- Big data is a buzzword
that we hear a lot about
but a lot of people don't
know of any practical
real world applications of this.
I'm here with Michael Marino today.
He's the SVP of marketing
and Chief Experience Officer
of Caesars entertainment
to talk to us about how
Caesars uses big data in
their marketing strategies.
Thanks so much for being with us Michael.
- Glad to be here.
- Welcome back to Charlottesville.
- It's very exciting to be back here.
- I'd love to just hear a
little bit more about how
Caesars is leveraging big
data and how you're using it
in your marketing strategies.
- Yeah, of course, so
Harrah's which was the company
before Caesars was one of the
first to really use big data
in their marketing efforts.
Gary Loveman, our CEO
back in 1998 installed
really what has become
the foundation for many
one to one marketing
strategies where we have
a player database that is built
on our Caesars Loyalty Program.
That program allows us to
capture data for everything
a customer does, so if you
come and visit us at the hotel,
we know that you stayed with
us, we know where you ate
your food, we know whether
you went to the spa
or a night club, we know
how much you gambled
and where you gambled it at,
so whether it's a slot machine
or a table, so all of those
things come into a database
where we now can take that data
and we can market back to you
with packages of incentive
to try to get you to come visit us again.
And we use AB testing
to go through and say
all right, we know that Isabel
likes these three things,
we're gonna send her this package.
If she responds to that set of incentives,
we'll learn from her, we'll
refine that for the next
time around and try to get
her to come back again,
and we call it (mumbles) marketing,
it's been really successful for us.
- How have you seen your
customer experience improve
since you've been using
this new type of insights
into your marketing strategy?
- Yeah, I mean, just
knowing about your customer
is very similar to the
model Amazon uses of
you like this, so therefore
you should buy that.
It really helps us
understand what we need to do
in order to drive another
visit from our best guest
and to really showcase a
great experience for them
cause we know if we put you
in the right products for you
you're more likely to come back
and your propensity to
return goes up dramatically.
- How have you seen the use of
data change in the seven plus
years you've been in the marketing space?
- So, one of the big changes
is everything we've done
in the first three or four
years I was at Caesars
and pre Harrah's was based on
you were a member of our
program, you gave us your data,
it was based on first
party transactional data.
What's changed recently as
we're doing a lot more on
predictive data so we're doing
a lot on the digital side.
We call it segmentation
personalization optimization
so what that really means,
based on the limited amount
we see on your search
history, your click history,
your web browsing history,
put you into segments
that we can give you an
ad or a website that it
actually speaks to you.
So, an example of that
is we used to show ...
AB testings for the Summer
creative that always wins
in the Summer is the pool,
so people in Vegas wanna
go to the pool party.
It's the number one
creative no matter what
we test it against so we
actually changed this year
and we said okay, for
people who live in markets
like Phoenix, or Los Angeles
where you can actually drive
we instead decided to say
lets show you a road trip
instead of the pool and
lets show you that scene
of where you're coming over the hills,
you can first see Vegas
for the first time,
like the scene that everyone
sees in the Hangover
that's really popular and that
creative for drive markets,
drove over a double digit
increase in conversion
solely because it sparked
an emotional connection
with that driving and we
think those are the types
of things that are really
important for us to really
personalize an experience
and once we do that,
we optimize to make sure
we get maximum return
on our investment.
- So, it seems like a lot
of what you have to do
is use the data to
create a consumer insight
and then act on that consumer insight,
but do you find that marketing
in the entrainment industry
is different in any ways
than typical marketing.
- Yes, and I think because
I think it's more fun,
so we have more tools that we can use.
So, an example, I'll
give you an experience,
I brought my cousin, came for
her 21st birthday to Vegas
and I put her in the front
row for Backstreet Boys
and Nick Carter actually jumped
down, he went into the crowd
and on his way back to the
stage, jumped down into our booth
and sang half a song to my cousin
on her way back to the stage
and that kind of thing you
can't do in most businesses
and it makes it really fun
to be in the entertainment industry.
- I love that.
That's awesome.
Just in general, what has been
the most exciting development
in marketing that you've seen
in the most recent history.
- So, I think the thing to
me is marketing used to be
really, it was brand,
insight, advertising,
and now it's really evolved to experience
and I think that's really exciting where
marketing now is the guest
self-serving is actually
a part of marketing like can your,
is your brand easy to use.
Starbucks gets a lot of credit
for their mobile payment
cause their brands easy to
use, easy to engage with,
and you know, we've been
trying to do a lot of that
at Caesars as well, trying to provide
a great experience for guests.
I think that's really compelling.
Its really exciting
time to be in marketing.
- Well, it seems like you
guys are doing a lot of
really interesting things
and I'm super excited
to continue to follow
Caesars and see what's next
for the company and for marketing.
- Thank you. It's been fun to be here.
I'm glad I got to come back to Darden.
- Yeah, thanks so much
for giving us your time.
- Of course.
