Donna Benton is the founder and CEO of the Entertainer, a company that provides Buy One Get One Free incentives with very flexible terms – offers are valid seven days a week, all year round – for restaurants, activities, attractions, spas, hotels and more. The Entertainer was started in Dubai and now has 51 products in over 40 destinations throughout the Middle East, Africa, Europe and Asia, and is available as both printed books and mobile products. Originally from Melbourne, Donna came to Dubai with just $3000 to her name and launched the Entertainer in 2001 after she realised that there were many restaurants and attractions in Dubai, but no incentive to visit them, so she created a product that would benefit both merchant partner outlets and customers.
“…I believe that whether we earn millions or hundreds, customers always look for value for money. The global economic crisis just made people search for new ways to save more, and for the most part those who found the Entertainer back then have never left it, even after the global economy recovered…”
Donna, congratulations on the success of the Entertainer. For our readers who live outside your key markets, please can you tell us a bit more about the business and how it works?
Thank you! The Entertainer provides Buy One Get One Free offers for dining, leisure, entertainment, spas, beauty, wellness, fitness, hotel accommodation and more. Our offers are available as a printed book or a smartphone app. The Entertainer’s promise is unbeatable value everywhere we go, and we deliver that to our merchant partners by driving qualified footfall to their outlets and to our customers by offering them the most user-friendly offers to high quality merchants.
What is your career background?
Before launching the Entertainer I worked in marketing, events, and retail in Australia. I was quite young when I started the Entertainer – but because I had always worked while growing up I already had a good amount of work experience.
What gave you the idea for the Entertainer?
I came to Dubai for a job but it didn’t work out. One day, I was driving down Sheikh Zayed Road (Dubai’s main highway) and saw that there were a large number of restaurants but there was no incentive for customers to visit them. That’s when the idea for the Entertainer struck me – I wanted to connect these great merchants with customers who were looking for exciting experiences and value for money.
How does it feel to have built and scaled a global business, having started with just $3000 to your name?
It’s an amazing feeling! We’ve come a long way from when I started the Entertainer. In the beginning it was just one employee – and that was me. From getting merchants on board with the idea to getting the book published and printed, I worked alone the first year and even went door to door selling the printed books. I feel happy and proud of our achievements as a team and as a company. But we never stop dreaming! There’s a long way to go and we always have exciting new ideas to work with.
You seem to have struck a chord by realising that everybody loves good value for money, regardless of their income level. How have challenges in the global economy driven demand for products and services that offer good value for money?
I believe that whether we earn millions or hundreds, customers always look for value for money. The global economic crisis just made people search for new ways to save more, and for the most part those who found the Entertainer back then have never left it, even after the global economy recovered.
Do you notice differences in consumer tastes and behaviour across different markets?
Absolutely. In Asia, our customers are much more likely to eat out multiple times a week, and go on more frequent – though shorter – vacations abroad each year. In South Africa, our customers are more likely to eat out just once a week, and travel away from home for vacation far less frequently. And in the Middle East, where there are large families, we see many customers buying multiple products each year – because they can save that much more with our offers for dining and activities in particular.
How has social media and mobile technology affected your business?
In a big way! The biggest testament to that is the award-winning Entertainer App, which allows customers to redeem their offers directly from their smartphones. We came up with the Entertainer App because we could see that our customers were integrating mobile technology into their daily lives. We launched the App in 2013 and since then the number of customers using the App has just kept growing. We now have over 400,000 people who have downloaded the App and that figure grows every day.
Social media has also had a major effect on the Entertainer, especially with our App. Our users can immediately share their savings with their family and friends over Facebook or Twitter, and we have seen our social media platforms growing steadily; we had around 36,000 Facebook fans about 18 months ago, and now we have upwards of 400,000 fans.
In 2012 you took on external investment. How much of a difference has this made to your ability to grow and take up new opportunities?
In 2012 the Abraaj Group acquired a 50% share in the Entertainer. Their investment made it possible for us to inject more resources to grow internationally at a faster pace, essentially shrinking an eight-year growth plan down to three years. The investment also allowed us to transform our business from a publishing business to a data driven business, with all of our merchant, customer, and offer data together on one platform. The investment definitely fast-tracked our plans and helped us achieve some long-term goals much sooner than we had originally planned.
How many staff do you employ now and what were the most important qualities you look for when building your team?
We started out with one employee, just me, and now we have more than 150 employees internationally who have become part of the Entertainer family. The qualities I value most in my staff are a strong work ethic and passion for what they do. I believe that you should only do what you love doing, and that’s something I look for in my staff as well.
What are your future plans for the Entertainer?
There is a lot going on right now. We’re very excited to be coming out with our first bilingual products in 2015 – Cantonese and Arabic. In the near future we will also be rolling out a new mobile product. We have also signed on our first franchisee, in Malta. Additionally we are also focusing on a lot of white-label business as well as exploring new markets. 2015 will be a big year for us with a lot of ideas and projects in the pipeline. As we always say – with the Entertainer there’s always something to smile about!
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