Daniela Kianicová: "Creativity is more important in gambling than in other industries"

Meet Casino Guru's PR and External Relations Lead, Daniela Kianicová, who oversees various types of partnerships, manages short-term and long-term creative projects, and leads external and internal communication in Casino Guru.

In today's interview, Daniela will guide us through the processes she uses in her work, introduce us to some of the future and ongoing projects of the Casino Guru PR Team, such as the Casino Guru Awards, Casino Guru News, webinars and TikTok. She will also shine some light on her work ethic and the challenges she faces in her job.

How is the creation of a PR and marketing agenda for gambling different from the other industries? How does she evaluate the working environment and what are her visions for the future? Let's find out!

Q: Daniela, where did you gain PR experience before joining the Casino Guru team?

Being led to earn my own money from a very young age, for which I am extremely grateful today, I started to work while I was still a student. During college when I was in my early twenties, I started as a PR assistant at a multinational automobile manufacturer. I didn't realize it at the time, but the fact that it was a very large company opened many doors for me. I was the right hand of a top PR director, whose rigor and attention to detail were a great inspiration to me. Since then, about 30 brands have passed through my hands as part of the PR and marketing, and I am extremely grateful to have found a job that fulfills me even after plenty of years, and in which I still have room to grow.

Q: What do you like most about creating a PR strategy for Casino Guru?

Casino Guru really provides me with the space and opportunity to implement my ambitious and sometimes daring ideas. When I joined Casino Guru three years ago, there was no PR yet – they were just aware of the necessity of this department. So, I founded our PR Team from scratch and am truly delighted and proud to say that our team is growing and expanding at a rapid pace. What's more, I really feel like I am surrounded by people for whom PR and marketing are a true calling and passion, not just a job that pays the bills. Such eagerness makes us deliver excellent results as a team – a team I know I can always rely on.

Q: How is your current work different compared to what you had the opportunity to experience in other companies?

We can divide my experience into 'PR for a gambling brand' and 'PR for a non-gambling brand'. PR for a gambling brand is particularly specific, and we often run into legislative barriers and various prejudices. Not rarely, when I talked to the world's top media, they tended to put us into the same box as shady business. I may understand it partially, but the way Casino Guru communicates the topic of gambling is truly honest and transparent.

We do our PR highly ethically, create preventive campaigns against risky behavior, provide information about gambling without encouraging new players to gamble, and a responsible approach to gambling is at the heart of everything we do. Unfortunately, society still looks at us differently, so we must have even sharper elbows than others. On the brighter side, I'm proud to say we managed to find a way to launch projects and collaborations we could only dream of at the beginning.

Q: Do you feel a shift for the better when talking to potential partners after you explain how Casino Guru approaches gambling and what it offers within the industry?

Absolutely. The PR representative's job is to sell a good idea, and I think we do that very well. However, sometimes collaborations fail because potential partners don't even give me a chance to explain what Casino Guru strives to achieve. They immediately put our endeavor in a box, and there's no room for discussion. Yet, as soon as I'm given an opportunity, I can always find some kind of joint journey.

Q: Did you also have some prejudices when you started this job?

Maybe a little. Now that I look back on it, after everything we've worked on, every milestone we accomplished and the numerous opportunities we created, I must say that this is the most meaningful work I have done in my life. Our preventive campaign with a mainstream influencer, Scott Thomas, serves as a great example of that. This collaboration allowed us to reach mainly young adults who could be at higher risk of problem gambling and paint them a picture of such behavior, the signs and risks that come with it, and the remedial options too. Campaigns like this are proof that what we do has a huge positive impact, and that's something that keeps me going.

Q: What skill do you use most in your day-to-day work?

Probably creativity. I would say that creativity is even more important in gambling than in other industries. When I compare it with my other experiences, I realize that my position is more demanding. Thankfully, gambling offers a huge scope for creating different ways to gain media awareness, and building projects from scratch in a way that they gain traction. I'm never bored, always working on new ways to be seen and heard. We are doing well, people know us, know our projects, and take us as an authority.

Q: What does the preparation of an international PR project look like? What are you focusing on?

Our PR works mostly in English, and we have selected and targeted media that we offer information to, generally about our achieved milestones, results, and accomplishments. These are the industry media where we have established relationships and where we are known. The difference is one-off projects throughout the year. That's when I offer our unique information or data that can't be found anywhere else. My goal is to work with gambling so creatively that it will be of interest to any editor working in any field – that's exactly what good PR is about.

Q: Last year the PR Team launched its own Casino Guru News. What makes it stand out?

What sets us apart is that we are bringing our own editorial content of value to readers on a daily basis. I am talking about in-depth interviews with industry leaders, opinion pieces written by key experts from the gambling industry, and even exclusive statements that cannot be found anywhere else. Soon, we will introduce webinars as part of the News, making our value proposition to readers even bigger.

Q: What industry media does Casino Guru cooperate with?

These are primarily partner websites such as SBC, which is one of the media industries that we admire in many aspects. SBC gave us an opportunity to participate in their event in Barcelona just a few months after the launch of our Casino Guru News website, which gave us a chance to function as a real newsroom for the first time. We carried out many interviews on the spot, arranged several new collaborations, and we are reaping the benefits of this opportunity to this very day. We can't wait for this year's conference in Barcelona again!

I would also like to mention our partnership with AffPapa, a directory that brings together affiliates and operators, who were one of the media partners for another ambitious project we've recently introduced to the world – our very own Casino Guru Awards.

Q: Since we are on the topic of Casino Guru Awards – what did this project include?

The truth is that I wanted to create something like Casino Guru Awards since the very first communication strategy I came up with when joining Casino Guru. The time wasn't right until now, and in cooperation with a whole team of people, I finally brought the Casino Guru Awards project to life. The feedback we received was particularly encouraging, primarily thanks to the level of transparency we managed to bring to the whole process as well as the credibility given to us by all the partners who entered the project together with us.

Q: How did you like working so closely with colleagues on Casino Guru Awards and managing a team of people from the beginning of the project to the end?

I really enjoyed it. As it was really a team effort of about ten people from Casino Guru, it was amazing to work together and lead a bunch of incredibly smart people. I absolutely trusted everyone involved, from the designers, who seemed to see right into my brain when bringing my ideas to life, to the anchor of the live awarding ceremony and our colleague Šimon, a great speaker who is known for his impeccable humor. I couldn't imagine a better person for the role of the host of the live event.

Q: Is this Casino Guru's strong suit? That not only do great professionals work for the company, but also people with whom you get along well.

Absolutely! I want to highlight the fact that when I joined Casino Guru and was here for the first three weeks, I was absolutely stunned by the kind of people I had the opportunity to work with. I feel that Casino Guru brought together the greatest professionals from every field – we really have the best programmers and the best designers I've ever worked with. There are so many experts that I honestly doubted my abilities at the beginning, asking myself 'Do I even have what it takes to be here?'. Luckily for me, my colleagues are incredibly friendly and supportive, and I can't imagine a better team of people.

Q: Since we are talking about your colleagues, you are going to expand the PR Team with another member, which will focus on the TikTok platform. What will Casino Guru look like on TikTok?

TikTok will be another piece in the mosaic that we are putting together as part of our responsible gambling and preventive campaign agenda. We will try to reach out to those who may not have as much knowledge about how gambling works, and we hope to reach audiences we haven't reached before. Again, as pioneers, we want to make content that is honest, educational and informative, so we plan to talk about problem gambling and all the topics we deal with throughout our entire communication. Of course, we will do it in a fun style to engage TikTok consumers directly.

Q: In addition to covering external communication, you also take care of internal communication. What do you enjoy more and what is the difference in PR from the outside and the inside?

In external communication, I think we can see our values ​​the most – fairness and responsibility in approach, which is what I found myself in. What I enjoy the most about internal communication is that I am in constant contact with my colleagues. Working in a globally operating company based in Europe, I can't quite arrange breakfast with someone from New York, sit down for coffee and brainstorm. But with my colleagues, I can.

This interview is part of Casino Guru Insiders, a series of interviews during which experts from Casino Guru share their unique workflow, reveal insider information, and offer an exclusive overview of experience-packed know-how.