Letters to the Editor

(Re: Loose Cannon: One Casino Would Rather Switch Than Fight, Direct Newsline, Monday, June 09, 2008):

Is this a puff piece or what?

David Newman
Bizcom
Eugene, Oregon

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Very amusing tale of an idiot's approach to Marketing 101.

Years ago I was in the hotel/casino advertising world in Nevada, serving Reno, Tahoe, and Las Vegas. This was at a time when we would be doing amazing die-cut, pop-up, foiled, flocked and assembled high roller "invitations" with a unit costs of $35-$75 -- in the1970s-1980s. It was also before corporate mindset and Indian gambling unleashed cheap-ass grind operations as the norm.

A casino list was so guarded that even the hint of misuse would be hell! Mass mailings were well thought out. Marketing direct mail was the art of making the most appealing message that "THIS was the event/place to be".

We had a craps tournament [piece] with screen-printed flocked tip-ins that had pop-up dice with event info printed on them, multi-level pop-ups of Rick's Cafe, animated boxers, skylines, "theaters" with entertainers, party scenes with expanding top hats and gorgeous photography and illustration. It was truly a great time for high-end printing.

Actually this was before the slot/players club card days. It. wasn't until the 80s that John Boushy, VP at Harrah's, "invented" the trackable player card concept! (He spearheaded the effort and spent LOTS creating a MARKETING driven database system to gather information to track play, restaurant visit etc., and used that to make the Harrah's Card work on several levels: He was visionary regarding spending money to gather data for marketing profiles which became the player segmented listings, player upgrading, comp criteria and real customer ID.)

I recall, one time, the total amazement at the discovery that several huge players were low-end slot players generating more for the bottom line than "whales" [high-stakes gamblers] without the massive swings these "whales" create with winning…

Up 'til then, the closest thing [to a player’s club] was, in the early 70s, a program called "Sierra Sid's 555" Club, which registered you and earned discount buffet, dinners and gas (the good old days!) but had no ability to track action. It was a "blind list" for their "newsletter" -- casino advertising was restricted in Nevada -- but it was a not tractable data.

Now the casinos have marketing managers who don't understand the gambling market and are traveling on the boom. So I expect as times get harder, more bonehead promotions will happen. The greatest asset they have is their own players and identifying feeder markets to direct market. The rest is a waste of effort and will result in stupid things like "un-clean" lists use and wasted target markets with give ALL of us a black eye. Additionally, the bottom liners can point to cutting DM as an expense, rather than a investment in their brand.

You are right, the "baby-bath" solution will fail in the long run and hurts us all. It becomes a "see, that s**t don't work" reply to shut down real creative solutions to the problem of falling revenue. Sad to see.

Larry Quintana
Messina Group
Modesto, CA

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Phil Claiborne,
Bingo committee member
Milwaukee, WI Elks Lodge No. 46