Facts alone are cold; use a personal touch

      October 21 2006:      When you're writing to casino customers and trying to persuade them to visit your store, does it take anything more than just the offer to get results? Get set for a long and involved answer. First, offer alone might be good enough if that's all you wanted to accomplish with your mail. But with an opportunity to talk one-to-one with a customer, why stop there? Would you tell your convention sales people, for example, to present "just the facts" when selling? They'd revolt. Sales people make friends, establish themselves as honest and dependable and truly concerned about making your meeting the best ever--and the sale is half made.Letters can speak with the same warm and personal tone, and they can reach thousands in one mailing. But what makes the personal letter work? To start, it reads like I'm writing now. It's short on adjectives and long on benefits. It uses contractions, which is the way we all speak. It's written first person. It favors "talking" over"writing" and in doing so wipes away the stale claims and unimaginative verbiage that infests too much of casino mail. And finally, it often makes you smile at statements you never expected to hear from a casino.There's much more, of course, but I'll cover it in a future piece.

Art directors on top; coupons long gone

      October 12 2006:      Seen any coupons in casino advertising lately? Nope, the coupon is long gone, even though studies show that ads with coupons draw more readers than ads without them. A coupon tells the prospect that you have something to offer her and that she can get it with a phone call. For years most advertising companies understood that and took advantage of it. But that was before art directors, not writers, became the favored creative force in the ad business. Notice I said "favored," which in no way should be construed to mean "best." Many art directors hate words because they clutter up the page. That's why they make design elements out of them. But coupons they really hate. They're offended by anything that gets in the way of their design or that tries tries to sell anything. The latter is what coupons do best. But never mind. The design is king. You'd think art directors would have at least a nodding acquaintance with reading comprehension. But no. Hard-to-read sans serif type, reverse outs and weird combinations of yellow copy on magenta rule the day. The art director is king. Too bad. Maybe it's just a cycle we're going through. Or sun spots. Or pole shift.

Tables need Win Cards more than ever now

      October 1 2006:      Ted Gottlieb phoned the other day to remind me that we used to meet once a month for breakfast in the Bistro of the old Sahara-Tahoe at Lake Tahoe. The topic was always the same--Ted' s driving desire to increase casino BJ play by the simple act of educating the players (he was a dealer at the time for Sahara-Tahoe). The players at his table, he told me, would stick around longer if someone taught them the damn game. One day he brandished a prototype of a handsome teaching aid he named the "Win Card." A turn of the dial, among other things, told the player when to stand or ask for a hit. I told him I liked the idea but convincing casinos to educate their players might be a tough sell . "I'm persistent," he said, smiling. He sure was. Last month, "Win Cards",turned 20 years old. Says Gottlieb, who has installed his invention in more than 165 casinos, "I hoped to provide an industry standard for teaching players the games. The future of tables demands it. Win Cards should be cross marketed to slot players, for example. Poker proved that card games are still popular, but we have to educate the players first."

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Oyster slurping? It's on the menu at G2E in Vegas

      September 22 2006:       I'm speaking on a direct mail panel at G2E in Las Vegas on Nov. 13. After that I'll wander though the exhibits to see some old friends. Then, Shazam! It's off to the Food & Beverage displays in another part of the hall. Heck, I still have stuff I picked up at last year's F&B show, including a bottle of instant hand cleaner. My pal Larry Close dragged me into the F&B show and once inside my eyes widened. Never saw so much food--and everyone wanted to give us a sample (we took them). We sipped wine (I forget how many kinds), sampled new drinks, and even watched pastry chefs compete for a title. I'd guess we saw about 50 or 60 booths. This year there are 120. They include cooking demonstrations, wine tasting, cocktail demonstrations, a uniform fashion show, Neon Chefs Culinary Competition, and something named the Mohegan Sun Oyster Open featuring the Oyster Virgin Sacrifice Slurping Competition. I'm not to sure how close I'll get to an oyster slurping match, but I'll be there. You can bet on it.

Bye-bye slot machines, hello to the AUGDs

      September 12 2006:      That was a neat piece of work by Patrick Leen and Tom Nelson in the August issue of Casino Enterprise Management magazine. The two former Michigan gaming regulators seek the demise of the term, "slot machine." They write, "Despite a quarter century of technological advances that have morphed low stakes, coin-operated mechanical devices into large jackpot, computer driven cashless systems, many cling to a belief in the archetypal slot machine." Of course, they have a point. But it reminds me of the guy who said, "Everyone complains about the weather but nobody ever does anything about it." I mean, if Pat and Tom want a change in terminology maybe they should start a contest to rename the, uh, unknown objects that stand around by the thousands in the big joints. They actually had a ghost of a new name in their fourth paragraph when they referred to those, uh, unknown objects as "automated gaming devices." That's not bad. We could call them AUGDs for short, pronounced, "Aw, God." (All right, wise guy, suppose YOU try.)

Turning bathrooms into profit centers

      September 1 2006:      Chief Marketer, an online Prism Business Media property, publishes a feature named "Choice Links of the Week." Included in the Aug. 22, edition were links to stories on advertising that make you wonder just what in hell is happening to the profession. Play-Doh is experimenting with aromas, including a "limited edition" of Eau de Play-Doh. The Starwood Hotels are working on "olfactory branding." And a US company has announced a patented system to print ads on grocery store conveyer belts. A friend of mine, Nate Ortiz, came up with that same idea in 1999. Did he patent it? Not sure, but I do know that Safeway turned him down. Meanwhile, the Brits have clinched the no-class award with ads on the mirrors of public bathrooms. Little do they know that Danish comedian Victor Borge came up with a much better idea to turn the bathroom into a profit center. On stage at the Las Vegas Sahara in the 80s, Borge joked, "I had to use the toilet here last night, and it took three cherries to get in." Pause. "And three oranges to get out."

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Word genius Ogilvy didn't know grammar

      August 24 2006:      The late David Ogilvy has always been a favorite of mine. If you're a direct marketer you have to love the guy "Send us your copywriters," he once told general ad agencies. "We will each them how to sell." Ogilvy wrote wonderful copy that sold everything from Hathaway shirts to Rolls Royces, and this is how he explained it: "I don't know the rules of grammar. If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in the vernacular." See, that's what I mean about Ogilvy. The guy was a maverick. He wrote copy, he wrote books, he gave the best speeches on direct marketing I've ever heard, and he didn't worship the celebrated "creatives" of Madison Avenue. "In the modern world of business," Ogilvy said, "it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create." And for ads that didn't fit his standards, he had a particularly icy put-down: "Some manufacturers illustrate their advertisements with abstract paintings. I would only do this if I wished to conceal from the reader what I was advertising." You were so right, Mr. Ogilvy. R.I.P.

The do-not-call list now at 107 million

      August 13 2006:      In October, the population of the United States will reach the 300 million mark, highest ever. But what's just as remarkable is that more than 107 million persons have signed up for the national do-not-call registry. Melissa Campanelli of DM News reports that Americans have "embraced" the registry. The rush of signups hit 10 million in the first four days after the registry's launch on June 27, 2003, Campanelli writes. By Sept. 30, nearly 52 million had joined and the numbers have crept steadily higher ever since. To look at it another way, the 107 million represents 76% of US adults. The FTC apparently was delighted because it received "just" 1.2 million complaints in 2005, indicating "a high degree of compliance" by the telemarketing industry. I pass these figures on because major casinos do a ton of telemarketing, and if more than three fourths of adults hate to be called, it should give you pause. Maybe you don 't have a problem. But it wouldn't hurt to review the rules and regulations your people use on the telephone, then check when they call and how often they call. Just a thought.

Romero comments on the Romeros

      August 1 2006:      The second annual Romero Awards for casino marketing were handed out on July 20, at the conclusion of Casino Marketing the 2006 National Conference, at Paris las Vegas. And once again your faithful reporter was honored to be part of the process. It's still a bit strange to see my name on an award and to hear my work extolled in such fancy phrases. One gentleman, on stage to pick up his winning submission, said, "It's an honor to meet you." That impressed me, because I don't think I'm anyone special. But I certainly was obsessed with the idea that advertising should be measurable and accountable (the basis on which the Romeros are judged). In the beginning of my casino marketing career in 1960 at Del Webb's Sahara Las Vegas, it worried me that I committed company ad money without knowing exactly what it accomplished. By the second year I started to find out--and some of the results dismayed me. About that time I did my first large mailing, and measured expenditures against results. What a revelation! After that, I was sold on direct marketing--and I pushed he industry to adopt it at the expense of general advertising if necessary. When I began to write my marketing column in IGWB in 1985, I wrote that I still didn't know of a single casino with a direct marketing department. I pounded away at that theme for the next 20 years. Well, you know what happened. If I have a legacy, it's the swing to database marketing.

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Don't discount friendship; it's a key marketing tool

      July 24 2006:      Why, when your casino doesn't have all the jazz and perks of your competition, do your regular players keep coming back? There are several reasons, of course, not the least of which is what syndicated columnist Harvey MacKay calls "Likability." MacKay believes that people buy from people they like--and while it may sound simplistic, it's not. The plain fact is, your key people are (as MacKay says) genuine, pleasant, sincere, easy to talk with and friendly. Those kinds of people not only draw customers from the competition--they hold them as well. In a recent column MacKay quotes Lee Iacocca, who said, "Anyone who doesn't get along with people has earned the kiss of death...because all we've got around here are people." As a newcomer in the casino business in the early 60s, I worked for the late Herb McDonald at the Sahara in Las Vegas. The guy was a genius at making friends. I saw him in action enough times to know that being interested in other people (in this case our customers) was worth millions to our casino. I've been a believer ever since.

Forget those keywords; search by using images

      July 12 2006:      An article by Gary Stix in the current Scientific American magazine could signal the beginning of the end for the way we search the Internet. And when changes in the Internet are about to happen, my casino marketing genes always kick in. Stix names his story, "A Farewell to Keywords," and makes the point that "content-based image retrieval"(using images to search for images) is surging due to "Intriguing advances that sidestep the need for keywords." Microsoft Research, says Stix, has already identified a list of uses for Web-enabled camera phones. For example, a prospect in a department store could photograph a stove and relay the image as a file to a server that shoots back a Web page from Consumer Reports. A Microsoft spokesman says the company wants to assemble a database of billions of images captured by a search engine--and be able to retrieve them in a fraction of a second. Google is in the act, too, but rarely if ever comments on future plans. So what say you, casino marketers? Can you find a use for the new technique. I came up with a couple just writing this--which means you should have no problem.

Play with casino money;Survey: 52.8 million of us
gambled in the past year

      July 1 2006:      A household income of $95,000 a year doesn't mean the family is set for life, but it certainly allows for enough discretionary cash to hit the slots and tables. And as the latest Harrah's gaming survey shows, casino visitation was highest among adults with a 95-Grand income (31%, to be exact). Harrah's calls its survey "Profile of the American Gambler," and every casino should write the company a thank-you note. Some of the findings were lower than popular perceptions I've seen in the public prints. Seems that 52.8 million Americans age 21 or older (25 % of the US population) visited a casino to gamble at least once during a year. I've read estimates up to 90%. It's popularly reasoned that the North East region of the nation produces the most gamblers. But the North East had 28% versus 33% for the West. In the introduction to my first book, Casino Marketing, I said the industry was "...outrunning its memories,"and that it was "...in the stretch and sprinting hard to take over America." I wrote that in 1994. Close, but just a touch exuberant.

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Play with casino money;Casino creatives nailed;
John on the warpath

      June 24 2006:      Bob Bly, the most prolific "how to" writer in the history of direct marketing (more than 60 books) and a super-smart guy, says his chosen field "isn't what is used to be." in DM News, Bob blames mediocre creative, clutter and credibility. I don't know about the rest of the businesses out there, but I can tell you what's wrong with casino direct mail. To start, most copywriters in our business are a mass of clichés and worn out words. It's not uncommon to find "exciting" four and five times in one letter, as if it were mandatory. And I'm beginning to see "hopefully" creep in as well. I didn't think a single writer would ever use it to mean, "I hope," after the famous Strunk and White putdown ("To say 'Hopefully, I'll leave on the noon plane' is a to speak nonsense."). Then there are a few more problems with casino creative, starting with a lack of selling skills, no understanding of reading comprehension, body copy set in stupid sans serif type faces, no idea of proper paragraph length and ignorance of the value of lead sentences, final sentences and the P.S. No! Stand back! Don't try to stop me. I'm just warming up. Could be another book coming.

Play with casino money;The global Internet:
694,000,000 a month

      June 12 2006:      An outfit named comScore World Metrix says that 694,000,000 persons used the Internet in March, 2006. DM News says it's the first estimate of global online audience size, and that the number represents 14 percent of the world population, age 15 and older. While most print media continue to lose circulation, the Internet is in full charge and about to make good on the claims made for it in the mid 90s. My slot genius pal Gary Harris predicted the surge 10 years ago, but he was just a bit early. Now he's dead on. Peter Daboll, CEO of comScore Media Metrix, says 10 years ago the online audience in the US accounted for two-thirds of the global audience. Now we represent less than 25 percent. The major Asian countries (China, Japan, India and South Korea) have about 168 million users. The US has about 152 million. More stunners: Israel leads the top 15 countries ranked by average hours online per visitor. The US failed to rank in the top 15. Finally,Yahoo led all global properties in page views with 137.2 billion in March, followed by Google with 108.7 billion. Anyone doubt the Net now?

Play with casino money;
better odds than Vegas

      June 1 2006:      It came in a window envelope, 9 1/2" wide and 5 3/4" deep, without a word of copy on either side. And when you picked it up you felt something solid inside. A CD, maybe. The indicia announced it was presorted, US postage paid, from Elaine, WA. Uh, oh. Must be foreign stuff. So I opened it and found a one-page letter I could have written myself--and a CD. The second paragraph started with the word "Imagine." The short copy included terms such as "risk-free," and the writer announced she (maybe he) didn't want to use "a penny of your money." Hey, these people have been reading my mail!. All I had to do was "pop" the CD into my computer and start playing with $500 of the casino's money. A blurb on the back of the CD-holder read "Enjoy better odds than you would find in Las Vegas." Under that were phone numbers in the UK, Denmark, Israel, Canada--even the USA. As you've guessed by now, it was a lead generator for an online casino (Casino Classic). Did I pop the CD into my computer? Hell, no. How do I know what they built into it? And it didn't say it was Mac friendly. Maybe it works in Israel. Not in the Rockies. Sorry.

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We're gambling more!
Did you realize that?

      May 22 2006:      Americans are gambling more than ever. Wow! Such thrilling news a 10-year study at the Scripps Research Center at Ohio University has turned up. I never would have guessed. Hold it a second: I've got to sit down and catch my breath. Now, I imagine this story got good play in the public prints when it broke recently, but it comes under the heading of duh. I mean, what happened in the last 10 years? Did the number of casinos decline? Did Native Americans decide it was a losing proposition and pull out? Of course not. It's been a free-for-all to see who can open the most joints. Hundreds of thousands of new slots were built; live Poker went crazy; players have been throwing money at the games in record numbers. But apparently we needed a research outfit to make it official. I've always maintained that you could take any good slot manager or pit supervisor, feed them all the questions on your survey and take the results to the bank. No one has ever proven me wrong.

Tracking viral ads:
But do they sell?

      May 11 2006:      As you know, I'm not a fan of advertising that can't be measured for effectiveness. So when "Viral marketing" (word of mouth) aimed at young people and the entertainment business surfaced a few years ago I yawned and rolled my eyes. Just a bunch of nutty creative junk that will add up to zero. Now comes Anne Holland, president of the research firm MarketingSherpa, who felt pretty much the same way until she judged the "Viral Marketing Hall of Fame" contest this year. She found that some tiny, unknown shop wrote a special rap song for techies, then sold it to SAP Japan, which counted more than 20,000 downloads. Another team of marketers with a $1,000 budget launched a campaign that "Swept the blogsphere," says Anne. Then along came AT&T with its "Virtual forest" campaign to encourage E-billings. If you sign up you get to plant your own virtual tree--and watch it grow. Silly, right? But more than 500,000 customers responded. Bottom line: word of mouth ads, if you can get them started, can help build wareness. But do viral ads actually sell anything?.

Authenticate E-mail now;
Check these 3 methods

      May 1 2006:      Attention casino marketers: DM News warns E-mail marketers to "Authenticate now!" And Microsoft has released new information showing that Sender ID has improved open and delivery dates. At last the business is serious about derailing what DM News calls, "Spam, fraud, phishing and ID theft." About time. There are three main methods used to authenticate E-mail and stop spam, starting with SPF (Sender Policy Framework). Chris Beers, writing for Information Week, says SPF records are specially crafted Domain Name System text records that let your E-mail servers share information with other E-mail servers on the Internet. A second method is Sender ID, which checks the "From" addresses. A third method is DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail Validates) that requires both outbound and inbound DKIM-aware E-mail servers and will add overhead to E-mail processing. Beers says that SPF is winning the early battle as the industry standard among the three sender-authentication methods. And he adds, "Anything that trips up spammers is progress." True.

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Translators attention:
Take a shot at this

      April 21 2006:      For several years in my marketing columns in IGWB magazine I wrote an annual piece named "Translations From the Upper Casino Management." I maintained that when casino corporations became big deals on Wall Street, the bosses adopted the convoluted language of big ad agency creative directors, baffling their subordinates. I'd comb all the marketing magazines for the most perplexing paragraphs I could find. Then I'd attribute them to a casino boss speaking to the stockholders and translate them in the following paragraph, named, "What he meant." In that paragraph he was the old boss--speaking the tough language of a guy who has to make forecast each month. The other day in an online newsletter I came across the following paragraph: "Creative is the idea vs. the execution It starts with a solid idea that lives in the heart of the brand. It doesn't have to merely look like the brand. It has to feel like it came from the soul of the brand. That doesn't come from a graphics manual. It comes from knowing your brand." Say what? If you want to take a shot at translation, send it to me at romeromkt@aol.com.

Buckley's annual letter
is a direct mail classic

      April 10 2006:      As a subscriber to National Review, I have the pleonastic pleasure each year of receiving an (almost) personal letter from William F. Buckley Jr., founder of the magazine. It is direct mail as only Mr. Buckley can write and I have kept every one (they are set always in the Courier type face that was standard for most typewriters until they were vanquished by computers). His letters thank the subscribers and ask for a donation from $100 to $1,000. "In my farewell address last Fall," he recites in this year's letter, "I made one jocular point. Our cumulative losses, over fifty years, I estimated at roughly $25 million. I said then that our loyal and generous readers have conveyed to us, every year, just about exactly what we needed." His letters violate every rule of direct mail. The latest starts, "It came--and went! Our 50th anniversary." There are no benefits there, no promises and nothing at all to compel the subscriber to read another word--except Mr. Buckley's almighty persona. For writers, each of Mr. Buckley's letters is a classic in persuasion. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Bandleader Jack Eglash:
One droll cat passes on

      April 1 2006:      The old Sahara crowd dwindles. From the 50s through the 70s they were the sharpest, most inventive team on the Strip in Las Vegas. They helped make casino marketing what it is today. Now another has passed on. Jack Eglash, the Sahara musical conductor, died on Feb. 11. Jack was one droll cat, and he played for some of the best comedic minds in the business, including Buddy Hackett, Don Rickles, Dave Barry, Sid Caesar, Victor Borge, Johnny Carson and all the others, night after night. Everyone who worked at the Sahara during those 30 marvelous years remembers Jack, and when he died, his son, Ryan, carried on in the best Eglash tradition. He organized a tribute to his father and presented it on March 26, at the Las Vegas Country Club. He named the tribute, "Blame the Band, adapted from the book and a lifetime of excellence, starring Jack Eglash." (Now there's a title that sounds like Jack wrote it himself.) Ryan reached out to the old Sahara crowd for remembrances and the guys responded with enough comments to fill three hours. I was proud to be a part of that Sahara gang and to have known and worked with Jack Eglash--the best bandleader of his time. R.I.P.

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Diabetes can't conquer
this tough Olympian

      March 22 2006:      Do you remember Kris Freeman from the Winter Olympics? He's the best American cross country skier, but unfortunately failed to medal. Here's his story anyway, one that would make any of us proud: In 2001, during a routine medical checkup, the doctors told him he had Type 1 diabetes. Here's a guy who won the US junior championship at 15 and had worked himself up to a world ranking, and they tell him his ski career has ended. Although Type 1 diabetes can be very nasty, Freeman refused to give up. He trained harder than ever. A few months later he made the 2002 US Olympic team, and finished 22nd in the Olympic 15K race. He won the world Under-23 champion ship in 2003, finished fourth at the world championship the same year, and finished fifth and sixth in a pair of World Cup races last year. And he'll be chasing Gold at Vancouver in 2010. So why did I tell this story? Our youngest son developed Type 1 diabetes at age 27, but he also refused to give in. Troy was a marvelous wrestler, football player and body builder, and like Freeman, now monitors his glucose intake, watches his diet, and injects himself with insulin daily. Like Freeman, he says "It's no big deal." It is to me.

Ad agencies attacked,
this time from Dilbert

      March 12 2006:      I had to laugh. A cartoon in the financial section of the Rocky Mountain News needed only three panels to sum up my thoughts about some of the TV "branding" ads you see these days. The first panel in "The Dilbert Zone" by Scott Adams has the boss telling his team, "I hired the Amorphous Ad Company to do our new campaign." In the next panel the ad guy says, "I see a gaseous cloud and some music...no, just a noise," to which the boss replies "Excellent." In the last panel the boss says, "And then we say the name of our company?" to which the ad guy says "Sure, if you want to ruin the ad." You have no idea how much truth there is in those three panels. Just as bad are the commercials that throw away the last line on some goofy stunt instead of mentioning the product. A new McDonald's commercial leaves you with a scene in which a guy's cell phone emits a very square ring just as he's trying to impress the cute girl at the next table. He's digging in his jacket to shut if off as the spot ends. The lesson (once again): It's not the advertising that should be memorable. It's the promises the ad makes that should be memorable.

A man ahead of his time:
my friend Herb McDonald

      March 1 2006:      Some casino guys are ahead of their time, and I was lucky enough to work for one of them--the late Herb McDonald. He brought me into the casino business at the Sahara in Las Vegas, and his mind spun out an astounding series of business-building promotions. His most famous was the World Airline Christmas Party--14 straight days in December (when we really needed the business). Each night was sponsored by a different airline and to this day they were the wildest casino parties I've ever seen. He also invented the World Fast Draw Championship, the National Bellmen's Convention, The Indoor Archery Championship and the Sahara Invitational Golf Tournament, a PGA tour fixture from 1959 to 1979. He assigned me to head every one of them, and the business lessons I learned stay with me to this day. I thought of him when I learned that GM will build a driving track on Sahara land at the corner of Paradise Road and Sahara Avenue, just back of the Sahara. Herb had a vision for that land in the 60s--a second Sahara with a park, sports attractions and huge underground tunnel connecting the two. Herb was the Steve Wynn of his time--without the money.

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New McDonald's promo;
What can casinos learn?

      February 20 2006:      McDonald's is overhauling its in-store promotional style. Some 50 separate advertising agencies were called on to implement the new strategy named "Simple Bold." Can casinos learn anything from a hamburger company? Well, maybe, even though "Simple Bold" looks like a make-work project that will benefit the agencies more than McDonald's. In short, the chain threw out its old-style food ads, canning the obviously doctored food photos in favor of more realistic photos surrounded by bold, easily-read type. Will it boost sales? Who knows? There's no way to track it. But it might wake up a few casinos who do dismal in-house promotion jobs. I mean, if you walk into a casino and can't remember a single promotional sign after you leave, that's dismal. But it's common. That's because the designers subordinate copy to art. Which means the benefits (if any) are buried. Using a bold, black-on-white, all-copy poster will not only grab attention--it will sell. Copy is king; don't let anyone tell you different.

Those Super Bowl ads:
who sponsored them?

      February 11 2006:      Forget that it was a boring game. Forget the Seattle receivers dropped all the important passes--or pushed off and got stupid penalties. In THIS Super Bowl a few advertisers actually ran commercials that sold. You know, the old fashioned kind. But we're interested only in those that were for laughs. I'll describe the commercials; you tell me the sponsor: (1) Stunt men go to a meeting. Some jump out of windows, others dangle from a helicopter, some crash through the ceiling; (2) A guy carrying a bottle tries to get through an airport line. An alarm goes off. A security guy threatens to strike him; (3) Two doctors about to give a patient an electric shock treatment test their paddles on a fly. "That killed him,"says one, as the patient's wife and daughter stroll in; (4) A girl catching a pass in a touch football game gets flattened. Later, when the guy who flattened her is having a drink at the bar, she flattens him; (5) Monkeys with Champagne celebrate a successful sales graph. The party stops when a guy flips the graph to show them sales went down, but resumes when he flips it back again. Sponsors, in order were Degree Deodorant, Sierra Mist, Ameriquest Mortgage, Michelob Ultra Amber, and CareerBuilders.com. A waste of money? Of course, but amusing.

Online casinos flourishing;
6 million of us are betting

      February 1 2006:      Online casinos are flourishing. Christiansen Capital Advisors, LLC, estimates the take by global Internet gambling houses will be $20.7 billion by the year 2008. But where does the money come from? Internet gambling sites and sports books are illegal under federal law. Yet analysts estimate that six million of us risk jail time by jumping in with both feet. Okay, so prosecution is rare, but there are REAL casinos all over America now, in something like 39 states the last time I counted. In many parts of the country it's a short drive. But still the online casinos rake it in. Now, according to Jeff Smith of the Rocky Mountain News, one sports book reports that 40 percent of its customers place bets on celebrities But how do you make odds on when Angelina Jolie will marry Brad Pitt? Smith also points out that Colorado law prohibits intentionally aiding or encouraging an offense--which means a site may be legal in Antigua but you won't find their ads in the Rocky. It all reminds me of Heywood Broun's famous line, "The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil."

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Emotional vs. intellectual;
Change "begin" to "start"

      January 24 2006:      Do you see these lines in your casino mail? "Complimentary room, food and beverage will be provided." "We are pleased to extend an invitation to..." "Upon your arrival..." "Should you desire to extend your stay..." If you said "No," your mail is rare indeed. Most casino mail is filled with a clumsy, awkward, superfluity of words like these. How much more simple and direct to say, "Your room, meals and drinks are free," "You're invited to..." "When you arrive..." and, "If you're staying longer..." The problem is that many casino writers have no idea how to sell anything, so they invariably fall back on pomposity. English is a wonderful language because there are two ways to say almost everything--an "intellectual" way and an "emotional" way. Unfortunately, many casino writers prefer intellectual words over emotional words. Here's what to do when confronted with such ostentation (intellectual word first): Change "begin" to "start." Change "receive" to "get." Change "fond of" to "like." Change "inquire" to "ask." Change "choose" to "pick." Change "purchase" to "buy." Change "observed" to "seen." The best sales writers in the business fill their copy with emotional words. Why don't you?

The demand for "creativity"
works against advertisers

      January 12 2006:      Common sense has left the building. Advertisers have been conned for so long by advertising agencies that there doesn't appear to be a single client left who has any idea of return on investment. Instead, "creativity" has settled like a dark and impenetrable fog over the great unwashed; it has become the "McGuffin" of the plot, the driving force. Among the newest ideas, the following: (1) Let the consumer design the ads (2) An Internet "floating" ad that has a 15-second life span and appears only now and then (3) Word of Mouth advertising spread by thousands of low-paid talkers (4) CD-ROM magazine inserts (5) Print ads that are fortified with embedded microchips, and (6) text messages relayed to cellphones. The problem with all this "creativity" is that it can't be measured for effectiveness. The advertiser can't say, "I paid $22,000 for the ad and I made 2,500 sales at $19.95 each." What kind of advertising can deliver such certainty? Direct marketing, of course. But its enemies work overtime to convince advertisers that DM is not "creative." And the dark ages continue.

Gaming icon Kerry Packer
passes at 68 in Australia

      January 1 2006:      Despite the growth of legal gaming, the average American probably couldn't name one prominent figure in our business. Steve Wynn, maybe. But Kerry Packer? Not a chance. Yet Packer's death from natural causes on Dec. 26, ended an amazing run of luck that made him an international gambling icon. Forbes magazine ranked him the world's 94th richest person, which is where a fortune of $5 billion will get you. Packer, an Australian, owned Publishing & Broadcasting, Ltd., which owned the Nine Network and Melbourne's Crown Casino. He had recently partnered with Asian gaming figure Stanley Ho to build casinos in Macau. Packer had a reputation as a tough bargainer and a shrewd operator; he bet millions at racetracks and casinos and lived a flamboyant life. In 1990, while playing polo in Sydney, he suffered a heart attack and doctors proclaimed him clinically dead for nearly eight minutes. But he revived, and uttered one of his famous lines: "The good news is that there is no devil. The bad news is there is no heaven. There is nothing." Mr. Packer was 68. R.I.P.

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Those casino marketers
just keep coming back

      December 24 2005:      In my first book, Casino Marketing, I wrote the following: "I love casino marketing people because they have the world's most impossible jobs. They come to work every day knowing they're only as good as yesterday's results. If the handle is terrific, the casino manager gets the credit. If the show is a hit, the entertainment director is a genius. If the new prime rib dinner takes off, the food and beverage director takes the bows. But let business go bad for a week or so--and look out. The marketing director gets blamed for it. And that's the reason I've always admired and respected casino marketers. They KNOW they're always under pressure--and they keep coming a back for more. I don't know what's the matter with us. We must be out of our minds." At any rate, we all survived another year, and here's wishing you a magnificent 2006. Thanks for visiting.

A new shoe company
goes one up on Nike

      December 12 2005:      This one's for casino promotion directors. When Nike was formed (in the late 60s as I recall) they found themselves with a problem typical for small businesses--a paucity of ad and promotion money. So they gave their shoes away to every top track and field athlete in the country. The recipients wore them, and won in them. Nike sales surged. Runners World, the magazine that helped start the running boom in the US, practically made the Nike brand by itself with its pictures of Nike-clad stars racing, jumping and vaulting to victory. Now comes Spira Footwear, a new company that's barging in with an idea that's drawing attention to itself ten times faster than Nike ever did. Spira builds a shoe with shock-absorbing springs in the sole. Whoa! Both USA Track & Field and the International Amateur Athletic Foundation have banned them as "performance enhancers." Now the company has offered a cool $1 million to any male or female runner who wins the 2006 Boston Marathon wearing Spira shoes. While a Spira winner would be DQ at Boston, $1 million is a real neat consolation prize. Clever tactic, yes?

Advertising on the net
costs like Super Bowl

      December 1 2005:      Eight or nine years ago my pal Gary Harris told me the Internet was the best marketing tool ever--especially for casinos. I was skeptical at the time because most commercial Web sites were poorly designed and hard to read, the ads were hopeless, content was stultifying and tracking was pathetic. I'm here today to tell you that Gary's prediction was not only true, but understated. Just two weeks ago the Wall Street Journal reported that more marketers than ever had shifted ad dollars from TV and print to the Internet--and many Web sites were sold out, some up to 18 months in advance. If you picked up the phone today and called Yahoo, AOL or MSN, says the Journal, you'd have to wait months to get your ad on the front page--at rates that would scare a rhino. MSN used to charge $25-50,000 for an ad on its home page; now it gets $1 million for a prime, 24-hour spot, says the WSJ. Online advertising shot up 26% in the first half of 2005, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, practically all of it on Yahoo, Google, AOL and MSN. What pushed so many advertisers onto the Internet? Any direct marketer can tell you the answer in an instant. It's improved tracking. When advertisers know what they get for their money, they'll spend. That's always the key.

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Sports-talk radio captures
a desirable demo group

      November 21 2005:      Hey, all you casino marketing directors! Want to reach a whole wad of men ages 25-54? Primedia's Chief Marketer says you'll find them on sports-talk radio. There are more than 500 sports-talk stations in the US, says Talkers magazine, and the biggest winners are advertisers. Some more surprising points from the story by Chief Marketer's Andrew Grossman: in Philadelphia, the nation's 6th largest radio market, sports-talk has moved past contemporary hits, rock, "lite" adult contemporary and standards in format popularity..."You get a younger male audience," claims a media research company BIA Financial Network...says Bruce Gilbert of ESPN radio, "There are a lot of advertisers who want to have affiliations with teams. Those things definitely drive business with advertisers." Tom Sweeney, VP at LevLane Advertising in Philadelphia, says because of its attractive demographics, sports radio "is probably the one area in which you can have the best chance of success in a competitive area." Personally, I've cut back my sports listening and watching. Some of the hosts are ridiculous.

Who needs an ad agency?
All it takes is a new logo

      November 11 2005:      In the Oct. 25, Wall Street Journal, Gwendolyn Bounds tells the unusual story of Bob Kodner and his company, "Crack Team USA, " which Kodner's father said was named "Before society went to hell." The company (which repairs cracks in basement walls) was struggling, and one day while Kodner was stuck in traffic he came up with the idea for a new logo. He liked it so much he paid his cousin to draw it--then slapped it on the sides of busses in St. Louis. By now you're laughing and shaking your head and mumbling, "What an idiot." But wait! The logo (a cement block with a smiling face cracked down the center) drew hundreds of calls from owners wanting "Happy Crack" T-shirts and hats, Ms. Bounds writes, "and a brand was born." Today, she says, Crack Team has 10 franchises in eight states, hopes to have 25 by the end of the year, and is on track for 150 by the end of 2007. Kodner has appeared on "The Tonight Show," Fox News and ESPN, all, says Ms. Bounds, "Without hiring a single ad agency, focus group, brand consultant or PR adviser." Could this happen to your casino? Umm, probably not. But the next time you're stuck in traffic, start thinking...

Supremes and Nelson Rose;
does he have a connection?

      November 1 2005:      Pretty smart guy that Nelson Rose, professor of law at the Whittier Law School and the man who practically invented the study of gaming law. Okay, so he's an old pal; he's still tops in his field. But now he has a little something more going for him. He was a classmate of new Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts at Harvard law School in the late 70s. And when Roberts was the counsel of record for the American Gaming Association in 1999, he used some of Nelson's research in his brief to the Supreme Court that resulted in a ruling allowing casinos to advertise on radio and TV. Nelson tells the story in his latest syndicated column entitled "John Roberts, the Supreme Court, and Me." Nelson predicted in his 1986 book, "Gambling and the Law," that the Supreme Court would overturn a ban against casino ads on radio and TV because the law violated the Constitution's First Amendment. And when Roberts made his pitch, that's exactly what the Supremes did. Says Nelson, "Roberts understands that gaming is a...large and legal business. He would also be more interested in the complicated issues surrounding activities like Internet poker." Interesting, yes?

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Adams Report a winner;
Gets me thru the day

      October 22 2005:      I saw Ken Adams at the G2E show in September, and promptly confessed. "How the hell could I ever keep up with the gaming business without you?" I asked him. Ken compiles The Adams Report five days a week for Compton-Dancer Consulting. It's one of several newsletters distributed by C-D, and I couldn't get through the day without it. How Ken puts it together I haven't a clue. He gets gaming news from every country in the world. If a dozen guys started a craps game on a blanket in Pismo Beach, he'd have it in The Adams Report the same day. The guy is uncanny. Here's an example: From his Sept. 21 roundup I discovered that a company named eFlyte is about to introduce in-flight gambling on international carriers. It's a seatback deal that you can play with the swipe of a credit card. After two years in development, eFlyte thinks the setup is ready for launch. Now where else could I get that info the same day it was released? But wait, as they say on the late night TV commercials, there's more. Every 30 days Adams does a monthly opinion piece that's just a delight to read. And top of everything he's a super guy and he is not paying me to say that. (e-reports@compdance.com)

Personalizing letters?
Auto biz scuttles it

      October 12 2005:      Remember when personalized sales letters first appeared? It was decades ago, of course, and most direct marketers thought the technology was sent straight from heaven. Wow! Imagine being able to sprinkle a customer's name all through a letter. What a weapon! And because every mailer knew that the technology was bound to make customers and prospects feel special, they jumped on it. Trouble was, the early systems often capitalized the names, or used the wrong font, or dropped them into pre-set space that (for short names) left the name floating. All that was corrected in time and the process now is seamless. But in the automotive business, personalization usage has just about fallen off the charts. From a personalization high of 44.6% in 2003, it dropped to 26.1 by June, 2005. The stats come from the archives of Inside Direct Mail, a wonderful newsletter that reports the automotive business is "Moving away from plastering mailings with prospect and customer names." Instead, says the newsletter, auto mailings favor more tailored content. Bravo! Dropping in names always struck me as phony-looking. Tailoring a message to a prospect or customer is using the database to your advantage. Check out the newsletter at www.insidedirectmail.com. It's a gem.

Ad agencies tremble at
the Makeover Maven

      October 1 2005:      Thomas L. Collins, who calls himself The Makeover Maven, must look like an avenging angel to the young "creatives" who work in general advertising these days. I've talked to a few of them; none ever heard of him until he began to skewer them every month with his column in Direct Magazine. But as a partner in the famous direct marketing agency Rapp & Collins, Tom once walked with David Ogilvy and the other giants of Direct Marketing, and (with Stan Rapp) co-authored four excellent books. Now Tom is just having fun freelancing--and demoralizing general ad agencies. In his Makeover Maven column he takes terrible print ads (they're all around us) and remakes them into powerful sales pieces using direct marketing methods. It's really not a fair fight because Tom always made ads that sold things. Most of today's general ads make no attempt to sell anything except the brand, and most don't succeed in doing even that. In the August Direct, Tom remade an Ace Hardware ad that depicted a young woman in an Ace shirt standing among a set of huge tools, with the headline, "Advice is the best tool" and not a single line of copy. (Your first reaction to the Ace ad is "Huh?") Tom's makeover used 212 words and sold the benefits of Ace's excellent Web site. Why do you suppose this never occurred to Ace's agency?

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Mainstream companies
discover the database;
casinos say "yawn"

      September 23 2005:      Chief Marketer, one of the best of the direct marketing newsletters, quotes a new Forrester Research study of 124 companies that shows customer databases playing an increasing strategic role. Of course (yawn) we've known this in the casino business since the early 80s. It's only now, apparently, that companies outside the casino business are "looking into customer databases to drive insight and strategy," to quote a Forrester executive. This emphasis on the "database" and not on the individuals within it, is a danger signal. It means the companies that replied to Forrester's survey are more concerned with learning "about" their customers than "from" their customers. They regard the database as nothing more than a mixture of easily manipulated segments. But prospects or customers inside segments don't respond in lockstep unless they're romanced. So sending them ads and fancy artwork disguised as direct mail will get some--but not the cream. To get the cream you need word pictures, benefits, back-fence conversation and a personal touch. Sadly, casino mail looks more and more like the domain of art directors, with space for personal notes and letters squeezed tighter and tighter. And the writers seem to be in love with exclamation points, worn-out adjectives and clichés such as "valued player." Too bad.

The skeletal Mr. Six
dances up a storm,
but can't sell tickets

      September 12 2005:      Ad people love to create goofy characters to represent brands. Witness "Michelin Man," "The Aflac Duck," the woman who screamed "Where's the beef?" "The Pillsbury Doughboy," "Tony the Tiger" and "The World's Fastest Talking Man," a character I once created to advertise the Sahara Las Vegas back in the Del Webb days (sorry about that). Now comes "Mr. Six." He's the bald, skeletal, octogenarian (some say he's a girl in disguise) who breaks into frenzied dance for Six Flags, which spent 72.l million last year advertising its 28 parks in the US. The company calls him "Our ambassador of fun." Well. he's all that--and his favorable ratings are above the 55% average for all prime-time ads in 2005, the company tells the Wall Street Journal. But the question with all such characters is likability. The Journal quotes Donny Deutsch, the boss of Interpublic Group's Deutsch agency as saying that many teenagers find Mr. Six "nerdy and goofy" and some families with kids regard him as "weird" and "creepy." But Doner., the agency that created him, says his energy is "infectious." Still others say he'll be around for a long time. Personally, I love the guy--but not enough to go to a Six Flags park.

Goulet's keen mind
turns a focus group
into casino revenue

      September 1 2005:      I met Glenn Goulet in the early 90s when he invited me to be a panel member at a G-Tech conference in Palm Springs. Glenn was a G-Tech executive specializing in research, and dearly wanted to leap headlong into the casino business. It was easy to see that with his drive and intelligence it was only a matter of time. Later he become involved with Multimedia Games, and more recently started his own gaming research business named "Gaming Strategies + Insights." Here's a sample of his brilliant thinking: Earlier this year he set up a series of six focus groups for a casino. He drew the participants from the casino's database, using his own set of qualifying factors. The sessions took three days and went off perfectly. When the casino tracked the play of the focus group members they found their play had generated far more revenue than it cost to do the actual focus group research. And the insights the casino gleaned from the six sessions were extremely helpful. Glenn politely asked if I would recommend him if I heard of a casino looking for research. In my 40-plus years in the casino business I've often been asked if I would provide recommendations. I seldom do. But in Glenn's case I say, "He's the best. Hire him."

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Barona Valley a big winner;
takes home six "Romeros"

      August 23 2005:      The first Romeros, the casino marketing awards named after (ahem) your faithful reporter, drew 68 submissions and were presented at Casino Marketing, the 2005 National Conference, in Las Vegas, last month. And while major Nevada and New Jersey casinos won Romeros as expected, the stunner was southern California based Barona Valley Ranch Resort & Casino, which won six (one Diamond, 4 Golds and one Silver) plus 8 Honorable Mentions. Gasp! Other winners in the competition that included six categories were Lake of the Torches (1 Diamond, 1 Gold, 1 Silver); Circus Circus Reno (1 Diamond); Horseshoe Hammond (1 Diamond); Trump Marina (1 Diamond); Trump Taj Mahal (1 Silver); Cliff Castle Casino (1 Diamond, 1 Gold); Isle of Capri Bettendorf (1 Silver); Victories Casino (1 Gold); San Felipe Casino (1 Silver); Northlands Park (1 Silver), and Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort (1 Diamond). Casinos competed in two divisions (large and small) and in six categories: Direct Mail, Casino Floor Promotion, VIP Promotion, Public Relations, E-Mail Campaign and Web Site Promotion. Niagara Fallsview, competing in the large casino Public Relations category, opened its new wedding chapel with a vow renewal ceremony that attracted hundreds of married couples and made news throughout Canada and the eastern US--just an example of the excellent work submitted. Will I see you at the Conference in 2006?

He wanted to bet $777,000;
Jack Binion said, "Sure!"

      August 12 2005:      Jack Binion, winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at Casino Marketing, the 2005 National Conference, last month at the Rio in Las Vegas, knew how to run a casino. He learned from the best--his father Benny, who came to Las Vegas in 1946 with his family, a suitcase full of dough and his own idea about running a gambling joint. Benny opened the Horseshoe in 1951--bought the old El Dorado Hotel and converted it. "The size of your limit," Benny told his patrons, "is the size of your first bet." The word got around--if you wanted to bet big money Benny would handle it. So when a guy strolled in with a satchel jammed with one million in cash and wanted to bet it all on the pass line, there was no hesitation. Benny won the dough and laughed when people called him a marketing genius. In 1970, Benny began the World Championship of Poker--a fair promotion, wouldn't you say? By 1983, it was time for Benny's son Jack to face the same "big bet" situation that made his father famous. "This guy called me," said Jack, "and said he wanted to bet $777,000. So I said sure, come on in, but I didn't hear from him for weeks. Then one day he showed up with the money, and beat us." But the guy wasn't through. He came back later with $500,000 and won that bet, too. He came back a third time with a million but caught a seven on the come out roll. I was thinking of all those things, and how Jack expanded the Horseshoe name into a nationwide powerhouse, as he stood on stage to accept his award. The man is one of a kind--and maybe the last of a breed. Congratulations, my friend.

Casino marketing conference
rolls a winner in Las Vegas

      August 1 2005:      It had everything. Brilliant speakers, the first annual Romero awards for casino marketers, 17 top casino-related companies on display, and a wonderful choice (Jack Binion) to receive the second Lifetime Achievement Award. Of course, I'm talking about about Casino Marketing, the 2005 National Conference, at the Rio in Las Vegas last month. Raving Consulting (Dennis Conrad) and Ascend Media Gaming Group (Andy Holtman) put together a show for, by and of casino marketers. Attendance topped last year's inaugural event by 15% as marketers from domestic and foreign casinos, small and large, were treated to one super panel after another. Hermann Pamminger of Casinos Austria, Ron Riopka of the Manitoba Lotteries Corporation, Ed Rogich, VP of Marketing for IGT, Anthony Sanfilippo, president of Harrah's Central Division, Arnie Wexler, former executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gaming, Troy Simpson of Barona Valley Ranch Resort and Casino, and Karen Fisher of Konami Gaming were among the panelists. Amy Henry ("The Apprentice") and Jim Rogers, president and CEO of KOA and a former Harrah's executive, were keynote speakers. And then there was Jack Binion, the consummate gaming pro, accepting his well-deserved award. Too much to cover in one shot. I'll start with a piece on Jack in the next News & Opinions update on Aug. 12.

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Personalization use high;
personally, we hate it

      July 12 2005:      Remember when personalization techniques came in years ago and you could drop prospect or customer names into mass-produced sales letters? Pretty crude stuff in the beginning. The names never lined up properly. Some were crooked, and there was always an obvious space on each end. I remember a couple I received with the wrong font. But variable data technology has improved, says Tracy Gill, managing editor of Inside Direct Mail. Use of personalization has climbed steadily to 35% in 2004, and Hallmark Loyalty, for example, claims it improves response. But before you rush out and start to use it for your casino lists, here's the downside. Even boosters such as Hallmark say the pieces have to be "absolutely error-proof, error-free...personalization done poorly has a negative effect on customer relations." Now here's my take, and it gets worse: I still don't like it, even if it's done perfectly. Just take a moment to think about the way you write personal letters to your friends. Do you drop their names in every few paragraphs? Of course not. That's not the way friends write friends. Personalization may look good and more corporations may be using it, but corporate mail, as a whole, is the worst stuff ever written.

Blogs better than research?
Some advertisers say "Yes!"

      July 12 2005:      It's been a bad month for traditional TV advertising. Now consumer research is about to take a hit. Casino marketers please take note, but keep it to yourself and by all means don't tell your research people. Seems that some marketers feel the "offhand comments" of bloggers are invaluable--or so says the Wall Street Journal. The paper points to "blog watching" that helped Umbria Communication of Boulder, CO, identify demographic groups online based on their speech patterns and discussion topics. US Cellular Corporation turned this into a winning promotion. I am not making this up. The Journal then quotes a Chicago PR guy as saying "We look at the blogosphere as a focus group with 15 million people going on 24/7." Says the Journal, "Purveyors of the new methodology and their clients say blog-watching can be cheaper, faster and less biased than...focus groups and surveys." Final add: In the June 20 edition of DM News, Renee Blodgett, president of Blodgett Communications, San Francisco, tells her readers that corporate blogs can "...augment e-mail newsletters in a more engaging way and bypass spam issues and filters that traditional e-mail delivery mechanisms face." Then she adds, "Too many organizations still fear blogs."

TV spending takes a hit;
advertisers list "doubts"

      July 1 2005:      All that television advertising you're paying for--do you know what it's doing for your casino or for your company? No, really. Is it selling anything? What's that? You don't know for sure? Then why the hell are you spending such a fortune on it? I can imagine dialogue of that sort rattling through the halls of Proctor & Gamble, the 800-pound gorilla of consumer goods and marketing that recently announced a severe cutback in TV expenditures for next season. The story made page one of the Wall Street Journal. "The move," said the Journal, "is the latest sign of rapid changes in how companies reach consumers and how TV networks and cable channels draw revenue...in recent years many companies have expressed doubts about the effectiveness of traditional TV advertising." Do you know why companies are expressing "doubts?" It's because they have no idea what their TV advertising is doing for them? Nothing they do is trackable. Nothing is measurable. Nothing is accountable. They just throw the stuff out there and hope. Sure, some of the commercials are memorable, and that's the problem. It's not the advertising that should be memorable; it's the promises the advertising makes that should be memorable. Will they ever learn? Not a chance.

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Casino marketing awards
draw a record 68 entries

      June 24 2005:      By the time you read this the judging of entries for "Casino Marketing, the 2005 National Conference" will have been completed. The Conference itself is July 17-19 at the Rio in Las Vegas. An astounding 68 entries poured in, which is remarkable for a first-time event. Categories were Direct Mail, Floor Promotion, VIP Promotion, PR Campaign, Web Site Marketing and E-Mail Marketing. Although the awards (The Romeros) are named after me, I won't be judging--which is just as well. The entries I've looked through were excellent as a group and the requirements (which I did help establish) were tough. Justifying promotions based on concept, execution, revenue generated, measurable results, competitive advantage gained and enhanced relationships are barriers no casino marketing combatants have ever faced. I asked four old friends to judge and they accepted. They are Jim Seagrave, VP Marketing for the Stardust; Jackie Brett, Director of Advertising & Public Relations, Imperil Palace; Ira David Sternberg, VP Communications & Community Relations, Las Vegas Hilton, and Ron Bell, Executive Director of Marketing & Advertising, Coast Casinos. All are from Las Vegas. Check out the 2005 Conference at www.casinomarketing2005.com. Hope to see you there.

The depressing story
of a star gone wrong

      June 13 2005:      In 1970, Monty Hundley was a handsome, smooth talking guy in his late 20s, and a rising star in the Del E. Webb corporation. He was well-liked, a good businessman, and born to leadership. I knew him just well enough to know I liked him and trusted him. Webb owned the Sahara and Mint in Las Vegas, and the Sahara Tahoe at Lake Tahoe in those days, and when the GM job came open at Sahara-Tahoe, it went to Monty. The staff loved him and the executives thought the guy was straight from heaven. He ran the place with flair and was good at it despite his youth. He brought in Elvis, the Ali/Foster fight, golf tournaments, even the Playboy plane for junkets. One afternoon when he was buzzing his Harley through town the cops pulled him over and asked him where he worked. "The Sahara-Tahoe," Monty said. When they asked what he did there he said, "I'm the general manager." The cops took one look at this fresh kid in a leather jacket and to their eternal embarrassment and his eternal amusement said, "Get in the car." I lost track of Monty for a while but he surfaced years later as one of the owners of Days Inn. Last week a mutual friend sent me a press release from the United States Attorney, Southern District of New York. Monty is in deep trouble, and has been sentenced on a charge of bank fraud and tax evasion. Hard to believe, but hang in, Monty. You'll be back.

Your faithful reporter
speaks on "creativity"

      June 1 2005:      G.A. Wright Marketing, Inc., is one of Denver's leading ad agencies, and never one to stand still. Some years ago in a subtle shift of priorities they began to focus on the casino business. Now they bill themselves as, "A leading direct marketing specialist for the gaming industry." Smart guys, these Wrights. Now they've put together a three-day meeting they call "G.A. Wright's New Innovative Marketing Conference and Gala," with some distinguished speakers including (ahem) your faithful reporter. Our mission is to share with you the newest concepts that have been proven to drive business and build loyalty. But they let me do what I wanted to so I named my talk, "Creativity--what the bleep is it" and I'm delivering this gem on Tuesday, June 14, at G.A. Wright's new Communication C enter in Denver. The slot club guru Jeffrey Compton (of Compton-Dancer Consulting) is also on the bill on June. 14. Some 24 speakers will gush wisdom and niceties over the three days. The thing winds up with music and cocktails on June 16. Hey, these guys are serious. For details, visit www.gawright.com/2005 . You can download all the details including the conference brochure. Or phone 303-393-4530 and speak to a human being.

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Heat on big TV advertisers
forces them to pay per view

      May 23 2005:      This is really sad. Soon the big television advertisers will be paying consumers as much as $100 (plus coupons and prizes, says the Wall Street Journal) to watch TV commercials and let the advertisers know if they're working. The story quotes a "Director of consumer and customer insights" as saying "Any new approach is worth checking out." Such naiveté in the highest ranks of marketing is astonishing. But perhaps it's predictable with more and more heat being applied to advertising directors by their own companies to prove that all that TV money is producing something--anything. Here's a hint to the 30 or so national and local advertisers taking part in the test: you'll never find out beans by paying people to watch. But a good start would be to get rid of the ridiculous TV ad format of 25 seconds of silly nonsense followed by a brief flash of the advertiser logo. Then go watch some of the late night TV commercials that actually sell things. Okay, so it will never happen. The creative mystique of the big ad agencies is just too powerful. All of them (and their clients) are sold on memorable advertising. But it's not the advertising that should be memorable; it's the promises the advertising makes that should be memorable. That's why direct marketing, with its emphasis on benefits and responses direct to the advertiser, is the superior discipline.

Casino advertising ban fell
when Rose got on the case

      May 12 2005:      In the old days Before Nelson Rose (BNR) casinos not only were forbidden to advertise, but in Puerto Rico, one was fined for having the word "Casino" in its letterhead. The same casino was fined again when its name appeared in a newspaper caption. Did they sue? Yep, and a Puerto Rican court ruled that gambling was a legal business and could advertise. But the US Supreme Court overturned that one by ruling that some forms of gambling could advertise--but not casinos. It happened in the early 80s and made attorney I. Nelson Rose furious. "It's like saying that because we have the death penalty we can also torture people," said Rose. I met Nelson in 1985 when he was preaching the overthrow of casino advertising bans on broadcasting. But casino marketers were a disheartened lot. It just didn't seem possible in those days. With Nelson's urging, it finally happened in the late 90s when the Supremes ruled that if a state approved casinos, they could run broadcast ads in that state. The Justice Department sealed it shortly afterward by announcing they were not going to go after broadcasters again. The bars went down. Nelson predicted it in his first book, "Gambling and the Law, " published in 1986. Now he's out with a followup book named "Internet Gaming Law." For a look at the future of gaming, order it for your library today from his Web site, www.gamblingandthelaw.com. (P.S. You can also order my two books, "Casino Marketing" and "Secrets of Casino Marketing," by scrolling to the bottom of this page.)

First of the "Romeros"
to be awarded in July

      May 1 2005:      Every casino in existence does special promotions, and if you're a marketing executive in this business you've probably dreamed up dozens of them. But unlike advertising, there have been no awards for successful promotions--until now. But in "Casino Marketing: The 2005 Conference" at the Rio (Las Vegas) July 17-19, the best "promos" of the past year will be honored with a new award named (sit down for this one) The Romeros. Yes, my friend, your faithful reporter's years of sweating blood on the firing line have been rewarded. I asked for cash, but they told me they were already over budget--which typically happens in a casino promotion. But nicer guys than Dennis Conrad (Raving Consulting) and Charles Anderer (Ascend Media) you will never meet--so I said okay. Their respective companies so-sponsor the Conference. I promptly tapped four old friends to judge the entries. They asked for cash but...well, we were over budget. So we settled on their names appearing in this space (thanks, gang). And here we go--all are from Las Vegas: Jim Seagrave, VP Marketing, Stardust Hotel & Casino; Jackie Brett, Director of Advertising & Public Relations, Imperial Palace Hotel & Casino; Ron Bell, Executive Director of Marketing and Advertising for Coast Casinos, and Ira David Sternberg, VP Communications &Community Relations, Las Vegas Hilton. Last year the Conference honored me with its first Lifetime Achievement Award. This year they have named another old friend--Jack Binion. Bravo, Jack! P.S. Check out the 2005 Conference at www.casinomarketing2005.com.

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Spam blockers--phooey!
They cost us business

      April 21 2005:      Lately some of my clients have called to ask, "Did you get my e-mail?" About half the time I say, "No. What was the subject line?" I'm on AOL, and they've been very aggressive about blocking spam--but all they're doing is bringing back the fax. A spam blocker is the LAST thing I'd ever want on my computer. I'm not one of those guys who moan and groan about the spam I get. It takes no longer than a minute (by actual count) to get rid of unwanted messages I find when I open up my e-mail. So what's to complain? A spam filter might get rid of most of them, too, but it could easily include some "keepers" in with the trash. A recent study by Return Path showed that 22% of all permission-based e-mail was blocked by ISPs. Direct Newsline says the most blocking and filtering happened at RoadRunner (36%), Mail.com (34%) and Comcast (31%). That would drive me nuts--and cost me business.

Why I changed jobs:
Strictly a money deal

      April 12 2005:      I had to smile when I read Erin's White's column in the Wall Street Journal. It was entitled, "Saviest job hunters research the cultures of potential employers." Whisked me back to 1960, when I left the Las Vegas Review-Journal and took a job in the casino business. Hell, I didn't research the Sahara's "culture" at all. I went for the money, which was pretty good for the time. Before I left, the owner of the Review-Journal called me in and said, "John, we'd hate to lose you. May I ask what the Sahara has offered you?" I told him $750 a month. The owner rose and stuck out his hand. "Nobody on our paper makes $750 a month," he said. "Good luck in your new career." I knew the Sahara had to have a better "culture" than that, but I was only was half right. My immediate boss, Herb McDonald, was terrific. He'd give me a project and say, "Do it your own way." You had to love him. Upper management was grumpy and suspicious. But it was fun and I liked it. After 45 years, I still do.

Wynn plays pied piper,
but it's not a revelation

      April 1 2005:      A recent story in the Las Vegas Sun newspaper revealed that more than half of the 9,000 employees hired at the new Wynn Las Vegas resort had worked for Wynn in the past. That's not exactly a revelation. It happens every time he opens a new joint. Steve never has to worry about help because everyone in the town is wised up. They know the guy is a winner, and that the tips are terrific. What makes him a winner? He spends wisely. When he opened up his store in Atlantic City (The Golden Nugget) in the 80s, he sucked the business away from Resorts International to the other end of town with one shrewd move after another. One of those moves was to form the first slot club in the industry. Bet you didn't know that was Wynn's idea. Then, in 1982, he gave a hundred or so of his Atlantic City employees brand new cars. The tab was $4 million. When a pal of mine in the swimming pool business told me what he spent on the his water show ("O") and dancing waters at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, I couldn't believe it. Now he's selling Ferraris at Wynn Las Vegas. Like I said--a winner

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Where will gambling be
in another 14 years?

      March 21 2005:      Imagine a gambling hall where all the slots were single coin games, the biggest play you could make was 50 cents, and the top jackpots were only a few hundred dollars. Imagine that all the Blackjack tables dealt single, hand-held decks. And imagine that most of the hotel guests paid rack rates, and that you could see a superstar show in the main room for the price of a single bottle of beer. That was the state of the industry when I entered it in 1960. Looking back, you wonder how such casinos ever made a dime. And to tell you the truth, even the largest in Nevada didn't make more than a few million. But then, a million in 1960 was real money--not the six hundred thousand or so that it's worth now. I did a report for the Del Webb corporate office about 1974 that compared room rates and comps in 1960 to current figures. It showed that in 1960, two thirds of the Sahara's room business was full rate, and that one third consisted of comps and special rates. By 1974 the figures had flip-flopped, and two thirds were comps and special rates. What happened? Competition, pure and simple. The Strip had only a handful of big joints in 1960. In the next 14 years it doubled. When I saw a recent figure that the country's 411 Indian casinos had topped Nevada in total revenues, $21 billion to $19.59 billion, I wondered just how big we'll be in another 14 years.

Online gaming at $10 billion:
Poker driving a record take

      March 11 2005:      Target Marketing magazine online has revealed the results of a Pew Internet study that claims 63 percent of the adults in the country (about 128 million age 18 or older) use the Net. For ages 12-17, the usage figure is 81 percent. On any given day about 70 million of us are logged on. Is it any wonder, then, that online gambling is predicted by NewsMax.com to increase by 40 percent over 2004 and become a $10 billion business this year? Reason for the surge? Poker. USA Today says the game will attract a million players a month in 2005, and the take is expected to double to more than $2 billion. CasinoCity.com says there are 266 Web sites at which players compete. In June, 2003, there were just 53 sites. NewsMax quotes Alex Czajkowski of Sportsbook.com as saying, "The fear factor is largely going away. The bigger, more reputable casinos are not going to rip you off, and more people are betting." There have been sporadic attempts to kill/inhibit/squash (you choose) Internet gaming. But all the big operators are based outside the US and can't be touched by our laws. And there is no national legislation that regulates Internet gaming. The thing is like a runaway train, roaring down the tracks, unstoppable.

The no-smoking casino:
An idea gaining ground

      March 1 2005:      I walked into the Las Vegas Tropicana one day in the mid 80s and was confronted by the first casino no-smoking BJ game I'd ever seen. That baby was packed. At least a dozen players were standing around waiting for a seat to open up. As I recall, the table was right at the head of that long, slender row of games that stretched back under the beautiful stained glass ceiling. Not ten feet away, players at the other games were smoking--so I guess the lone no-smoking table was more symbolic than anything else. I don't have to tell you what has happened since then. The no-smoking crowd (of which I'm one) grew from a handful of malcontents to a powerful movement backed by the government and every doctor in the country. Casinos have given ground at a leisurely pace, but that's changing, too. In Montana the state Supremes ruled that a state law prohibiting local governments from imposing smoking bans has no force. Lincoln, Nebraska, passed a no-smoking law for casinos. Manitoba casinos have been smoke-free since October, 2004. Saskatchewan's ban started Jan. 1, 2005. More to come, as we used to say in the newspaper business.

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The allure of e-mail wanes,
but rich people still love it

      February 18 2005:      Casino marketers jumped on e-mail when it became a force but many of them tell me they've backed off a bit and are falling back on direct mail. And no wonder. Primedia's Chief Marketer reports that ExactTarget, an Indianapolis developer of e-mail marketing solutions, says that "people shouldn't be batch-blasted on a monthly or weekly schedule." An ExactTarget spokesman called such tactics "a relic of print marketing campaigns." ET says the "from" line is becoming the most important factor in the success of an e-mail campaign...on a positive note, the new DM i-Marketing News reports that rich people use the Internet more. A study of 29,000 consumers by Packaged Facts, the publishing division of MarketResearch.com, found that 32% said the Internet was their primary information source. But the percentage rose to 42% of "mass affluent" consumers and 50% of "highly affluent" individuals. Sounds like fertile ground for casino marketers who test...meanwhile, Silverpop's Bill Nussey says 51% of business users cite e-mail as the most effective communication method. Almost two-thirds say they prefer it for making arrangements and setting appointments as opposed to telephone or personal communication.

This is embarrassing

      February 8 2005:      I mean, here were all those Super Bowl television spots (some at $2.4 million a pop) and you had to read the newspapers to find out who the sponsors were--or in some cases, what the product was. Same old, same old. Okay. Now to our bet. I told you last month I'd quiz you to see if you knew the sponsors behind some of those bizarre commercials. So here goes. I'll describe the spot; you guess the sponsor AND product. Answers at the end: (1) A bunch of men and women encased in bubbles walk around town without a care in the world (2) A convenience store clerk mistakes a customer for a robber and maces him while an elderly lady spears him with her cane (3) A well-endowed young thing testifying before a committee of oldsters breaks a strap that holds up her top (4) Gladys Knight gets involved in a rugby game and winds up skidding on her stomach (5) Japanese tourists and assorted young people break out in herky-jerky dancing (6) Two cows in a snowy field chat over a farmer's fence while a third bovine strolls away. I'll be surprised as hell if you get ANY of these. Answers (1) 02 Optics, soft contact lenses (2) Ameriquest Mortgage (3) GoDaddy.com (4) MBNA (5) Olympus cameras (6) California Cheese. Tha-tha-tha-that's all. folks.

Better to bite your tongue
before you say "junk mail"

      February 1 2005:      Do you ever hear it called Junk TV? How about Junk Reporting, or Junk Outdoor? Nope, only the direct mail business is saddled with the disparaging word"Junk," an invention of the newspaper business that caught on. But if you're a casino marketer, bite your tongue before you ever call it junk. As it is for most large companies, direct mail is the lifeblood of the casino business. Yes, unwanted mail often arrives at your home or business and you're free to toss it--a casual effort that infuriates those with too much time on their hands. Enter someone named Andrew Blackman, whose blurb in the weekend Wall Street Journal is headlined, "How I beat junk mail." Mr. Blackjack, no doubt agitated at credit card companies, called all the credit bureaus and demanded they block his name. Then he called the Direct Marketing Association, said he was leery about giving personal information to :"A group with a name like that." and got his name on the do-not-mail list. Of course, he listed all the numbers and Web sites that others with the Blackman Syndrome can call. He has a right to speak out if he wishes--and too often an opportunistic Congress listens; the danger is that those of us who know the true value of direct mail often stay silent. Or worse, we agree with Blackman and others purveyors of the privacy racket. As casino marketers, we mail only to those who willingly give us their names and addresses. In some European countries, even that would be against the law. Be aware. (Check out the Quote of the Month" on this page.)

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Get ready for our Super Bowl
'Guess the Advertiser' Quiz

      January 24 2005:      Herewith from The Prophet Romero, seer extraordinaire, comes the Super Bowl score you've been waiting for: Advertisers 18, Audience 0. Yes, my friends, it's almost time for our annual "Guess the Advertiser" Super Bowl Quiz, and this year I am giving you a running start. But even though you will be TRYING to remember who advertised what, you will be shut out again. You will remember the ads, but not the sponsors. And it won't even be close. Once again the Super Bowl ads will be the most memorable of the season. So what's wrong with memorable advertising, you ask? It's the promises the product makes that should be memorable, not the advertising. Do you remember these ads from Super Bowl 2003? (1) A former pro linebacker knocks down guys who loaf on the job (2) A smart baboon gets catapulted into a lake. Or how about this gem from 2004, in which men and women dash through the streets of New York carrying surfboards? All were memorable, but do you remember the promises? Of course not. The first was for Reebok, the second for Sierra Mist.The third was for the Wall Street Journal. Like I said, 18-0.

Atlantic City's tough ad rules
are easy compared to Russia's

      January 12 2005:      I had to laugh. The Russian parliament, says the Adams Report from Compton-Dancer, has passed a bill restricting the advertising of casinos and gambling. It reminds me of the original advertising rules laid down by the Casino Control Commission when gambling came to Atlantic City. Some have been rescinded, but the famous "Bet with your head, not over it" line still is required on advertising material distributed on property. In 1980, when my partners and I had a consulting contract with Resorts International, we put together a brochure for a Blackjack tournament. I sent the line to the copywriter who was unaware of the dictates of the Commission. When the brochure came back he had changed it to read, "Bet with your head, not above it," which, of course, is proper English. With a straight face I showed it to the Commission rep for approval. There was a moment of silence as she read it. Then she erupted. "You can't print this!" she shouted, but I held up my hand. "Just kidding," I said. The Russian casinos face much worse. Casino advertising is prohibited on TV

Super Bowl parties get nixed;
Pull-tabs build a new stadium

      January 1 2005:      The National Football League is quick to bludgeon Las Vegas casinos who have announced Super Bowl parties, warning that the game on big screen will not be tolerated. But the NFL is selective, especially when it comes to new stadiums. The $500 million, retractable-roof stadium that will be built for the Indianapolis Colts will be financed mainly by $400 million from pull-tab machines. The team and the league will supply the other $100 million. Of course, the league has no official connection with gambling in Indiana. Just thought I'd bring it to your attention.. Equally off-beat is Reggie Jackson's contention that Las Vegas is ready for major league baseball. Said Jackson, "I think you have a better chance of being America's team than any place else." Reggie, you were one terrific hitter. Let's just leave it at that. And finally, what ever happened to the bid from online poker site "Empire Poker," to put up $50 million to finance the Expos move to Washington? My congratulations to the Empire marketing people. Way to get the site some ink.

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Cash bird & the Aflac duck;
Nice try, now take a seat

      December 24 2004:      When I read about the muzzling of the Aflac duck, it reminded me of a similar ad campaign that one of my pals did for the old Super Sahara Celebration, the first casino floor promotion on the Las Vegas Strip. The Aflac duck zoomed Aflac's brand awareness from 12% to 90%, says the Wall Street Journal--but still left viewers wondering, "What can you do for me?" I faced a similar situation in the mid-70. So my friend Vern Baker did a radio spot for the Super Sahara Celebration featuring a bird that screamed, "Cash! Cash! Cash!" The promotion's awareness climbed, too. The only problem was that people hated that damn bird (Vern and I did, too). After a while we pulled it. I heard comments for months, but not about the promotion. People still remembered that freaky bird. See, that's the problem with brand advertising. It can raise awareness but what good is it if people don't know what you're selling? In the case of the Aflac duck, 60% of the respondents in a survey said they didn't know what Aflac insurance was. Hey, duck! Have a nice life. P.S. The voice of the Aflac duck is comedian Gilbert Gottfried. P.P.S. Merry Christmas, everyone!

A bad year for advertising;
Even outdoor got nailed

      December 12 2004:      Not a good year for the advertising business. It started with Janet Jackson's now-famous breast flash in the Super Bowl halftime show. Then the Hard Rock in L:as Vegas got fined for a racy outdoor board.(Darn! I never got to see it.). And as 2004 limped to a close, the US Postal Inspectors ran a series of ads warning of telemarketing fraud and suggesting that everyone register for the national no-call list. The American Teleservices Association people were not amused. Now it turns out that the national no-call list is hurting newspapers as well. A survey of dailies reported by DM News showed declining circulation numbers at many major newspapers, which rely on telemarketing for new subscriptions and renewals. Still another survey showed that magazines might be on the road to extinction (70 percent of them have fallen in newsstand sales over the past 25 years says Dan Capell, editor of Capell's Circulation Report). So what's left? Just the powerhouse of our time, my friends. The Internet. Time for casinos to get serious about its potential.

A classic handicapping vignette
by the Gold Sheet's Mort Olshan

      December 1 2004:      Mort Olshan, founder and publisher of The Gold Sheet, the famous bible of handicapping team sporting events, has been gone more than a year now. He was the kind of friend you never forget--and I'm continually reminded of this strong man who loved football handicapping with a passion unmatched by his peers. Here's a classic vignette he wrote in 1971: "The sky was filled with turbulence...fraught with threatening sounds...the leaden clouds above portended the commotion to come...rain pelted down in rhythmic beat...snuggled close to my ear was a trusty transistor belching with each ear-splitting flash of lightning...the reverberation of thunder echoed through the huge Coliseum...down on the rain-soaked playing turf Stanford (a Gold Sheet favorite picked to win) had taken the opening kickoff...they drove relentlessly thru USC's defense to score the game's first touchdown...rain now cascaded down on the umbrella-covered but hopelessly inundated crowd...the sounds erupting from the billows above grew ever boisterous...turning to the lovely blonde cuddled closely at my side, my bride of 20 years, I softly spoke...God! It's good to be alive and ahead by seven.

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Best time to send e-mail?
Uh, Monday thru Friday?

      November 23 2004:      Catching up with the latest marketing jazz...The word from an e-marketing company named eROI is that e-mail messages are more likely to be read on Monday, with Friday showing some increase as well. Three months ago, says eROI, it was Tuesday. This is a company with too much time on its hands...Associated Press reports that casino-quality chips and gaming tables equipped with drink-holders and chip-holders are among the "must have" items during the early Christmas shopping season. Teenagers, according to a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, just love them. (Oh, kids. That's just terrific.) Still another Wal-Mart spokeswoman said a deck of cards may be the top stocking-stuffer this year...What's-happening-to-this-country Department: Andrew Zoli, writing in American Demographics, advises readers to "Head on over to your local Target, where you'll find aisles overflowing with elegant, whimsical, and iconic products in virtually every category. Design is king, and designers have made us all curators of our own boutique lifestyles." Run for your life. The art directores have taken over.

Visiting Global Gaming Expo:
Next year I'll have a strategy

      November 12 2004:      I hit the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas again this year (my 20th straight year at the Big Show) and I got lost about two seconds into the exhibition hall. I mean, this is embarrassing. I'm supposed to be this big expert and I had to enlist my pal Larry Close as a guide. The man has an instinct. When I wanted to find Beth Deighan's CasinoCareers booth, he went right to it. After a few minutes I asked him to find Griffin Investigations. He gave me a superior smile and said, "Don't move an inch." Griffin was backed up against CasinoCareers. I begged him not to leave my side. After four hours of this sort of thing my brain was whirling. More than 700 exhibitors were set up and there were 26,000 attendees milling around trying to find them. Some 26 countries were represented, and the panels and workshops topped 140. I'm convinced you need a strategy to see the show. That and a map. Walking the isles as Larry and I did is fun, but frustrating. Next year I'll make a list and put on blinders. Meanwhile, congratulations to Frank Fahrenkopf and the American Gaming Association. It's one hell of a show.

At last! Science develops a way
to measure brand advertising

      November 1 2004:      If you've read my books or my marketing columns in IGWB or Slot Manager magazines, you know I'm not a fan of branding. I've always admitted it's part of the advertising mix, but with me, anything you can't measure for effectiveness is suspect. But now, amazingly, there may be a way in the future to measure the effectiveness of branding--provided you can make all the targets take a brain scan. The process is called "Neuromarketing." Recently, according to Sandra Blakeslee of the New York Times, neuroscientists monitored the brain scans of 67 people who were given a blind taste test of Coke and Pepsi. The subjects were evenly split until they were told what they were drinking. At that point, activity in a different area of the brain "linked to brand loyalty" overrode their preferences. Three out of four then said they preferred Coke. A consumer group called the test "Orwellian," and said that such studies were dangerous. So maybe the branding devotees among us still have a while to wait.

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Five new casino owners,
and the oldest is just 15

      October 22 2004:      This quote from the Atlantic City Press stopped me cold. "The new owners of Fitzgerald's Casino & Hotel in Reno, Nevada, will be five children, ages six months to 15 years old." And it's true. They're the grandchildren of Wolf Lichten, who heads a group that bought the bankrupt Fitz for $9.9 million. Lichten is a savvy casino guy from Atlantic City who simply wanted to make sure his extended family was taken care of. "I guess this will be my legacy," said Lichten. Of course, the kids won't run the casino (darn!). Lichten and his son will. According to the story, the Reno Fitz itself was not in financial distress; it was just part of the bankrupt company. Lichten said he and his son will emphasize a family atmosphere and personal customer service. They plan to spend a lot of time on the casino floor, mixing with customers. "We won't have any voice mail," said David Lichten. "We'll take all calls, 24 hours a day, for our customers."Sounds like a lot of lost sleep to me--but fun. And can you imagine the 15-year-old grandson telling his school friends he owns a Nevada casino? That kid will be a big man on campus for sure.

"Copywriter" is a nickname
to keep the price down

      October 12 2004:      The advertising business calls them "copywriters." I call them "writers." My guess is that the servile term"copywriter" was designed by Madison Avenue to keep low paid slaves in cubicles, heads down, writing ads for which the agency bosses could take credit. Personally, I hate it when people call me a "copywriter." I also hate it when I read lines in the Wall Street Journal like "Research shows that today's marketing-savvy consumers are put off by preachy ads that dryly recite claims and slogans." Nobody needs "research" to tell them that. It goes without saying. No writer with even half a brain would write dry, preachy copy filled with claims and slogans because it wouldn't sell beans. But the line, by implication, makes it seem as if all "copywriters" are unimaginative dummies. It's particularly galling to those of us who are direct marketers. In our discipline, you sell--or else. And your main weapons are words. But in advertising these days you read about "cutting edge" techniques including street theater, improvisation, guerrilla marketing and viral marketing as if they could replace words. That's pure Bolshoi. Words still rule--in print, on TV and radio, and in Email and Web sites. Ask any writer.

Gaming's worldwide push
soon to engulf Singapore

      October 1 2004:      Casino gambling has succeeded virtually everywhere it's been tried in the world. It has shed the old stigmas and forged ahead for three reasons. (1) Its massive tax revenues prop up governments (2) It employs one hell of a lot of people, and (3) it brings in the tourists. You can add a fourth if you like: it usually destroys the illegal, underground rackets and converts part of that lost revenue into taxes. So now even Singapore is wising up. "For decades," writes Barry Wain in the Wall Street Journal, "conservative Singapore has rejected proposals to open a casino in the city-state, denying its gambling-devoted, predominantly Chinese population the opportunity to place a legal bet." With an estimated $720 million a year flowing out of Singapore into casinos in Malaysia and to cruise ships that sail out of Singapore on overnight gambling voyages, the country's prime minister says it's time to "reconsider...because the situation has changed." The government has invited "proposals," writes Wain, and the usual suspects, including MGM Mirage, Las Vegas Sands, Caesars and Harrah's are lining up. In Casino Marketing, my first book, I wrote that the gaming industry was "sprinting hard to take over America." I missed by six continents.

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Video games rivaling ad media:
Will casinos follow Jeep's lead?

      September 20 2004:      How long will it be until there's a video game about Las Vegas or Atlantic City--or about a particular casino? Probably not very. The Wall Street Journal reports that DaimlerChrysler commissioned a video game about the Jeep Wrangler zooming up steep inclines and dashing across rivers, offered it free online and was stunned when 250,000 downloaded it. A Jeep executive, according to the paper, said that video games are so effective as advertising that "it's shocking." Jeep says it sold hundreds of vehicles to people who played the game, and nearly 40% said they were interested in buying one. The US Army has a game out. So does NASCAR and Tom Clancy ("Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow"). Males 18 to 35 and watching TV less and playing video games more, says a Chrysler executive. The Journal says that "advergames" usually cost less than $250,000 and that Chrysler has already produced 23 of them with amazing success. Okay all you casino marketers, who's first?

Can the Justice Department
keep online gaming at bay?

      September 10 2004:      David Carruthers, a Brit who recently took his online gambling company public, is betting that the US will eventually be forced to drop its online gaming prohibition, writes Julia Angwin in the Wall Street Journal. And he's not the only one. Most Internet gaming executives feel the same way, says Angwin. The Justice Department successfully prosecuted an American who was running an operation in Antigua, and New York Attorney Eliot Spitzer nailed Citibank for processing credit card payments. Then the Justice Department told the National Association of Broadcasters that accepting ads from online gaming companies was illegal. The ads promptly disappeared from radio, Google, Yahoo and numerous others. But the actions devastated Antigua and Barbuda, which had 3,000 people working in more than 112 online casinos. Now only 500 work in 31 such operations. Antigua and Barbuda have challenged the US at the World Trade Organization, and last March a WTO court sided with the island nations, says Angwin. Australia has already decided not to ban Internet gambling. Will the US back down, too? Maybe not completely, but regulation will ease.

Governor Bill Owens takes a stand
against Indian gaming in Colorado

      September 1 2004:      The Senate Indian Affairs Committee meets Sept. 8, to hear, among other items on the agenda, a plea from the governor of Colorado to keep the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma from building a $150 million dollar casino outside Denver. Governor Bill Owens has made it clear that he not only opposes such a plan, but will actively fight it. The tribes, claiming homeland rights, have filed a 22-million-acre land claim with the Department of the Interior that would give them most of northwestern Colorado (including Denver) if upheld. They would, however, trade the claim for 500 acres near the Denver International Airport--about 35-40 minutes from the center of the city. Owens says he is confident the tribal claim would be defeated in the courts, and is dead against the Denver casino location. Colorado has 40 casinos, two of them Indian. Venture capitalist Steve Hillard, the key financial backer for the tribes, also will appear before the committee. Hillard claims the proposed casino would contribute a billion in revenue for the state over 10 years. Other Colorado casino owners say the amount is far overstated, and the Denver Post has editorialized against the tribes, saying there is no need for more casinos in the state. Stay tuned.

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What day and what time is best
for sending e-mail campaigns?

      August 12 2004:      E-mail plays an increasingly larger role in casino marketing. Problem is, we really don't know much about it. But little by little we're learning thanks to the various companies who analyze the stuff. Every time you pick up a tip you gain a slight edge--and here's one of those tips. The daily marketing newsletter Direct Newsline has revealed a new study by ReturnPath that shows the best day of the week to send permission-based e-mails is Monday.The deliverability success rate is higher on Monday than on any other day of the week. Best time to send your Monday e-mail is between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., The worst time to send is on Saturdays and Sundays between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. (eastern), when, according to ReturnPath, delivery rates fall 10%. The study also notes that "time of day" is more important than "day of choice." ReturnPath analyzed 16,000 campaigns and 3.3 million messages between January and April to arrive at their conclusions. The next big hurdle? We still have to learn how to "talk" to customers via e-mail. It'