Some Southern California casinos have added the care and feeding of social media influencers to their tool kit of bringing patrons to their properties.
The casinos are always on the lookout for influencers, giving them special access to gaming floors or the first chance to try out a new restaurant, renovated hotel rooms or spa treatments.
In fact, they often give them the same sort of treatment that was once reserved for VIPs and “whales.” The reason: The thousands of views and followers that such niche social players bring with them wherever they go and wherever they take selfies or post videos or reviews that they then scatter among the multitudes.
Southern California casinos that are taking advantage of influencers and given them extensive access to their properties include San Manuel Casino, Morongo Casino Resort & Spa and Harrah’s Resort Southern California in San Diego County. Casinos sometimes take ideas from influencers and run with them. For influencers, product placement is second nature, a part of who they are.
Federal Trade Commission rules say influencers must disclose when they are paid or given something of value for their endorsements.
Harrah’s Resort Southern California spends a lot of effort learning about influencers and their niches before bringing them on the property. The resort has, for several years used the marketing tool of the idea that the resort is its own city, called Funner, with its own celebrity mayor, whose image is shown around the property in a costume that suggests a comic opera monarch.
Swearing in the mayor is a big influencer event, according to Director of Resort Marketing Amber Lussier. “We really roll out the red the carpet and we customize everything that we do for them so when they show up, they’re going to walk out to a cabana that’s fully decked out with maybe a foot bath and their favorite beer in a bucket of ice and some balloons and decorations,” she told the Orange County Register.
Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa only invites influencers that are apt to lure in a traditional gaming audience, says Executive Director of Marketing Simon Farmer: “It’s not simply reach or exposure for the sake of exposure that we’re looking for; we’re looking for effective exposure.” He added, “It can be really valuable to get a little more niche where they have a really committed set of loyal followers.”
Some, like Michael Felci, public relations manager for Fantasy Springs Resort Casino, still needs to be convinced. “We haven’t seen enough data on that to make it a relevant thing for us at this point,” he told the Register.
An influencer that most Southern California casinos know is Brian Christopher, whose You Tube channel Brian Christopher Slots, has an audience of 300,000. He posts videos of himself at the newest, most popular slots in the region and also does livestreams from casino floors.
Allowing such a thing takes some doing, because as anyone who has ever tried to film videos on a casino floor knows, it can attract the unwelcome attention of security, who may demand that you stop.
It was Christopher who “influenced” San Manuel to abandon that policy several years ago. That, in turn, has attracted other influencers to the property.
Influencers helped several Southern California casinos get the word out that they were reopening from Covid-19 shutdown and shared information on temperature checks and how much training in safety protocols the casino staffs were getting. Having a “real person” talking about such things, rather than just watching a casino’s promotional videos, can make a big difference in attracting patrons back.
