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The Bear Growls: M Resort’s puny marketing efforts
By LVBear | June 22, 2009
I had hope for the M Resort when it first opened. Decent blackjack, friendly employees, good service, lots of customers. I gladly doled out some Bear Praise for it. Little by little, in just a couple of months, all the above have deteriorated. Employees have been laid off, games gutted, attitudes worsened.
One poorly thought-out promotion was heavily pounded by intelligent patrons, and was abruptly canceled, to the disgust of those on their way and those waiting in line to do what exactly M invited them to do. Since then, the promos have been weak to downright insulting. It looks like perhaps M had a promotional budget for a certain period, blew it all on the one good promo gone awry, and is now reduced to doling out scraps in a feeble effort to attract customers.
For example, I recently received a nice looking, slick multi-color booklet in the mail. Thinking this might be a serious marketing effort to siphon off customers (deservedly so) from Southpoint and Green Valley, I hurriedly opened the booklet. I was disappointed to discover it was mostly worthless crap. The only things I kept were a free car wash coupon and eight $15 free play TITO coupons, each good for a two-day period. The rest of the booklet was quickly flung into the trash. I don’t know how many, if any, $15 free plays I’ll bother with, even though I drive past the M twice a day. A $15 coupon isn’t enough to entice me, or I don’t think many others, to make a point of visiting there. What marketing bozo thought of sending such puny coupons?
My “M Call” today again awarded me one dollar –333 points. Ah, yes: “Everyone wins.” One dollar? El Cheapo! They should be embarrassed and ashamed.
Too bad. I think M could have gained plenty of customers from Southpoint and Green Valley if sufficient promotional effort was made. But the offers have been cheap. The M has a nice facility. But without serious marketing efforts, it will wither away, particularly in the current economy.
UPDATE 6/26/09: Perhaps it was the bad publicity, perhaps it was the scorn from many patrons, perhaps it was just poor planning to send out the cheap offers prior to the good offers, but M Resort has made amends for its cheapness described above. Some patrons are now receiving decent free play coupons. For example, $1,000 in free play — ten $100 coupons, each good for a separate period of about five days. This is an offer more in line with what should be expected from a new casino trying to increase its market share. Too bad the good offers weren’t sent out before the lousy offers. At least with the $100 free plays, it’ll be worth making the trip to also redeem the puny ones.
Topics: Casino Executives, Las Vegas, M Resort | 3 Comments »
3 Responses to “The Bear Growls: M Resort’s puny marketing efforts”
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June 25th, 2009 at 1:07 am
Sometimes its only one executive that doesn’t get the message. Perhaps that is what has taken place at The M Casino. I don’t know if there has been large-scale firings or merely slight personnel adjustments. I can not believe there has been such an abrupt change in attitudes, but perhaps there has been.
Wither away? Perhaps that indeed will be their fate, but one would hope they would have the courage to do it in style rather than stoop to mailing brochures that cost them in printing and postage more than the value they deliver to the player!
I do not think a newly opened casino would have a pervasive reversal of its policies so soon, I think you may be dealing with a situation wherein it was one mis-guided executive.
You spoke, however, of games gutted. That sounds more serious. What happened there?
July 10th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
You spoke, however, of games gutted. That sounds more serious. What happened there?
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Among other things, the double deck games in which the dealer stood on soft 17 have been eliminated.
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:32 am
An interesting post on The Die Is Cast deals with volatility at The M Casino as presented in a recent LVRJ article discussing the hold percentages reported for the Boulder Strip.
link: http://www.dieiscast.com/2009/07/21/volatility-in-practice/