GR8 Tech x Marketing Decoded: winning on creativity in a saturated B2B market

• Marketing Decoded debuts at ICE Barcelona 2026, featuring seven CMOs and marketing leaders from major B2B iGaming providers.
• In this episode, Yaroslava Romaniv, Head of Marketing and PR at GR8 Tech, discusses entering a saturated market with creativity-first strategy, building the Champions Club brand platform, and why the AI buzzword needs to go away.
• Series presented by Excellent Expo, produced by iGaming Real Talk and iGaming Republic, focusing on actionable marketing insights.

A new interview series spotlighting iGaming’s marketing leaders has launched from ICE Barcelona 2026. Marketing Decoded brings together seven Chief Marketing Officers and heads of marketing from leading B2B providers to share the strategies behind their brands’ success.

This episode features Yaroslava Romaniv, Head of Marketing and PR at GR8 Tech, who reveals how a brand launched just three years ago carved out market share in one of the most competitive segments of B2B iGaming by betting on creativity, omnichannel execution, and a brand platform built around making champions, not claiming to be one.

GR8 Tech is a sportsbook and casino platform provider that entered the B2B market in 2023. In just three years, the company has become one of the most recognizable brands in the space through consistent creative campaigns, strategic partnerships, and a sports-first identity that runs through everything from messaging to visual identity to event activations.

Entering a saturated market

When GR8 Tech launched its B2B brand three years ago, the market was already crowded with established players. Competing on product features alone was not an option. The company needed a different approach.

“When we entered with our B2B brand three years ago, the market was so saturated and established. In order to grab market share, we just had to be different. This is something we were cultivating in our marketing strategy from day one,” Yaroslava explained during the interview.

The strategy GR8 Tech adopted came down to two core pillars: win on creativity and win on omnichannel execution. These were not abstract goals. They were tactical decisions about where the company would compete and how it would show up differently than everyone else.

“The core idea is that the strategy we adopted was to win on creativity, win on omnichannel strategy. These are the underlying pillars we were using. Combined with the efforts of our team, this resulted in quite good results”.

The proof came quickly. In year one, the goal was simple brand awareness. By year three, GR8 Tech shifted to more ambitious objectives, confident that the market now knew who they were.

“For the first year, we just wanted everyone to know the brand. Now we have more ambitious goals to cover,” Yaroslava said.

Champions Club, from Usyk partnership to brand platform

GR8 Tech’s most recognizable campaign is Champions Club, a brand platform that appears consistently across events, digital channels, and messaging. The concept did not emerge from a branding workshop. It evolved from a partnership.

“With our Champions Club, we basically came up as a result of our partnership with Ready to Fight by Alexander Usyk. That was the inspiration part for us,” Yaroslava explained.

The Usyk partnership gave GR8 Tech a sports credibility anchor. But the Champions Club concept went deeper than athlete endorsement. It positioned the platform itself as the place where champions are made, not where champions claim victory.

“The idea is that we are the platform that helps operators grow, that provides insights. We see champions in the making. We’re saying we are the champions. We create champions.”

This distinction matters. Rather than positioning GR8 Tech as the winner, the brand positions its clients as the winners, with the platform as the training ground. It is a partnership-oriented message wrapped in sports metaphor.

The concept connects to GR8 Tech’s educational efforts as well. At ICE Barcelona 2026, the company featured Acceler8 Lab, an educational hub designed to share platform insights with operators. The Champions Club framing ties product, content, and brand together under one coherent story.

Concept first, execution second

For Yaroslava, building effective marketing campaigns starts with getting the concept right before touching execution. Too many campaigns fail because they skip this step.

“When it comes to marketing campaigns, the first thing you have to concentrate on is building the concept itself. It has to resonate with the audience, it has a storytelling part, and it should stand out from what competitors are doing,” she noted.

Once the concept is solid, execution follows through omnichannel distribution. But without a strong concept, even perfect execution will not cut through.

GR8 Tech applies this thinking across all campaign work. The Champions Club concept resonates because it taps into something operators already want: growth, competitive advantage, winning. The sports metaphor makes it tangible. The Usyk partnership makes it credible. The educational content makes it useful.

“We have done a lot of research to understand how we can calibrate what we do. The Champions Club is the quintessence of that.”

Bet It Drives, unfiltered conversations on the road

GR8 Tech’s commitment to bold, authentic content extends beyond traditional marketing channels. The company produces Bet It Drives, a podcast hosted by Yevhen Krazhan, Chief Sales Officer at GR8 Tech, that takes iGaming leaders on rides through cities around the world to discuss the topics most people avoid.

The show is described as “your front seat in the iGaming world,” featuring rolling conversations that move from quick laughs to hard truths, mixed with quickfire games, confessions, and yes, even some singing. It is the opposite of sanitized corporate content.

Season 4 premiered at ICE Barcelona 2026 with an episode featuring Cedomir Tomic, Founder of Alea, and Oleksandr Feshchenko, CEO of GR8 Tech, riding through rainy Barcelona to tackle uncomfortable industry truths: what awards really prove, whether big expo booths are worth it, where marketing money actually goes, how regulation can fuel grey markets, and whether a CEO can be highly visible and highly effective.

One of the episode’s most quoted lines came from their booth debate:

“If the booth is big, that’s growth. If the booth is very opulent, that’s ego.”

The podcast format aligns perfectly with GR8 Tech’s brand positioning. It creates a space for industry leaders to share unfiltered perspectives, uncomfortable truths, and behind-the-scenes realities that rarely surface in panel discussions or press releases.

Tailoring event strategy by audience

GR8 Tech exhibits at numerous industry events each year, but the company does not use a one-size-fits-all approach. Each event gets a tailored strategy based on the audience and the company’s objectives.

“We basically alter our strategy according to this or that conference. What is important is that we calculate everything we do,” Yaroslava explained.

ICE Barcelona is one of the company’s flagship events for the year, which means GR8 Tech invested in a more comprehensive activation strategy. The stand included multiple zones: demo areas for product showcases, activation spaces for engagement, and the Accelerate Lab lecture space for educational sessions.

“For ICE, it’s one of the central conferences this year. We want to bring a diverse approach in terms of activations, zones, and content. This is to basically grasp as new an audience as possible,” she said.

Other events get different treatment depending on audience composition and strategic importance. The goal is always the same: match the activation to the context rather than rolling out the same booth everywhere.

Legendary platform, now in crypto

At ICE Barcelona 2026, GR8 Tech showcased a new crypto turnkey solution, extending the platform into cryptocurrency operations. The messaging remained consistent with the broader brand: “Legendary platform, now in crypto.”

“We have a new solution which is a crypto turnkey solution. One of the slogans that we have is legendary platform, now in crypto. This is somewhere GR8 Tech will concentrate,” Yaroslava revealed.

The crypto launch reflects GR8 Tech’s pattern of aligning new product lines with existing brand language. Whether the focus is sports, casino, or crypto, the messaging stays rooted in the same champions-focused, performance-driven identity.

Brand vs performance

GR8 Tech does not choose between brand building and performance marketing. The company runs both in parallel, recognizing that each serves different objectives and timelines.

Yaroslava emphasized that frequency and consistency of messaging matter just as much as campaign creativity. Getting noticed once is not enough. Staying top of mind requires sustained presence across channels.

“Frequency of communication and the messages are super important. Finding this trade-off is the biggest challenge every marketer is facing, and in GR8 Tech as well. This is how we work,” she said.

Performance campaigns complement the brand work. GR8 Tech runs quick, animated ads across platforms like Facebook, designed to drive direct engagement and fill the funnel at different stages.

“Building the proper performance funnel is also a challenge because it’s not straightforward anymore. You need to tackle different levels of the pipeline.”

The challenge is compounded by B2B sales cycles. Filling a form does not mean a prospect is ready to buy. Feedback on campaign effectiveness takes time to surface, which requires patience and long-term tracking.

“The thing is that when you receive feedback on this or that campaign, it takes lots of time. But that’s what I like about it. This is the specifics of B2B. Being a B2B marketer, I like it,” she said.

Marketing Decoded is presented by Excellent Expo and produced by iGaming Real Talk in collaboration with iGaming Republic. The complete series features six additional episodes with marketing leaders from: Elen Atanesyan (18Peaches), Märit von Stedingk (Alea), Valentina Bagniya (SOFTSWISS), James Bennett (EveryMatrix), Tereza Melicharkova (Elantil), and Irina Veselkova (Endorphina).

Watch the previous episodes now:

• Alea x Marketing Decoded
• Endorphina x Marketing Decoded
• 18 Peaches x Marketing Decoded
• EveryMatrix x Marketing Decoded