Company: Harrah's Entertainment
Agency: Trahan, Burden & Charles
Timeframe: Early 2004 - May 2004
Budget: $146,000
When Binions of Las Vegas closed its Horseshoe Casino in 2004 due to bankruptcy, it brought into question the future of one of gambling's most prestigious tournaments,
the World Series of Poker (WSOP). This tournament was wholly owned and operated by Binions since 1970, but it seemed to be heading towards extinction: Federal marshals shut down
the Horseshoe three months before the first cards of the 2004 series were to be dealt.
Harrah's Entertainment bought the Horseshoe and the WSOP right away, but that was only half the battle. Harrah's decided to stage the WSOP on its original date, which
gave it only a three-month lead-time. It would take a major PR push to let the world know that the game was still afoot.
"We had very limited time to put this entire campaign together," says Dave Curley, who as an account supervisor at PR firm Trahan, Burden & Charles led the effort to
keep the three-decades-old series on track.
The PR organization would have to hustle, spreading word of the tournament's fate on at least three fronts. Former Horseshoe employees who were kept out of the loop on the fate
of the WSOP and the casino would have to be told that their jobs were ready and waiting should they choose to return. The poker community, who was also not updated on the
developments surrounding the new ownership, needed to know that players should be ready to play. And the media needed to know that the original schedule was in place. But on top
of that was a new message that needed to be made clear: The WSOP was coming back in a bigger and better format.
In research mode, the PR team sought out all reporters who had given coverage to the event in the past - or as many as they could, considering there had never been a formal
media registration process in the past. They also identified more than 50 Web sites related to poker.
Perhaps the easiest communications effort involved outreach to former employees. Nearly all were unionized, and it took only a couple of calls to alert union officials to the
changed situation. Those officials then spread the word to workers, freeing the PR team to communicate elsewhere. Harrah's CEO also held a press conference to announce the re-
hirings.
In approaching the media, the PR team dipped deep into its $146,000 budget. Expenses included $60,000 for the production and distribution of three video news packages and
$7,500 for the distribution via news wire of media advisories and press releases. Other expenses included a $4,000 personal appearance fee for the tournament's 2003 champion Chris
Moneymaker, and $19,000 in travel expenses. There was even outreach to City Hall, and the team hit pay dirt when word came that Las Vegas Mayor Oscar B. Goodman would be
available for a press conference at the start of the WSOP.
Furthermore, new working relationships were quickly established to help spread the word on the approaching event. Calls (not e-mails) were sent to the operators of poker Web
sites to notify them of WSOP's continuation, while a jazzed-up WSOP Web site was launched. A fully equipped pressroom was created on-site at the Horseshoe to accommodate the
journalists and camera crews arriving for the event. Partnerships were created with All In poker magazine and ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live," and exemptions from
ESPN-imposed broadcasts for foreign media were negotiated (ESPN remained on board as the U.S. broadcaster for the WSOP).
In addition to identifying and securing appropriate media, the PR team also needed to put into place a credentialing and registration process for reporters looking to cover the
game. Actually, the PR team would be inventing one from scratch.
"In previous years there really was no formal media registration process - people would just sort of randomly show up," says Curley. "That's a problem in a game played around a
small table. You have more and more media that want to come, but poker is a very unique sport, in that it is the only one the media cover where the playing field actually shrinks
as time goes in."
To minimize media overcrowding, Curley points out there was an essential need to know "who is going to be there, when they are going to be there and how many people are going
to be on hand at any given time."
The team opted for online credentialing in order to control the process and to accommodate a significant international media contingent. Harrah's IT department provided the
technical know-how and wire service notices alerted the media to the new procedure.
To contact the players, Curley relied "in large measure" on the media. "Prior to Harrah's taking over this event, there was very little infrastructure," he says. "There were
some obvious high-profile poker players we could get in touch with, but for the hundreds and hundreds of amateurs that come to this event it was much more difficult. We didn't
have registration lists available from past events, so we had to rely on the media to get the word out."
Some things just could not happen in the 90-day window. "In an ideal world, we would have had more time to make direct contact with far more players," Curley says. But with the
clock ticking, Curley adds he was "forced to look at what the ultimate objectives are and work backwards. You have to constantly ask the question: How? We know we want to achieve
certain goals at the end of the day. How are we going to achieve them, given the very tight time constraints under which we have to work? It forces you to remain focused every
minute of every day."
The net results were impressive. Horseshoe staffing was 3% higher than it had been prior to the closure. The number of entries to the game rose 85.6% over the prior year
(14,054 for 2004 versus 7,572 for 2003). The revamped WSOP Web site drew more than 1.2 million hits, while 94% of all media pre-registered online. Through clipping and monitoring
services, Curley tracked 2,041 print placements and 445 TV placements, generating nearly 445 million impressions and more than $20 million in publicity value based on the client's
measurement system.
A winning hand, by any measure.
Betting On Success
PR has never been easy for the gaming industry. Long plagued by charges of corruption and the perception of sleaze that some associate with gambling, the casino world still
struggles to gain positive PR.
In a recent article, the trade pub Casino City Times outlined some of the challenges:
- High casino taxes in certain states demand a PR response. "We failed miserably with politicians with regard to the tax question," one official told the paper.
- The editorial pages don't look good either. "The media in this country is vehemently anti-gaming," the same official said.
- Gambling addiction is perhaps the industry's largest single PR challenge, with many consumers expressing concern over the industry's role in the issue.
But there are positive trends, including a fairly high level of TV coverage of gambling events, including celebrity poker programs. Aggressive and imaginative marketing by the
Las Vegas tourism industry and other gaming centers across the country have been largely successful - the use of A-list celebrity entertainment, high-profile sporting events and
even business-to-business conferences at casino hotels keeps these venues in the public eye.
Contact: Dave Curley, 410.986.1305, [email protected]