It’s Thursday, which means the latest Green Felt Jungle in Vegas Seven is out. This week I talk about the Primm casinos texting promotion that you probably know about if you’ve driven along I-15 in either direction in the past few weeks:
The company is just coming out of bankruptcy, and its Primm properties might be the best route back to solvency.
That’s because those casinos are in position to exploit a rare bright spot: While most tourism indicators are down, traffic on Interstate 15 is actually up. Every day, about 35,000 vehicles whiz past Primm on their way north. Capturing just a slice of that traffic has been Job No. 1 at Primm since the first casino opened there in 1977. But today, the area’s casinos are using new technologies to improve their technique.
Even before there was an interstate running from California to Las Vegas, billboard advertising was one of the ways that value-oriented casinos tried to reach customers. As traffic moved from Highway 91 to I-15, the billboards got bigger, but the messages remained the same.But since March, the New Member Millionaire Mania promotion has used cell phones to move those ads into the 21st century.
via Texting promotion driving traffic to Primm casinos | Vegas Seven.
Good article to research–I tried to find the earliest example of highway advertising I could, but the furthest back I got was a few shots from the Binion’s collection of 1960s-era billboards. I think the most important thing here is that Richey hits the nail on the head: it’s not enough to just use technology, there’s got to be a good promotion under it. And it doesn’t get much better than free money.