Bus Programs and the Abandonment of Common Sense
Few areas in the casino receive more scrutiny from senior managers for their business practices than the casino marketing and advertising department. Direct mail campaigns are carefully tracked by redemption rate, average daily spend and trip frequency. Print advertisements routinely contain coded coupons and each publication is evaluated based on d1eir effectiveness.
Player reward programs are evaluated using a variety of measures. Casino executives pride themselves on being able to measure the efficacy of every marketing program. That is, with the exception of bus programs.
Bus programs are an anomaly in casino marketing. They are expensive and, in many casinos, represent the second largest marketing expense behind player reward program costs. Yet despite their high costs they manage to defy measurmement. Bus programs satisfy casino management’s lust for bodies in the casino. They deliver customers in waves but few casinos are able to justify the expenses associated with acquiring those customers.
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