It seems that the marketing gurus at PokerStars have opened the company coffers to give Power Up a push. This weekend, my fiancé gave me nudge in the ribs while I was trying to sleep. Normally this wouldn’t be newsworthy, except for the reason why she did it.

For once, it wasn’t my fault. She had been using an app on her tablet, and up popped an advert for Power Up. The advert was in a video format and was a push for the promotion we covered last week where new UK players were being offered 5 free tastes tickets for $0.25 Power Up games.

The video seems to be aimed at lapsed poker players as it talks about “What if” moments that only someone experienced with the game of Hold’em would understand. While my lovely partner has a few poker applications on her tablet (more to do with me borrowing it than any interest on her part), I’m not sure she really falls into the target demographic for Power Up. Especially as she was playing on a jigsaw application when the advert popped up. It probably has more to do with the Google advert targeting setup than anything on PokerStars side, but she did see the same advert 5 times over the next hour.

While lapsed poker players are a good demographic to target Power Up at, I’d love to see a push towards Hearthstone players, as I think offering a real money game that aligns this closely to the game they already love would have a good return on the invested time and budget. Maybe a program of advertising on Twitch streams and YouTube videos would be a good idea, especially if it opens the game up to new players from poker adjacent demographics, such as the aforementioned Hearthstone, as well as Gwent and Magic: The Gathering.

Who do you think PokerStars should be trying to get to play the game? Let us know in the comments below, or by joining our Discord channel.