Increase Tracked Play By Amazing Numbers:

Before the chicken, we were suffering with about 17% tracked play; only 17 out of every 100 people on my floor were using a club card in their machine.

When we added the chicken promotion (with mandatory insertion of players club card to challenge the chicken), my club card usage rose to 44% of my floor the first month and up to 74% of my floor by the end of the promotion.

 

 

Increase Club Membership & Traffic In The Casino:

Our slowest day was Wednesdays. In new club sign-ups we averaged about 35 new members on a Wednesday (before the chicken).

With the chicken promotion in operation, our Wednesday average new players jumped to 980.

 

Increase In Incremental Revenue:

On a typical day the chicken would be open for 8 hours with approximately 60 players per hour or 480 players per day (600 players on weekends). Of those players approximately 43% were new players who came because of the chicken promotion (the majority of the remaining 57% were existing players who previously had not been tracked (because they were not club members).

We experienced a monthly incremental revenue increase of approximately 13% attributable to the promotion.

 

An Operators’ Questions & Answers About The Chicken

          When we first decided to use the tic-tac-toe playing chicken it was not even my idea. I was a vice-president of marketing at a Trump operated casino…or at the time I might have still been just the Director of Marketing. The General Manager at the time had seen the chicken promotion at the Tropicana in Atlantic City and he wanted to bring it to Southern California.

          I was SO opposed to the idea that it was not even funny; and I kept stalling and stalling for months. I had seen the promotion in Atlantic City (where it was a huge success) but I had also heard some rumors that it had failed in some other venues. I just did not want to take the chance.

          Finally my stalling hit a brick wall and I was forced to go forward with the promotion; my only “demand” was that I have total creative control on how we advertise and present the promotion. But I was still skeptical.

          To this day I am still amazed at how successful this promotion turned out to be. I can honestly say that it is the most successful promotion I have ever seen in a casino…and I have seen them all.

          If you do it right, it will surpass anything you have ever seen. Following are a few tips, in the form of Q&A that may help you decide to go forward with this promotion.

Q: OK, I have seen the numbers and see that it apparently works. But how do I get people to use their club cards on the floor?

A: The chicken “box” has a card reader built into it. Players must insert their players club card into the box in order to play; no club card…no playing against the chicken.

This serves two functions: (1) it gets people who do not have players club cards to sign up for them and (2) it gets the player in the habit of pulling out that card and sliding it into a machine.

Even cooler, the software tracks the player, limits them to one play per day per person, and is importable to almost any player tracking system on the market.

Q: How much staff do I need to run the promotion?

A: The promotion really runs itself and there is a “chicken wrangler” assigned to your property while the promotion is open.

However, because the darn thing is so popular and usually has a long line waiting to play, I have found it very useful (from a customer service standpoint) to have a players club rep or a promotions rep working the line to keep it moving and to keep up some patter with the players

Q: How often does the chicken lose?

A: One of the beautiful things about this promotion is that you can set a frequency of winners. That means, that depending on your prize you can set how often it pays; if your prize is $10,000 then you might want it to pay off one in every 15,000 players (about once a month); if your prize is $250 then you might want to pay off one in every 150 players (several times a day).

I have found that the most effective way to keep high interest (and long lines) is to run the promotion in three phases:

·         First run a big-number chicken challenge to get a lot of attention (you will be amazed at the amount of free press you can get – see below on advertising). Offer $5000 or $10,000 to anyone that can beat the chicken and set the frequency so that you will have only one winner.

·         After a set period of time (I like one to two months), announce the retirement of the world-champion chicken (or fire it) and replace it with a group of a dozen “chickens in training” (for Trump I called them “Apprentice” chickens). Since these chickens are newbies and have not yet learned to be champions, pay $100 to $250 to anyone who can beat one of these. Set the frequency to several a day or at least several a week. Be sure to openly rotate chickens with different “names” so players will see that there are truly a number of chickens in training.

·         After a set period of training chickens, announce a “winning chicken” …one that is “undefeated” and re-launch the original promotion (with the big prize and the very low frequency.

This kind of cycle keeps a high interest among players, the media, and new players. It keeps the lines long and excitement high.

 

Q: What is the best way to promote the casino?

Think of this promotion as ENTERTAINMENT and not as a gaming promotion. Think of it just as if you were booking a celebrity singer into your showroom (if you have one.

The amount of FREE media this promotion generates is phenomenal; even for media that never covers casino promotions. I have, in multiple venues, managed to get the local television personalities to play against the chicken live and on the air (we even did it with a couple of radio stations in California). On-the-air personalities love to be humiliated by being defeated at a kids’ game (tic-tac-toe) by a chicken!

Once the local press hits, a few billboard vinyls, and your regular mixture of radio and TV (with the chicken theme added to you normal buy)…and word of mouth takes over. Truly, your chickens will become the talk of the town and the envy of every property in town.

You can take a look at three commercials I produced for the Trump property in southern California for the three phases of the promotion (described above) at www.GaryGreenGaming.com/chickenTV.htm .

I have also found the use of advertising specialties to be VERY effective in driving excitement and bringing players into the property. People seem to love to get a tee-shirt that says “I got beat at Tic-Tac-Toe by a CHICKEN at so-and-so Casino.” At one property my staff order brain-shaped stress balls printed with “This is your brain on chicken tic-tac-toe at Trump29 Casino.” People love those things and if they are promoted as “consolation prize days” then you will find that you can turn your really slow days into respectable number days.

Additionally, I will be happy to help you out with some marketing tips; email me at gary@garygreen.com.

Q: What about my Gaming Commission?

A: This is not a gaming device. It does not cost money to play the chicken; hence there is no wager made. Therefore it does not fall under the licensing issues for a game. It is merely an entertainment promotion and as such is licensed and reviewed as your property would license and review any entertainment, concert, or show.

I strongly recommend that you write explicit IC’s (Internal Controls) for any disbursement of prize money.

Q: Is it worth the cost?

A: The short answer is yes: the monthly return on my investment (ROI) the first time I used the chicken promotion was literally 1200 times my monthly cost when I calculated incremental revenue; and that does not include the residual value of all of those new players club members and the ability to do targeted direct mail based on their tracked play.

Incremental revenue is phenomenal. But the TRUE value is the long term trackable lifetime value of players who are now members of the club and regularly using their cards.

The simple test of viability is data analysis. Take your currently tracked players and run that list against players who challenge the chicken by inserting their player card. Take the number of trips per month of that group of players and their theo AND actual in the month before the chicken promotion and at the end of the first month of the promotion. Therein is your incremental revenue from existing tracked players generated by the promotion. Add to that the theos and actuals of your new members (who signed up just to play the chicken) and you have you answer: absolutely.

Q: More questions or specific questions?

You can contact me at gary@GaryGreen.com.