Titan Poker announces shift in marketing focus

With the departure of their two very high-profile sponsored players, Sam Trickett and Marvin Rettenamier, one of the largest online poker rooms on the iPoker, Titan Poker, released a statement explaining their decision not to renew with Trickett and Rettenamaier, citing a shift in marketing focus.

The loss of Trickett and Rettenamaier at virtually the same time sent the rumor mill into full swing, with people wondering if it was a harbinger of things to come at the site, and whether or not Titan Poker was feeling the post-Black Friday pinch. On Friday Titan Poker decided to put an end to all of the rumors and speculation and released their first detailed explanation of why Trickett and Rettenamier are no longer a part of Team Titan Poker.

“Following a remarkable two year partnership with our Team Titan pros Sam Trickett and Marvin Rettenmaier, a mutual decision has been made to part ways.

“ From our side, we are pursuing a new branding strategy which moves away from focusing on a pro team and emphasizes our appeal to main stream and recreational poker players (see Titan Rewards and Titan Treasures).

“ Titan Poker wishes Sam Trickett and Marvin Rettenmaier continued success in their professional poker careers and would like to thank them both for a great run.”

The move follows the current industry trend that other sites like Bodog and PokerStars are also pursing; attracting more recreational players and moving the emphasis away from high-volume, high-stakes, players. It seems all three sites are going about this in different ways:

Bodog is content with signing attractive young female poker players to represent their brand, and has basically eliminated all data-mining at the site with the introduction of anonymous tables. Bodog is notoriously anti-grinders, and has never offered rakeback through mainstream sources. The site has been at the forefront of the charge to bring recreational players back to online poker for years.

PokerStars has been busy adding smaller stakes tournament series like the Micro Series of Online Poker Championships, as well as forcing all of the data-mining sites to “cease and desist” offering PokerStars statistics (Players must now “opt-in” to be tracked by these sites at PokerStars).

Titan appears to be attempting to achieve the same results, but through marketing and branding, instead of any particular innovation at their site. Although the site recently took part in the iPoker Network’s tournament series iPOPS, and has revamped their VIP Loyalty Program, giving players daily upgrades to their status, instead of waiting until the end of the month.

You can find out more regarding the new Titan Poker VIP Program by visiting the Titan Poker website