Outside the box
by Matt Connor
November 2, 2008
When overworked and understaffed, casino execs often outsource their PR and marketing functions
Let’s say you’re the PR
director for a Las Vegas-based casino resort hotel, when, in a single week,
your president is indicted for tax fraud and there’s a Legionnaire’s Disease
outbreak on the third floor of one of your hotel towers. Meanwhile, a TV crew
is filming a poker tournament in your card room for a cable TV show and a new
$28 million production is about to debut in your theater
space.
On top
of all that, everyone from Barbara Walters to the gaming columnist for the
local 10,000-circulation newspaper wants to schedule an interview with your
scandal-plagued president.
You are dangerously close
to completely losing control of your property’s public image and causing a
meltdown in its stock price. It’s time to call in an outside PR firm to help
you get things back on track.
“One of the things that we propose
when we are engaging with a new hotel resort or a casino, and one of the
programs that Preferred PR puts together immediately, is a crisis
communications plan for an unforeseen tragedy or nightmare,” said Michele Tell,
one of the principals of Preferred Public Relations in Las Vegas. “You hope,
just like with insurance, that the crisis communications plan sits on a shelf
and collects dust and you never have to use it, but that’s one of the programs
we put together.
“It’s
a very stellar ‘what if’ crisis communication plan,” she continued. “That is
one of the tools we specialize in, so we’re often hired for that. But you hope
you never have to use it or look at it again. It’s something we lay on the line
with new clients that they need to have as a part of our
world.”
A scenario like the one
portrayed above almost never occurs in real life, of course. Tell said she’s
more often confronted by overworked in-house PR and marketing professionals who
may simply be short on the resources necessary to launch a large-scale campaign
to promote a new casino opening, renovation or entertainment
offering.
“The
majority of the casino hotel departments we work with are on the smaller side,”
said Tell, who in an earlier stage of her career was PR director for the MGM
Grand. “When they outsource to a professional strategic public relations agency
like Preferred Public Relations, they’re getting an entire team added to their
internal team and that’s definitely a cost-effective measure. Rather than
hiring 25 people in-house, they have the use of a strategic marketing team.
“When I was on the inside.
I hired out because I needed agencies that had a very specific expertise or a
very specific niche in the market that I needed. From the internal standpoint,
you’re really reactive. You’re getting dozens and dozens of phone calls and
requests from around the world and now with emails, journalists are asking for
different things from around the world.
“You’re pulled in so many
directions that it’s really more of a reactive state of mind when you’re on the
inside. When you’re on the outside, you’re able to be more proactive, more
strategic and more forward-thinking.”
And you’re able to get,
perhaps, a clearer view of the property, its image and performance than some
internal employees are able to achieve, said Jack Taylor, director of the
gaming and entertainment division for Mass Media Corporate
Communications.
“All
of the properties have staffs, but the number one reason to outsource is fresh
ideas, creativity and, certainly, an overall big picture look at their
business, the opportunity to break down your business and rebuild it a little
bit from a communications and marketing standpoint,” he
said.
“You don’t want to get stuck
in ruts,” he added. “There are some standard things that you do in the gaming
industry in terms of communicating with your customer base and your database
and the general audience that’s in your market, but you need to kind of step
out a little bit.
“The term ‘outside the box’
is well-worn. It’s probably outworn,” he said. “But it still needs to be done
in terms of finding those golden nuggets of product and doing the right
research to find out what your customer database really wants and what the best
ideas and products are to create repeat business and loyal
customers.”
Taylor said he’s seen cases in the past where casino
marketing and PR employees get so caught up in the day-to-day treadmill of
their jobs that they become unable to see the forest for the
trees.
“They can’t take that time
and a breath to take a step back and take a look,” he said. “That’s what an
outside source can do and at the same time outside sources have experiences
from a lot of different areas and marketing disciplines. They can bring not
only a fresh outlook but a different outlook and a different creative
approach.”
Another advantage to
outsourcing PR and marketing functions, say longtime industry professionals, is
that these companies are usually very eager to get concrete, demonstrable
results for their clients.
“As a
matter of course, outside agencies tend to be highly motivated to get results
because their contracts day in and day out depend on it,” said Mark Fierro,
president of Fierro Communications in Las
Vegas. “It’s very telling that the rank and file
casinos back in the 1980s and ’90s started taking everything in-house. The ones
that were more cutting edge people – the ones that are known as driving this
industry – all out-sourced.
“When
you have an outside firm, that firm is always pushing to get you better
coverage and come up with good ideas,” he said. “Inside, they’re fighting
politics; they’re more inclined to go with their boss, who is more inclined to
go along with the president.
“And unless the president
is an advertising and PR professional, you probably have a process that is
driven by somebody that is not as focused on the disciplines of modern
marketing.”
But
outside PR and marketing professionals who do a bang-up job tend to develop
long-term relationships with their casino clients. A six-month contract may
turn into a multiyear commitment, said Tell, Fierro and
Taylor.
“The majority of our
campaigns are thorough, developed strategic campaigns, special events, special
trade shows, and yes, the majority of our clients do hire us for, say, a
six-month contract, which tends to be one of our smallest,” Tell said. “But
then we end up staying on board for years.
“We
have several clients that have been on board almost 10 years, so it can start
with a smaller project and blossom into a long-term
relationship.”
Echoed
Fierro, “Generally speaking, we go in because they have a specific concern.
They may have a new show coming in, they may want to take a new direction in
their player loyalty club program and they want to institute these things or
they may have some new television commercials they want to put together.
“But once we have a chance
to sit down, we generally work our way into their hearts,” he added. “They see
the value of it, and what they’re buying, in a sense, is a fractional piece of
a Gulfstream as opposed to a whole Cessna.
His
company, he said, soon “becomes part of the casino’s marketing team. We become
part of their management team, we integrate on all levels, we write for them.
When it’s over, I think a good PR person eventually becomes part psychoanalyst
and part attorney/go-to person/problem solver.”
All, however, say that the
current state of the economy has clearly had an impact on their business. As
gas prices climb, Wall Street collapses and casino profits decline, industry
executives are trying to do more with their internal PR and marketing
departments and less with outside firms.
“Everybody
is being very cautious right now. They have to be. Everyone is attuned to what
is going on in Washington,” Taylor said.
“The whole economy needs to recover. We all pay attention to all the
economic indicators all the time.
“[But] you talk to the
Nevada Development Authority and they will tell you that Las Vegas – while a leader in housing
foreclosures – has a number of things in place that are going to create
economic recovery more quickly than others. Once the economy gets moving, I
think we’re really going to take off again.”
A firm
that provides value to a casino will remain in demand, said
Fierro.
“Everybody
moves to the value deal,” he said. “I know one way to do business where you can
close every deal that you pitch, and that is, if you cost less and are more
effective for dollars spent than what they’re doing right ...“You’re not
talking about adding to their budget. You’re talking about winding down their
budget and making it more effective. That’s how we pitch.”
And,
said Taylor,
the current economic doldrums will lift,
sooner or later.
“It will come back, but you’ve just gotta really
work harder than ever right now to maintain what you have and try and grow as
best you can and do a good job every day and be there when the timing is
right,” he said.
Matt Connor
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