Welcome to the last “live” issue of IAG Breakfast Briefing for 2019. As has become tradition over the years, the IAG team takes a well-deserved break from tomorrow until the first Monday in the new year – in this case the new decade – with next year being the first year of the 2020s. During this time we will publish our holiday series every day, as we have for several years.
The 2019 year has, without question, been the biggest year for IAG since we were founded way back in 2005. Some of the highlights were:
- January 7: The launch of IAG Japan, with a monthly Japanese and English bilingual magazine, a daily Japanese language e-newsletter and our Japanese language website asgam.jp
- February 5 to 7: ICE in London
- February 13: Holding our IAG Japan launch party at the Hyatt Centric Ginza in Tokyo
- February 15: The launch of Macau After Dark (MAD), our quarterly industry social networking events rotating around various Macau nightspots
- May 1: After 154 issues of IAG over 14 years in English only, bilingual publishing in traditional Chinese and English began
- May 9: Our biggest web traffic day ever with 347,000 hits on our website, a 7,000% increase on our then normal traffic level – we’re now on track to receive around 3.3 million hits this year, not at all bad for a niche B2B industry media website
- May 21: The G2E Asia Awards at the Parisian Macao ballroom, co-organized by IAG and G2E Asia
- May 21 to 23: G2E Asia in Macau
- August 13 to 15: AGE in Sydney
- November 1: The 12th Asian Gaming Power 50 Black Tie Gala Dinner at the JW Marriott Ballroom in Macau
- November 27 to 29: SiGMA in Malta
- December 3 and 4: G2E Asia @ the Philippines including producing conference sessions and a Management Education Program for PAGCOR
During the year we’ve ventured forth from our home base of Macau to Cebu, Clark, Dubai, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hobart, Hokkaido, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Las Vegas, London, Malta, Melbourne, Osaka, Phnom Penh, Manila, Nagasaki, Seoul, Sihanoukville, Sydney, Taipei, Tokyo and probably a few other places I can’t remember in our relentless pursuit of the latest news on the Asian gaming industry.
We’ve written, edited and translated to publish in three languages well over 500,000 words over the course of the year – that’s the equivalent of writing a full feature length novel every two months – and publishing it in English, Chinese and Japanese!
But more important than any of this is the wonderful positive feedback we’ve received from our clients in 2019. Our clients have placed enormous faith in us, and we’ve bent over backwards to deliver on that trust by striving to make IAG the very best it can be, thus giving our clients the most exposure possible for their products.
This year no less than 72 companies placed their faith in us. This number was up exactly 50% on 2018, and the average investment by each of these companies in our products and services was up 52% on the equivalent number for 2018. I’m absolutely delighted that so many of our friends and colleagues in the industry have seen such value in working with IAG.
We could not have achieved this stellar growth without the tireless work of everyone on the IAG team. There are too many to name them all individually, but I will identify four who are worthy of special mention: our Managing Editor Ben Blaschke, our Director of Sales and Business Development Jadeson Ho, our Japan Senior Advisor Aki Isoi (without whom IAG Japan would never have got off the ground) and our Japan Editorial Coordinator Jenn Yamazaki (without whom IAG Japan would never have stayed above ground!) I would like to give them all a massive slap on the back for a job very well done.
Of course for any forward thinking company additional revenue means additional costs, as much of that revenue is ploughed right back in to acquire additional resources. It is one thing to generate more revenue from clients, but quite another to deliver the value clients rightfully expect as a result of their increased investment.
2020 will see IAG grow our team and grow our capabilities substantially. Many of you have noticed we’ve already hired Victoria Man as our new Director of Events and Projects, and she is just the first of around five or six new hires you can expect from IAG in the coming months. 2020 will be a massive industry-defining year for IRs in Japan, so you can expect our current team of seven in Japan to grow by as much as 50%. IAG also sees the Philippines as a key growth market, so expect big things from us there next year.
I wish each and every one of you and all your friends and families a very merry and joyful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Let’s all enjoy the break, recharge our batteries to maximum, and hit the ground running hard in January to make 2020 the best business year yet for all of our companies and the best personal year yet for all of us!
Ho Ho Ho!
Andrew
CEO, Inside Asian Gaming
