing department in Head Office, then some of their expertise and market knowledge could be wasted?

On the contrary, there obviously has to be a balance of power however and territory managers need to be accountable; as with every other business unit, but in my view they do need to have a certain level of autonomy in order to excel. It’s up to individual operators to decide how much responsibility to bestow upon their remote staff, but in emerging markets it seems to me that getting the right person for the job is by far the most important decision a business make.

I met with someone recently from a leading European poker room who shares this view; “Whilst some of the larger rooms are pumping millions into advertising in several European territories, we are communicating directly with our customers. Although we don’t have the spending power, our conversion rate and CPA is much lower. Will they ever get those millions back? I don’t think so...”

One drawback of decentralising your marketing in an emerging market could be dilution of the brand and deviation from core values, so along with the cost risk, is this what iGaming operators are afraid of?

I don’t think it’s that simple and have to concede that my initial view that all territory-specific decisions should be made by the country manager may perhaps be slightly over-zealous. In order to truly break into a new territory however, regardless of political, demographic or legal differences etc, I firmly believe the balance of power in general should tilt more towards the local experts than what I’m finding at present.