Buckeye Casino Lesson
Ohio Casino Issue Gambles on Marketing Truth
A Gambling Lesson for Business Owners
Just a few weeks ago, Ohioans approved an amendment that would build four casinos. One in each city: Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo. Over $40 million dollars were spent by the proponents and opponents of Ohio Issue 3. That is a major marketing budget and contains a valuable marketing lesson for business owners.
Power of a Word...Gambling
Gambling is an emotionally charged word. Everyone has an emotional reaction to this word and it is usually negative. The recent passage of Issue 3 saw two marketing campaigns that leveraged certain words to create an emotional response in voters. These are Hot Button words because when you press them, you always get a response. As much as I hate to admit it, my personal decisions are more often based on emotions rather than facts. 80% of decisions are based on how you feel and not about facts alone.
Issue 3 Propenents Strategy
As with most good strategies, this one was simple. Avoid using the word “gambling.” A quick visit to YesOnIssue3.com (link no longer available), an eight page website, reveals over 4000 words. There are only 5 uses of the words gamble or gambling for the whole website and those are buried in the Blog, News, or Facts pages of the site. The casino supporters replaced the negative Hot Button word gambling with more neutral or positive leaning words like casino revenue or gaming revenue.
To support this strategy the proponents named their group the Ohio Jobs and Growth Committee and promoted the presumed benefits of Issue 3. Here is a list of statements taken directly from an ad in a Cincinnati based newspaper:
- Keep our money in Ohio
- Create new jobs $14.1 million in new revenue annually for Hamilton County Public Schools
- $12.1 million in new annual revenue for Hamilton County
- $20.8 million in new annual revenue for Cincinnati
Note the lack of references to what the actual issue was about.
Issue 3 Opponents Strategy
The opponents of Issue 3 demonstrated an equally simple strategy. Use the word gambling as often as possible. A postcard that was sent to my home contained just 158 words. Gamble or gambling appeared 11 times. That means on average every 15th word on the postcard had a reference to gambling. Also appearing on the postcard were other negative Hot Button words like bankruptcy, child abuse, crime, divorce and suicide. Check out the postcard for yourself.
Golden Nuggets
- Use of Hot Button words can generate a powerful emotional response
- Avoid using Hot Button words that generate a negative response to your position
- The top four population centers in Ohio are coincidentally the same as the locations of the four new casinos
Hot Buttons and Your Business
1. What are the Hot Button words that bring your prospects closer to choosing you or your product?
2. What Hot Button words should you avoid using with your prospects?
3. Want to Discover your Hot Buttons? Teakwood Marketing’s Marketing Accelerator™ is a blazingly fast and affordable process that develops a magnetic strategy to attract and retain profitable customers.* Contact us now to find out more.
*Hot button words are underlined.
Final Thought
My opinion on Issue 3 is reflected in Dionysios' principle...The end does not justify the means; acting for a good purpose does not make the act good.
