Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING | January 2013 38 FEATURES value they had accumulated through their loyalty. The whole program was revamped. It took a lot of technology, specifically middleware, which allowed management, financial and communications systems to share information. Customers can now see their total value, where they rank from a tiered perspective and what they’ll be eligible for as they gravitate up tiers. The program was rolled out to regional properties first; Mississippi and Detroit and then to Las Vegas. “We’re proud to say that we’ve had tremendous conversion,” said Mr Murren. “We’re not asking anyone to convert, they’re doing so willingly; they’re grabbing the concept that this is a more robust, flexible, valuable program for them. In turn, M Life has provided MGM with insight on how to better differentiate its marketing packages. “We understood that we had far more to offer to our customers than most of our competitors because we had somany more amenities at our disposal,” MrMurren said.“We couldcreateexperiences for people because of what we own, not just try to induce them to come more often for a better deal on the tables or cash back on slot machines or discounted rooms.” For example, M Life can offer its golf enthusiast members a round to remember thanks to its affiliation with Shadow Creek, one of Nevada’s top courses. “If you’re a golfer, there’s only one premier golf course [in Las Vegas], and that’s Shadow Creek; others are kind of distant and sad seconds,” Mr Murren said. “If you enjoy theatrical entertainment, we have the exclusive relationship with Cirque du Soleil. For our architectural buffs, we can tell how we came up with the concept for the Mansions at MGM Grand, or for our art lovers, a docent tour of the art at City Center. We’re testing loyalty concepts such as giving backstage passes to see a performer at iHeart, or a private fountain show at Bellagio, or a private tour of the secret gardens at Mirage or a dolphin swim or shark habitat. Those types of loyalty moments—we call them M Life moments—are priceless in many cases, and have really grabbed the excitement of our customers and that’s why our market shares are moving up.” MGM also plans to move forward aggressively with marketing partnerships that add value for both sides, such as the one it has entered into with Ameristar. When the company layered its data against Ameristar’s in their home markets, it found a remarkably low percentage of overlapping customers. “We knew a tremendous amount of people in their market that they did not know and they knew a tremendous amount of people who visit Las Vegas that we did not know; it has resulted in tangible improvements in their business and in ours,” said Mr Murren. “We’ve got similar partnerships with sbe Entertainment Group, an exciting lifestyle company in Southern California, and a very strong hotel partnership with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines that’s in its final evolutionary stages. We have a couple of retail partners we will announce in the next few months and a couple of new entertainment partners as well.” Social Gaming MGM and Mr Murren have long seen the need for the US gaming industry to expand its footprint into the regulated online space, the jurisdictional rollout of which remains an open question. Not content to wait, MGM teamed up with old friend Andrew Pascal at PlayStudios this summer to launch myVegas, an innovative social game on Facebook that offers the potential for tangible rewards. “We’ve taken the view that online gaming is here,” said Mr Murren. “It exists in many parts of the world and illegally in the US. It needs to be regulated and we think we can do that with federal legislation, that’s the best approach. If not that, it will be done state-by-state. But in the meantime, we felt that we could invest in the social gaming space. We did go out and look at a few acquisitions in the social media world. We felt we could create something if we had the right partner and the right partner came to us. We talked about how we could create a for-play social gaming experience that is superior to what was in the market; which is just hitting a button and playing a video poker and video lottery game on your smartphone or at home. It was Andrew’s idea to merge what was successful in the online gaming space with what was successful in the online social media gaming space and create a virtual Las Vegas for players to build like Zynga’s FarmVille, CityVille and others.” MGM sees the demographics (age, income, gender, geographic dispersion, time played) of social gamers to be identical to its prime gaming customer. “We felt if we could reach out to them—and we’re doing so by the hundreds of thousands now on myVegas every month—and have them gain awareness about the MGM Resorts properties, their location and their amenities, we could develop a customer acquisition tool, which is proving to be the case.” The revamped M Life player loyalty program continues to generate visitation and profits for MGM Resort properties in Las Vegas and around the world