Inside Asian Gaming

January 2017 inside asian gaming 21 INSIGHTS “We don’t have a very advanced media ecosystem in Macau at this stage like you would see in Hong Kong or Singapore or other cities around the region. O Media is trying to do something to address that.” B en Blaschke: Hi Andrew. Our company, World Gaming Group, recently rebranded itself to O Media. What was the reason behind this corporate rebranding? Andrew W Scott: Well our corporate name of World Gaming Group was a legacy name as a result of our first publication, World Gaming Magazine , which a few years ago rebranded as WGM . Since then we have acquired Inside Asian Gaming and we’ve recently launched a new magazine called High Life . Through 2017 we also plan to launch a number of other media brands as well – not all of which will be print publications. Since we will have this wide range of media which doesn’t relate to gaming, the previous corporate name doesn’t make sense anymore. So we have rebranded to O Media – the “O” being from O Mun , which of course is the Cantonese way to say Macau. Since our brand is very much centred in Macau and we want to strongly identify with and support Macau as well as the wider Asian tourism industry of which Macau is essentially the capital, that’s why we chose O Media as our new name. BB: How has the company changed since it first began in 2009? AWS: A lot! When we started there was really only four of us and only two were based in Macau. Now we have around 42 staff – not all of whom are in Macau but most are. We have expanded so much and broadened our horizons. Originally we were just a small company producing one magazine in an area that we were comfortable in, which was gaming. But over the last eight years we’ve made so many friends in Macau, we’ve learnt so much more about Macau and we have a greater understanding of what Macau is and needs. Our products and offerings have expanded to match. BB: How has the media landscape in Macau and southern China changed over the last 10 years? AWS: It has changed dramatically. I think specifically in Macau, a lot of media was AWS: High Life fills a gap in the market that we perceive. For many years now we’ve wanted to make a non-gaming magazine because Macau really has so much to offer apart from gaming. And even though the vast majority of Macau’s revenue still comes from gaming, you’ve got to remember we’re talking big numbers here – so 10% revenue from non-gaming is still a significant amount of money in absolute terms. It’s been quite a few years now that the government has been saying they wanted to expand non-gaming, so we wanted to play our part by launching a high quality non- gaming publication. We also wanted Macau to be known as a place where you come to get the very best – the very best in Asia and indeed the very best in the world. We do really believe that Macau will become, if it isn’t already, Asia’s undisputed leisure and tourism hub. We still have some way to go to get everything right but we believe it will inevitably become the Asian equivalent of Las Vegas which is the centre of tourism and entertainment in the Americas. We needed a magazine to reflect that. At the same time, we didn’t just want to be a luxury magazine. We also wanted to have a part of the magazine dedicated to the interesting parts of Macau that people don’t always get to see, so while High Life does have indulgence and high end retail in our magazine, it also has a section called Society that features not just celebrities but also interesting people in Macau that probably wouldn’t get into other magazines. They might be artists, chefs or even just grungy and edgy people that are different. The other thing is that we really wanted to make the magazine beautiful, really high end, so we’ve got some great for a long time just there at the pleasure of the gaming industry. We don’t have a very advanced media ecosystem in Macau at this stage like you would see in Hong Kong or Singapore or other cities around the region. O Media is trying to do something to address that. When the gaming industry went through its downturn a few years ago a lot of budgets were reduced and it became a lot harder for media companies in Macau to get revenue from gaming companies and other large corporates. So that has put the pressure on the media industry. It has made things difficult and we have to change as a result of that. BB: As you mentioned, O Media has recently launched its latest publication, High Life . Can you tell us a bit about that?