01.06.10.
The article below is one I wrote for the most recent issue of the Raving Consulting Newsletter. Needless to say, I feel strongly about this topic, so I’ve decided to publish it here on our blog as well.
Two days ago my creative director and I were discussing ideas for a potential client, and we were arguing. We had a great business idea for the client, but the business idea didn’t match up with the advertising solution I was convinced the client wanted to buy from us. The client was looking for a new brand solution, and they very much liked our Grand Casino “What’s Your Grand Casino Story?” campaign. And so I thought the answer was to find a Guest-centric testimonial-like branding idea, but Cathy felt her idea — which was not a Guest-centric testimonial branding idea — she felt her idea was something better, something bigger, and something that could reposition the client and drive huge business. I said, “The client wants a brand campaign that looks like this.” And she said, “No, our job is to help our client use their marketing dollars to drive more business. And this idea is bigger than advertising. It’s a positioning idea that is something more. Remember, an ad is only as big as the billboard, but an idea can be much, much bigger.”
posted by Chad Germann
2 Comments »
When a business wants to examine where the money is going at any given time, the business owner calls accountants to do an audit. Those auditors are there to find discrepancies in what’s being paid for and what’s being delivered. The same can be true for your advertising.
And I am not talking about a Media Audit. You can always audit whether or not the media services you are paying for are performing as promised — that’s pretty clean math, and we will talk more about Media Audits in another posting.
For now, in this article, we’d like to encourage you to be asking the folks who do your advertising some important questions. You see, even though most people consider the creation of advertising to be an art form, there really is a good deal of science to it. There are certain “must do’s” that we believe you should be insisting on. The point of giving out rules for something as creative as advertising is that it is an investment like any other. You spend money to air it or print it. But first you spend money to create it – whether it’s the dollars paid to an ad agency or the time your team spends to help create it; once finished, it is a straight-up cost.
posted by CathyGrisham 5 Comments »
11.13.09.
There is a lot of great stuff in this article about service, by Dennis Conrad of Raving Consulting. I believe few businesses truly understand just how important these things are and how much impact this makes. We respect and value the expert advice from Dennis and recommend Raving highly. Reading this article got me thinking further about the actual club structure and benefits, the meat and potatoes of a players club? When you’re comfortable with your service what else is going to increase the revenue generated from players? What benefits are most valuable, what should the overall reinvestment be and what about tiers? At Red Circle we start every club restructure with research. Without first examining the strengths and weaknesses of your database, your analysis and reporting, your history, your competition, your company structure, your technology, your capabilities and your guest feedback making changes is a stab in the dark. The condition of your database and your casino will be a large indication for the foundation of your new club. Be cautious of the people that tell you what structural or benefit changes you should make without first understanding the unique aspects of your business. At Red Circle our goal is to fully maximize your revenue and create efficiencies that make our business partners look like rock stars to their executive board and their guests. At Red Circle you won’t get the “everybody does it this way” approach, you’ll get fresh concepts that are focused on your needs and your guests feedback.
posted by NikkiDorau 2 Comments »
11.09.09.
Last time I talked about how breaking the rule that says “watch what your competitor does and make sure you do that too” is the critical first step in creating a brand that gets people out of their houses and into your place. Now I will share with you a little secret.
There is one rule that I believe in NEVER breaking. In fact it’s more than rule – it’s almost like a system of beliefs about what makes ads good.
Of course there are some basics: 1) good brand registration, 2) quality look and feel – after all, you can’t really expect people to look at a commercial that was shot at your local TV station for 500 dollars then somehow think that same ad makes a good stand-in for your multimillion dollar property; and 3) uniqueness of concept and 4) memorability of concept.
posted by CathyGrisham No Comments »
10.28.09.
While a recent gaming survey touts happy casino employees, how does your company rank? Would the employees surveyed in your casino lower or increase the averages and how does that affect your business?
I believe that good employees are your number one asset, even more so than slot machines. You’re probably thinking that yes, good employees are important but let’s not get crazy and say they are more important than our gaming devices. Well, if you’ve ever listened to Steve Browne you’ve heard that your customers come to your casino hoping to win, expecting to loose and wanting to have a good time. It truly is a good time that you are selling and I’m a firm believer that gamers have too many options to spend their money in a joint that doesn’t treat them well or show them a good time.
posted by NikkiDorau 3 Comments »
10.28.09.
Have you ever had this happen? You call a customer service line at some big company with a problem. And a miracle happens: you get some wonderful person on the line who says to you something like “I’m not supposed to do this but…” and with that phrase you realize that something unique and memorable just happened. You are someone for whom a rule has been broken. You have been singled out as someone who is special. I would suggest that it works the same with what many would consider to be the “rules of advertising.”
Ad agency creative people love to extol the virtues of rule breaking. They’ll tell you about how breaking the rules is the only way to make an impact on customers. I can’t say that I disagree totally. If the rules you are breaking are things like “always show people with big toothy smiles, playing cards or dice,” then yes, these are rules ripe for breaking. If you don’t believe it, try this experiment: get a clipboard, and spend an afternoon at your local mall interviewing people who might be your gaming target, and ask them the following questions: tell me the name of a casino whose advertising you remember. Now tell me what do you remember about it? Don’t be surprised to learn that most people think casino ads are a blur of sameness and they can’t remember a single distinctive ad from a property, not even one that spends 100s of thousands each year to run advertising.
posted by CathyGrisham No Comments »
But you need them to look, consider and purchase your product. Or you go out of business fast. So what’s the trick?
The average American is hit with over 3,000 marketing messages every day. We see so much of it, day in and day out, that we learn to tune it out. It’s a skill, and we all learn it by about age 4. By the time a person is of an age to become a consumer — a target for your business — they have become masters at ignoring advertising. And that is your challenge, that is the challenge of all entrepreneurs and the challenge of all businesses both new and old: How do I engage the consumer when they are completely uninterested in anything I have to say?
posted by Chad Germann 1 Comment »
