Letters to the Editor
(Re: Loose Cannon: One Casino Would Rather Switch Than Fight, Direct Newsline, Monday, June 09, 2008):
Is this a puff piece or what?
David Newman
Bizcom
Eugene, Oregon
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Very amusing tale of an idiot’s approach to Marketing 101.
Years ago I was in the hotel/casino advertising world in Nevada, serving Reno, Tahoe, and Las Vegas. This was at a time when we would be doing amazing die-cut, pop-up, foiled, flocked and assembled high roller “invitations” with a unit costs of $35-$75 — in the1970s-1980s. It was also before corporate mindset and Indian gambling unleashed cheap-ass grind operations as the norm.
A casino list was so guarded that even the hint of misuse would be hell! Mass mailings were well thought out. Marketing direct mail was the art of making the most appealing message that “THIS was the event/place to be”.
We had a craps tournament [piece] with screen-printed flocked tip-ins that had pop-up dice with event info printed on them, multi-level pop-ups of Rick’s Cafe, animated boxers, skylines, “theaters” with entertainers, party scenes with expanding top hats and gorgeous photography and illustration. It was truly a great time for high-end printing.
Actually this was before the slot/players club card days. It. wasn’t until the 80s that John Boushy, VP at Harrah’s, “invented” the trackable player card concept! (He spearheaded the effort and spent LOTS creating a MARKETING driven database system to gather information to track play, restaurant visit etc., and used that to make the Harrah’s Card work on several levels: He was visionary regarding spending money to gather data for marketing profiles which became the player segmented listings, player upgrading, comp criteria and real customer ID.)
I recall, one time, the total amazement at the discovery that several huge players were low-end slot players generating more for the bottom line than “whales” [high-stakes gamblers] without the massive swings these “whales” create with winning
