Drake all but confirmed that the viral video of him being pestered by a drone was a marketing campaign for Stake.
The latest gambling marketing campaign featuring the legendary US rapper went viral after many questioned whether it was even a stunt at all.
The video is filmed on a drone which circles Drake’s Sydney Penthouse, much to his apparent annoyance.
The drone disrupts Drake as he is engaged with an iGaming screen, which clearly becomes visible on his laptop as the drone pans out.
Mirroring a very specific genre of YouTube videos, the rapper then flimsily launches a slider at the drone in an attempt to accelerate its departure.
Later in the day, following the online surge of the video, Drake posted on Instagram a still image of him launching the slider, alongside a picture wearing a Stake branded shirt. He also captioned the video: “The Stakes are high, but so am I.”
The clip has garnered millions of views across multiple social networks sites, fuelling speculation that it is a campaign from one of Drake’s partners.
It could certainly fit in with the guerilla marketing strategy of Stake, which has embarked on an aggressive social media marketing campaign to elevate brand exposure as much as possible.
The firm’s branding was featured on a plethora of engaging social media videos in a bid to go viral, attaching its name to sports videos and bitesize clips viewed by millions.
The wider campaign did, however, land Stake in hot water after one of the videos featuring adult film star Bonnie Blue caused the operator’s departure from the regulated UK market.
The video, which was filmed outside Nottingham Trent University, prompted an investigation from the UK Gambling Commission.
Off the back of the investigation, Stake has been forced to withdraw from the UK market after TGP Europe Limited (TGP), which operates its UK site as part of a white-label arrangement, confirmed it will be shutting the domain down.
TGP told the Commission that it will immediately stop accepting new registrations to the Stake.uk.com platform and remove redirection links from the main Stake website, with the final shutdown of the Great Britain site completed by 11 March 2025.
Furthermore, the campaign also caught the attention of the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which is maintaining “a watching brief” on the increasing prevalence of the ‘Stake’ watermark.
