Gala Coral Group : Letting itself down

Erratic presentation of contacts contradicts a central message.

The Site

Gala Coral, a UK-based gambling group, allows slips in content management to weaken a key message.

Gala Coral reinforces its claim to act responsibly and legally across its site. This is immediately apparent in the inclusion of a Regulatory section in the primary navigation as well as a separate Corporate Responsibility section. The latter consists of a two-paragraph values-led introduction to a download index for the group’s annual corporate responsibility reports, which are in PDF. A third paragraph invites anyone with questions to “please contact the Group Corporate Responsibility Manager for further details”. There are, however, no contact details for the manager, either on the page or in the site’s Contacts directory.

The Regulatory page has a five-paragraph overview above a ‘for more information’ contact that gives a name and personalised e-mail address, which opens a form in the user’s client, for the group’s compliance and licensing director. This replicates the arrangement on the annual reports download page (in the Corporate and Financial section) for the chief financial officer.

The Takeaway

Gala Coral is rightly mindful that as a company making its money from enabling people to gamble it needs to signal a clear and high-level commitment to conducting itself responsibly and within the law. It’s hardly a high-roller in terms of the amount it puts on its site, but even within its own limited strategy it seems to be needlessly stacking the odds against itself. Inviting people to contact the corporate responsibility manager with their concerns while taking no steps to make that possible adds a hollow ring of insincerity to the sentiment.

Inconsistent content management rather than any collective decision to give senior managers a low profile – or ignorance of the online options – looks to be at the root of the issue. If the chief financial officer and the compliance and licensing director can be named and direct e-mail contacts be provided for them (a relative rarity), why not the corporate responsibility manager? The information is published elsewhere – a name and full contact details can be found on the inside back cover of the report PDF – so not using it here seems a touch irresponsible.

First published on 23 February, 2010