Yeah you really have to wonder about Harrah's marketing sometimes.
We seem to continually get coupons (attached to the monthly magazine) for
free tickets to Jubilee -- hello - we are 7 star members who already get
Jubilee free. (A great show - but ???) And how many times can you see it?
(I've already seen it at least 10 times over the years. But why send this
offer so many times? How about an offer for Donny & Marie or another show
that is not one of the normal freebies for 7* members?)
This week Harrah's New Orleans sent out a beautiful invitation for a "Trip
of a Lifetime" - they spent a lot of money on printing all the details on
little cards, instead of just a 1-page letter. But the drawing is on April
10 - which gives you less than 2 weeks to plan a trip. NOTE TO HARRAHS:
cheapest airfares require 30 day notice. On top of that the trip is for a
2-week trip in June - no substitutions. If they win, how many people can
plan to take off on a 2-week jaunt to England and South Africa with just a
1-month notice? In fact, many people who are working would not be able to
take off at all with such little notice. As it happens, I could in fact go,
but the trip's details don't seem to include any money to pay for taxes for
such an expensive trip, or even meals. It might be that if you win you
would want to decline this. Wouldn't it have been better to give a Trip of
a Lifetime trip as a $15,000 gift certificate to Travelocity plus $5000 cash
(can pay your taxes), and then you could fly anywhere you want to?
Another oddity - in the fine print with all the details of what you are going to
do (visit England, visit casinos in England, visit South Africa, go on a
safari, visit a casino in South Africa), it mentions "group dinner" - who the
heck is the group if there is just 1 winner?? All very odd.
Actually Harrah's isn't the only one guilty of spending a lot of money on
promotions that seem odd. I often receive invitations for drawings for a
luxury car or other goods, with just 1 winner. Wouldn't they be better off
to give out 20 $1000 prizes plus 1 $5000 prize - to make 25 people happy,
rather than just 1 person $25,000? Similarly many tournaments are top-heavy,
with the top person getting $40K, and the next in line getting $5k, or
similar. Even when they double the number of people who can come and increase
the prize pool, they increase the top prize. They would be better off
making more people happy by lowering the top prize and giving out more biggish
prizes. And if you double the prize pool, give out 2 1st places, 2 2nd
places, etc - double the number of winners.
Then there is Gold Coast (and Orleans) current 500 winners get $500. It
turns out they are putting everyone who ever had a card into the database,
apparently, because in actually of the people swiping, only maybe 25 or so
get the $500. 500 winners sounds good, but the reality of your getting the
prize when you bother to show up and swipe is very low. So instead, why
not give out $100 each to 500 people who swipe? or whatever, to make more
people happy.
If you go month after month, swipe, and don't even see a "sorry you didn't
win" on the screen, it gets rather discouraging, not to mention annoying.
So rather than making people happy - and thus encouraging them to keep
coming back to play, the promotion is more of a downer!
Then there is the Palms Play and Win promotions - you get gifts, depending
on how much you play. The problem is that most of the gifts aren't that
great, and once you have gotten the top gift of whatever it might be, why do
you want to come the next day (or week or whenever) of that same month to
get the same top gift? If you want a set of pots and pans, you only want 1
set - not 10 of them! So you are going to do that promotion one time, but
not 10 times (in all likelihood). So instead of encouraging more and more
play, it really doesn't. Yes, it encourages some play, but not all that
much. Giving Gift Cards, like they do at Rampart, encourages people to come
back week after week after week. But the Palms Gifts, not so much.
If I were a Casino manager I would promote with Free Play, period! This
encourages people to come and come back, but also, most likely, a lot of
that free play is going to end up in the casino coffers. Instead of a Trip of
a Lifetime, I'd give 1 free pull on every machine in the casino, or
$30,000 in free play. For tournaments I would give every person in the
tournament at least $100 in Free Play. Free Play sounds oh so good - like real
money. But you and I know from experience, Free Play often turns into 0$ and
then you keep on playing and lose more! And keep on playing and keep on
playing.
Unfortunately all too many casino promotions suffer from "soft in the
head."
A friend of mine recently got one that said something like "Thank you for
being one of our great players, and as a result we are giving you $0.00 in
Free play on such and such a date" That's got to be a topper!
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