A new day at the Trop

No, the Tropicana didn’t sign Celine Dion. Instead, in the best AC tradition, the casino is launching a new advertising campaign to convince visitors that there’s no place for squalor and surliness in the court-appointed conservator-run casino. From the AC Press:

Tropicana Casino and Resort is overhauling its battered image with the help of a new, upbeat advertising campaign that invites customers to “experience the difference.”

The $1 million publicity push includes print advertisements, mailings, billboards and a 30-second television spot that begins airing today in the Philadelphia, New York and New Jersey markets.

Tropicana’s management hopes customers will give the casino a second chance following a turbulent 12 months of mass job cuts, lagging service and unsanitary conditions under the previous owner, Columbia Sussex Corp.

“We want to get away from a period of time when it was tumultuous, and say to our customers, ‘When you come to Tropicana, you’re going to have a great time,'” said Mark Giannantonio, the casino’s president. “We want people to stay at the property.”

To lure customers back, Tropicana is launching an advertising campaign based on the theme “Experience the Difference.” The goal is to portray Tropicana in an entirely new light – countering negative publicity about bedbugs, smelly rooms, overflowing toilets and surly employees during the casino’s disastrous licensing hearing last month.

Angered by those problems, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission stripped Tropicana of its license Dec. 12 and deemed Columbia Sussex an unsuitable owner. Tropicana is now under the control of a state-appointed conservator, who will oversee the casino’s sale to a new buyer.

Admitting mistakes, Tropicana looks to remake its image

For months, the union and the Casino Control Commission were blasting this place in the papers, convincing the public that the Tropicana was not a “first-class resort.” Did they think that this would have any effect besides running off customers? Of course the ads are going to say, “things are great,” but I would hope that patrons aren’t so naive as to automatically believe that just because the “baddies” are leaving town, the Trop is once more first-class.

If it only takes an ad campaign to restore the Trop’s luster, then things weren’t so bad in the first place. So maybe it will take a major renovation (which hopefully includes sprucing up the exterior) to re-establish the place.

And maybe the organizations who were so quick to trash the place in the press should work just as hard to rehabilitate it, and the city’s image. I think that people in Atlantic City lose sight of the fact that the world off of Absecon Island isn’t paying rapt attention to who owns which casino. Ninety percent of the city’s target demographic probably just heard “Atlantic City casino…bedbugs…stinky toilets” and figured “why not play in PA instead?”

To use an area-appropriate analogy, it’s like a Boardwalk merchant feeding the seagulls every day then complaining because the birds are fouling the passers-by and driving off business. What did he expect?

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