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Number
63: August 4, 2004
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This week in Katydid:
Marketing
in Reality
As marketers, we've learned many lessons in our careers – mostly because
of mistakes. However, would you hire a camera crew to watch while you
fall on your face? That seems to be the plan behind two summer
reality-based programs that provide a glimpse inside the office. It's
not a pretty view.
Normally, reality programming gets its drama by putting the cast in
unfamiliar and stressful situations and seeing how they react. The
environment is often as artificial as the reactions of the model/actors
cast in the roles. However, in American
Casino
on the Discovery Channel, and The
Casino
on the Fox network, the environment is naturally artificial (!?)
because the shows are set in Las Vegas casinos.
I've written before that I grew up in Vegas, so that's my excuse for
tuning into these shows. What hooked me was that these shows turned out
to reveal a lot of office politics especially within the marketing
departments.
Getting to peek into the windows of someone else's office has been
fascinating because I thought I was the only one who had lived through
this stuff. The Casino follows two "dot com
millionaires" (didn't they all become thousandaires?), who buy the Golden
Nugget in Las Vegas. Timothy Poster and Thomas Breitling owned Travelscape.com,
which they sold to Expedia.com. The show gets its drama from their
inexperience in the world of gaming.
American Casino follows the staff of the Green
Valley Ranch Resort & Casino and the drama involves the
day-to-day challenges of operating the casino. It seems less scripted
than its counterpart on Fox.
Both casinos struggle for identity in the crowded and highly
competitive market of Las Vegas. The Golden Nugget is in the older,
seedier downtown area, which
struggles to draw customers from the newer, more glamorous casinos on
The Strip. Green Valley Ranch is also far off The Strip and relies
on its resort amenities to lure patrons to make the trip. To the
marketing departments, a reality show probably sounded like a great way
to build awareness.
Naturally, since marketing needed to approve the projects, the
departments feature heavily in the storylines. The revelation to me was
how much these teams were winging it when it came to marketing. The
producers may have hoped for the glitz and glamour of Vegas, what they
got was the infighting and hubris of The
Office.
Unfortunately, the office politics on display were all too familiar
to me from own career. Of course, I thought I was just unlucky, but
these shows make me wonder if my experiences were more the norm.
There's the young man – a nepotism hire – who keeps being promoted
despite his incompetence. He seems unaware of his own failings and sees
as jealousy the frustration of more qualified candidates who are passed
over. He moves up to marketing.
There's the senior marketing executive who constantly sets up his
naïve direct-report to fail. He gives him no support; tells him to make
decisions. Then the senior executive second-guesses all those decisions
and is ready to swoop in at the last minute to rescue the project and
take the credit. The direct report doesn't realize he's in way over his
head and seems to believe that knowledge somehow comes with the title.
There's the executive who seems to feel that their sole purpose is to
make tough decisions, which turn out mostly to be snap judgments based
on little evidence. He doesn't seem to understand that accountability
starts at the beginning of a project where he should be asking tough
questions. When the projects fail, he's always there to hand out the
blame.
Granted, the producers of these shows develop these characters during
editing. So, we don't see the whole picture. We don't know if they're
nice to their families, or if they're spending time reading basic
marketing texts at home. Additionally, the cast probably tries to punch
up the drama of their own lives to gain more camera time. However, I'm
inclined to think that they wouldn't exaggerate their lack of marketing
skills.
For example, event marketing is a very common tactic for casinos
because they need to draw new customers. Repeatedly, the marketing
departments throw these events together with little planning,
unrealistic expectations, and no accountability.
In American Casino, the Green Valley Ranch marketing team
decides to host an art & wine festival. Their experience with these
festivals is that one member of the marketing team likes wine and has
attended similar festivals. The resort is going to private-label some
wine and bring in a variety of artists to display their works. The
business case for this event is similar to the one made for all the
events shown: if you build it, they will come.
It does not go well. They do not give themselves enough time to
market the event. They don't know who will come, or who they want to
come. They assume that people who attend wine tastings are affluent and
familiar with the protocol. The marketers don't consider another
possible attendee: people who like to drink free wine. They run out of
glasses because instead of having a taste, spitting, rinsing, and
reusing the glass, the attendees are drinking an entire glass and then
getting a new one. The wine-loving marketer seems surprised at the
ignorance of the attendees.
They have many other problems attributable to the last minute
planning and lack of preparation. However, in the end everyone sings the
same tune, "It was a challenge pulling this together but despite
everything it turned out well." It makes you want to reach into the
television, grab them by the lapels and scream, "It didn't have to
be this way!"
No one seems to ask basic questions: What revenue do we expect to
gain from this event? What are the costs? How will we measure success?
Whom do we want to attend? What do they need to know?
Perhaps you're the lone voice of wisdom in your company. Perhaps you
struggle with the same cast of characters found on these shows.
Sometimes, we have to be the kid that points out the Emperor's new
clothes are more than transparent. We've all had to learn through
mistakes, but what sets the survivors apart is that they're willing to
look foolish and ask questions. They don't feel that ignorance is a
failing; it's an opening – another course in the syllabus of life.
For that reason, one of the best things you can do when in unfamiliar
territory is bring in someone who can guide you. You may consider this
advice self-serving. After all, I'm a consultant and people hire me for
my expertise. However, the best reason to hire consultants is to learn
new skills. In unfamiliar territory, a consultant can blaze a trail for
you to follow later. If you stick close to your consultant and learn
from them, you won't need them as much later on.
The characters on these reality-based shows seem to think that
requiring help will make them look weak. They seem to prefer stumbling
through the projects and then lowering the bar to the point where they
can claim success. Though they're the first people to ask for a business
case when going outside the company, they don't have the same
requirements for themselves. I hope your reality looks nothing like
theirs; but if it does, send me the tape. I'm willing to learn.
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Kind regards,
Kevin Troy Darling
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