Harrahs Entertainment

Case
Section E
Group 5
Aswathi Menon - 2014PGP071
Chimata Krishna Sunny IPM2011015
Debashis Behera 2014PGP098
Kartikeya Sudhir Vyas 2014PGP159
Nanneti Suraj 2014PGP216
Pallav Prakash 2014PGP243
Shalini Bhardwaj 2014PGP345

Q1. What are the objectives of the various Data Base marketing
programs and are they working?
To increase customer loyalty in gaming at Harrahs Casinos only
and not in other competitor casinos
Customizing user experiences at Harrahs Casinos to ensure they
have a quality time and frequently re-visit
Establish various customer segments, predict their behaviour more
accurately and take appropriate decisions
Target their most valuable customers more effectively
Increase profitability, tailor their marketing efforts and manage their
assets differently to suit customers needs

Q2. Why it is important to use the customer worth in the DBM efforts
rather than observed level of play ?

Ans: Customer worth (theoretical win) is the theoretical amount the

house expects to win. To exploit more potential high worth players, the
DBM efforts should focus more on consumer worth rather than
observed play. If we concentrate on visitors with high observed
frequency, there will be only limited number of customers with high
worth. In a highly competitive gambling market, striving for a limited
number of customers is difficult. If Harrahs can discover and exploit
some customers with high worth in the low observed frequency market
where less competition exists, the business will have great potential to
thrive. Hence customer worth is more valuable than observed level of
play.

Q3.How does Harrahs integrate the various elements of its marketing

strategy to deliver more than the results of Data Base marketing?
They integrated various elements of its marketing strategy to delivery more
than the results of data base marketing by using the following methods:
Proactive marketing: They developed sophisticated customer profiles using
the basic customer information like birth date and home address along with
tracking the customers playing , betting, eating and stay patterns and
hence did opportunity based customer-segmentation.
Marketing experiments: They conducted experiments with control and test
groups to see how the customers responded to various offers and
packages.
Customer-centric approach: 3 phase approach :
- New business : To focus on customers new to the brand or to the
property.
- Loyalty : Focused on customers known for at least 6 months or 3 trips.
- Retention: Focus on customers who had broken their historical
visitation pattern.

Q4. What is the sustainability of Harrahs actions and

strategy?

Significant efforts were made in educating the local property managers

and their marketing team about the potential and effective use of Data
Base Marketing capabilities in order to utilise the full potential of the idea
and decide on how DBM efforts were integrated with their knowledge of
the local market.
In July 1999 the Total Gold program was revamped and called Total
Rewards to develop into more of a loyalty programme that would
complement the direct mail strategy.
The Total Rewards program provides a Reward menu that translates
reward credits to the various complimentary offerings. This menu
enables customers to understand exactly what compliments are
available and exactly what level of play is necessary to earn them.
Two additional levels were added and it became a tired loyalty programTotal Gold, Total Platinum and Total Diamond (based on customers
annual accumulation of reward credits) having accumulating benefits
highly valued by the customers.
There was also an emotional component to the program. The customers
wanted to go Harrahs because they felt it rewarded them like it knew
them and if they went somewhere else they would not be rewarded.
To encourage sign-ups and play, Harrahs held give-away events for all
cardholders at each property. Customers knew that all these goodies
came from the play being recorded.

Q5.What are the privacy and ethical issues that Harrahs should be
concerned about?

Secrecy of the data collected:- The customer has agreed to provide

his/her personal spending only to Harrah. So it is a privacy concern of
the customer if the organization tries to sell this data or unintentionally
let this data out
Denying a room for low-value customer:- This is a ethical issue and
the organization may loose its reputation if the customers come to
know about this
Monitoring customers gains and losses:- This is intrusion into their
privacy as many customers may not want others to see their Casino
gains. Its also an ethical issue considering the fact that they are
increasing the chance of the new-comer to lose more by offering
more chances to play