by Julia Carcamo
117 pp. 2020, $11.99.
I’ll admit it: I’m a recovering Marketing person. I don’t particularly like to talk about it,
but I spent the first seven years of my casino career working first as a publicity writer and then in various other marketing verticals before finally working up to the Director level. I then had a rare opportunity to move to Slot Operations, for which I will be forever grateful. Looking back, I realized that my time in Marketing was often invaluable to my success in Slots. With so many casinos isolating their teams in silos, I believe they are wasting a valuable opportunity to develop stronger executives through departmental rotations.
I can think of no better example than trying to understand the subject of branding. Those in table games or slot operations often view the subject as an excuse for marketers to waste money on fluff. I can’t tell you how many times I heard colleagues in slots complain that IGT’s three logo changes in a little more than five years was “a giant waste of thousands of dollars that should have been spent building better games.”
Logos are part of branding, of course, but it’s important to note that they are not the whole story. And that’s the point: not many understand branding or why it matters. Certainly not old-school slot folks, understandably, but more than a few casino marketers also seem baffled by the whole concept. The subject is critically important, but difficult to master. Want proof? There are 50+ pages of generic “branding” books for sale on Amazon.
But there are recent two works, specifically on casino branding, that are worth a read no matter what department you call home. One is Gary Green’s Formulaic: How to Make a Brand Truly Great, published in the spring of 2019, and the other is just out this month: Julia Carcamo’s slim new volume Reel Marketing: The Art of Building a Casino Brand.
I’ll review Green’s 2019 book next month, but Carcamo’s is fresh off the press and you can find the softcover for under 12 bucks on most online sites. Both of these books stand out in this field, not least because they are quick, punchy reads. Green’s is just 66 pages, and Carcamo fulfills her mission in a mere 117 pages (and they are little pages.) Both are roughly 100 to 200 pages shorter than the majority of the other branding books.
Carcamo may be familiar to you: she has a blog, writes articles for various gaming publications, and is often a panelist at G2E, NIGA, and countless other gaming-related seminars. The reason she’s invited back so often is that her message is generally short, sweet, and actionable. You would almost think she’d spent time on a real casino floor instead of just in school or the executive suite. And you’d be right.
Her book takes this same straightforward approach; it’s divided into five chapters that she labels “Jules’ Rules.” Each of these rules carries some lessons that most of us can put to work immediately. Don’t be frightened by the Assignments at the end of each chapter; this is not a textbook. Rather, the assignments are suggestions to help implement the lessons of the previous chapter.
Again, this is a quick read with solid content. Indeed, there are some paragraphs that should be carved in stone somewhere in your casino. Here are just four: “Do not chase trends that are not suited to your brand.” “Understanding who your guests are not is as important as who they are,” “If you want to drive a consistent brand message, you must hire for the skills and attitude that will represent your brand,” and “Are they (your targeted audiences) being shared with all team members, or are they being held only for the eyes of the executive or marketing teams? ”
I highly recommend this book for all wanting an excellent primer on casino branding. However, I do have one tip to Carcamo for her second edition: she needs a better cover. Gary Green put Donald Trump on the cover of his branding book, something that seems to be a path to instant sales success these days.
A final note: long before the word “branding” was born, the team of Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote a seminal work on the subject in Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind. That book will celebrate its Golden Anniversary next year, so the examples cited are horrifically out-of-date, but the concepts covered are as fresh as Carcamo’s latest work.
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