Inside Asian Gaming

39 Noteworthy Promotions Raving Consulting’s Dennis Conrad offers his ranking of the best (and worst) US casino promotions of 2009 I’ ll admit it, I’ve lost count. This is either the 12th or 13th (or maybe the 14th) edition of my annual labor of love, the “Best (and Worst) Casino Promotions” of the year. Others probably call it something like “Conrad GoneWild”or“How toWin an Award You’re Not Sure You Want”. I didn’t mean for this to develop into an annual affair, but it has. Below is a list of the most noteworthy honorees (well, OK, some are “dis-honorees”). To recap, there is no award process for the “Best (and Worst) Casino Promotions of 2009”. Heck, there are no awards. There is one judge—me. The winners in “The Best” category should feel proud to receive my praise, but they might not. The Hall of Shame (“Worst”) winners will probably hate me (even though I don’t mention them by name), but I am hopeful that they achieved some excellent learning from their stumbles. My selections are based on an unparalleled network of direct-mail samples, numerous personal visits as both a consultant and player, a wide variety of news and information sources and from the advertising, PR, collateral materials and Web sites of the casinos themselves. And, oh yeah, much of the “crappy” info comes from a small but reliable cadre of snitches (er, sources) who get some strange high by sharing with me examples of the supreme failures and excesses of the casino marketing wars. And once again I have attempted to not only highlight the big ideas but also the little things that made a big difference for casino customers, employees and communities. So here they are, for your learning and entertainment pleasure, “The Best (And Worst) Casino Promotions of 2009”! The Best YES, THEY COULD Indiana Live! Casino (Shelbyville, Ind.) So who better to help open your new casino than Barack Obama? Well, OK, there are certainly some issues in making that happen. But when Indiana Live! Casino opened its new facility with an Obama look- alike (and sound-alike) impersonator in its TV and print ads and on its billboards no one thought “No, you can’t!” So what if the White House soon called and asked the casino to pull the plug on the campaign? The pre- opening PR bonanza had already happened. Economic stimulus package indeed! THE TRAVELING $5 MILLION Seminole Casinos (Florida) It was called “See $5 Million/Win $1 Million”. Seminole Casinos built a display case that securely held $5 million (in $100 bills) and rotated it through five of their tribal casinos over two months. Throw in some pretty models and some real burly security guards to go with the exhibit, free pictures of guests in front of the $5 million (downloadable from the Web site) and a free daily “swipe to win” for up to a million bucks (and where every kiosk swipe won something)—and you’ve got a traffic-driving mega-promotion with legs. Somewhere, Benny Binion (originator of Feature