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The High Roller Experience: How Caesars and Other World-Class Companies Are Using Data to Create an Unforgettable Customer Experience
The marketing guru of Caesars/Harrah’s shows how you can double-down and win with a proven data-driven approach
Walking through Caesars in Las Vegas may seem like a dream—the lights are not too bright, the temperature is perfect, and everything is within your reach. But behind this “magical” experience is a carefully choreographed performance based on deep understanding and rigorous analysis of extensive data to help ensure guests have an incredible and personalized experience. The Caesars marketing story is recognized as one of the best examples of using data to improve the customer experience and marketing effectiveness in all of business.
Marketing legend David Norton orchestrated the initiatives that made Harrah’s/Caesars Entertainment one of the greatest marketing companies in the world. His approach of using data to identify opportunities for the business, developing the narrative to sell throughout the organization and partnering with various constituents to drive successful implementation operationally is unparalleled. In The High Roller Experience, he shares his secrets to creating an unbeatable marketing strategy. In addition to discussing core items such as analytics, CRM and loyalty programs, he examines the leadership and organizational processes required to create a customer-centric and data informed business.
The author also shares case studies from the work at GALE helping companies leverage technology advances to improve the customer experience and build customer loyalty across a wide-range of industries. With this book to guide you, you’ll learn how to use loyalty programs, analytics, and technology to drive phenomenal transformational change and rapid revenue growth within your own organization.
Walking through Caesars in Las Vegas may seem like a dream—the lights are not too bright, the temperature is perfect, and everything is within your reach. But behind this “magical” experience is a carefully choreographed performance based on deep understanding and rigorous analysis of extensive data to help ensure guests have an incredible and personalized experience. The Caesars marketing story is recognized as one of the best examples of using data to improve the customer experience and marketing effectiveness in all of business.
Marketing legend David Norton orchestrated the initiatives that made Harrah’s/Caesars Entertainment one of the greatest marketing companies in the world. His approach of using data to identify opportunities for the business, developing the narrative to sell throughout the organization and partnering with various constituents to drive successful implementation operationally is unparalleled. In The High Roller Experience, he shares his secrets to creating an unbeatable marketing strategy. In addition to discussing core items such as analytics, CRM and loyalty programs, he examines the leadership and organizational processes required to create a customer-centric and data informed business.
The author also shares case studies from the work at GALE helping companies leverage technology advances to improve the customer experience and build customer loyalty across a wide-range of industries. With this book to guide you, you’ll learn how to use loyalty programs, analytics, and technology to drive phenomenal transformational change and rapid revenue growth within your own organization.
- GenresBusiness
224 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 7, 2017
11 people are currently reading
41 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 20, 2023
Book was poorly written to a point where you can tell there was no ghost writer. There are about 50 pages of content and 150 pages of meaningless word salad.
October 12, 2018
Great insights into creating a marketing and loyalty powerhouse to support customer experience.
March 5, 2020
For those who read the book “What Stays in Vegas” by Adam Tanner, this text can be thought of as a “sort of” follow-up, written by a former SVP at Harrahs, David Norton, who was mentioned and profiled a few times in Tanner’s text. Much more so than Tanner, this book is focused very much on the broad business case and analysis of the Total Rewards Program, implemented during Gary Loveman’s tenure as CEO of Harrahs, and adds more detail around the thinking and motivation to the design of that program.
Though Norton does touch on data science and the engineering behind that work, especially towards the end, this book is primarily a business case (in an informal sense), and not a technical book. In this respect, Norton’s book helps put the Total Rewards Program in its proper historical business context, somewhere concurrent with the CRM initiative that many consumer-facing companies had started in the early aughts, but not quite yet Web 2.0/Social Web of customer-facing analysis that would become prevalent in the current era, enabled by the ubiquity of advanced mobile computing platforms like Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS after 2010.
Harrah’s was able to capitalize quickly on customer intelligence in this in-between era by having two very important assets in their business 1. A unified data warehouse across their entire business, that connected interfaces across all of their properties 2. The rewards card. The inability to “co-locate” all of the critical data stores in an enterprise to a central asset has confounded firms for the past decade, and continues to do so even today. This is a critical requirement that enables efficient data mining and without it, the full leverage of the “big data” toolkits cannot be realized from either an insights standpoint nor an ROI standpoint.
Yet it was the capability to track granular customer behavior via the rewards card that made Harrahs the true differentiator across the customer-facing enterprises at that time. WIth this behavior/user data, Hararhs was able to test (and disprove) many old ideas on where the business was extracting its profits, and enable new thought on how it could continue to do so in the future. This is the genesis of Total Rewards. Loveman’s team, including Norton, were able to optimize their comp-spend and distribute it more wisely across casino denizens, and not targeting just “the whales”, but segmenting the customer base across several “motifs” or “personas”, and then analyzing lift on various treatments (comps/rewards/gifts) to these sub-populations to understand what did and what did not work.
Norton spends a good amount of time also explaining the logic of points programs, as applied beyond the casinos, including those in retail and especially in airlines, going into issues with cannibalization, when points work, when they don’t, a few ways points programs can induce irrational spending (for the benefit of the card-provider) especially in border-cases for upgrades in status, as well as what the best form of a reward should be (dollars vs experience vs discounts etc.)
The book is good, and I think the general business reader and those who are more focused on b-to-c business should find the material useful. Also, those who want a more detailed accounting on Total Rewards, and enjoyed “What Stays in Vegas” will probably find these pages marginally enlightening. Recommend.
Though Norton does touch on data science and the engineering behind that work, especially towards the end, this book is primarily a business case (in an informal sense), and not a technical book. In this respect, Norton’s book helps put the Total Rewards Program in its proper historical business context, somewhere concurrent with the CRM initiative that many consumer-facing companies had started in the early aughts, but not quite yet Web 2.0/Social Web of customer-facing analysis that would become prevalent in the current era, enabled by the ubiquity of advanced mobile computing platforms like Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS after 2010.
Harrah’s was able to capitalize quickly on customer intelligence in this in-between era by having two very important assets in their business 1. A unified data warehouse across their entire business, that connected interfaces across all of their properties 2. The rewards card. The inability to “co-locate” all of the critical data stores in an enterprise to a central asset has confounded firms for the past decade, and continues to do so even today. This is a critical requirement that enables efficient data mining and without it, the full leverage of the “big data” toolkits cannot be realized from either an insights standpoint nor an ROI standpoint.
Yet it was the capability to track granular customer behavior via the rewards card that made Harrahs the true differentiator across the customer-facing enterprises at that time. WIth this behavior/user data, Hararhs was able to test (and disprove) many old ideas on where the business was extracting its profits, and enable new thought on how it could continue to do so in the future. This is the genesis of Total Rewards. Loveman’s team, including Norton, were able to optimize their comp-spend and distribute it more wisely across casino denizens, and not targeting just “the whales”, but segmenting the customer base across several “motifs” or “personas”, and then analyzing lift on various treatments (comps/rewards/gifts) to these sub-populations to understand what did and what did not work.
Norton spends a good amount of time also explaining the logic of points programs, as applied beyond the casinos, including those in retail and especially in airlines, going into issues with cannibalization, when points work, when they don’t, a few ways points programs can induce irrational spending (for the benefit of the card-provider) especially in border-cases for upgrades in status, as well as what the best form of a reward should be (dollars vs experience vs discounts etc.)
The book is good, and I think the general business reader and those who are more focused on b-to-c business should find the material useful. Also, those who want a more detailed accounting on Total Rewards, and enjoyed “What Stays in Vegas” will probably find these pages marginally enlightening. Recommend.
December 18, 2017
This is a fascinating book that not only gives insight into using data-driven techniques to boost revenue and business activity, but it helps lift the curtain a bit about what goes on at a high-end casino and gaming chain.
The author shows how marketing data is central to creating the right experience and opportunity for the chain, helping it personalise matters for segmented customers as well as develop relevant, actionable partnerships and commercial activities for the company. If the data was not available, this would not be possible. Of course, not everybody will have the same resources and reach at hand, but this does not mean that the self-same techniques cannot be reimagined for your own venture.
It is an entire process that goes beyond just marketing, as important as it is with analytics, CRM, loyalty programmes and customer care, but it requires a focussed leadership, organisational and management process throughout for greatest effect. A fine mix of theory, real-world implementation and case study practice are woven together in the book. It is rare that such a book manages to achieve a true sequential read by this reviewer, but this was a deserving exception that left an enduring legacy.
You do not need to be a marketer to get some benefit out of this book, although of course if you are it can be a don’t-miss book! Its knowledge is capable of being utilised in many situations, irrespective of company size or field of operations, and regardless of where the reader sits within that enterprise. It is well-written and manages to satisfy several audiences at the same time without dumbing down or confusing with science in the process. This doesn’t come without its ups and downs, as at times I had mixed views about its style, but perseverance was hardly a chore and it is worth the time to go through it. At the end of each chapter is a helpful and welcome recap too!
Take the time out to read this book and learn something new, even if you cannot directly apply the knowledge today. If you can apply it, you may find this one of the best purchases you’ve made in a very long time! Otherwise you’ve still had an informative, engaging and pleasurable read.
The author shows how marketing data is central to creating the right experience and opportunity for the chain, helping it personalise matters for segmented customers as well as develop relevant, actionable partnerships and commercial activities for the company. If the data was not available, this would not be possible. Of course, not everybody will have the same resources and reach at hand, but this does not mean that the self-same techniques cannot be reimagined for your own venture.
It is an entire process that goes beyond just marketing, as important as it is with analytics, CRM, loyalty programmes and customer care, but it requires a focussed leadership, organisational and management process throughout for greatest effect. A fine mix of theory, real-world implementation and case study practice are woven together in the book. It is rare that such a book manages to achieve a true sequential read by this reviewer, but this was a deserving exception that left an enduring legacy.
You do not need to be a marketer to get some benefit out of this book, although of course if you are it can be a don’t-miss book! Its knowledge is capable of being utilised in many situations, irrespective of company size or field of operations, and regardless of where the reader sits within that enterprise. It is well-written and manages to satisfy several audiences at the same time without dumbing down or confusing with science in the process. This doesn’t come without its ups and downs, as at times I had mixed views about its style, but perseverance was hardly a chore and it is worth the time to go through it. At the end of each chapter is a helpful and welcome recap too!
Take the time out to read this book and learn something new, even if you cannot directly apply the knowledge today. If you can apply it, you may find this one of the best purchases you’ve made in a very long time! Otherwise you’ve still had an informative, engaging and pleasurable read.
July 5, 2019
Излишне усложнено.
Unnecessarily complicated.
Unnecessarily complicated.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews