I have been writing for
Gaming & Leisure magazine
for more than 10 years
now, and want to thank
Jeannie Caruso for the
opportunity to contribute!
The purpose of these articles
is to give an overview of a
day-in-the-life of a Casino Hotel department
head – as this article is intended. Also, once a year
we compile an annual Salary Survey and hopefully
you, the reader, find some value on these pages!
This article is going to visit the Marketing
department, where we’ll learn about one
major casino company’s reward program. To
assist, we reached out to Jordan Salmon, Vice
President of Loyalty Marketing Strategy,
MGM Resorts International. Mr. Salmon has
been with the MGM for a total of nearly 10
years, including preopening experience at the
MGM Macau, and also experience at IGT.
Here are his comments:
G&L: Tell us about the MGM properties, and
your area of responsibility.
JS: There are 15 MGM Resorts International
destinations in the U.S. that are part of our M
life rewards program including: Bellagio,
ARIA, Vdara, MGM Grand, The Signature at
MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Delano Las
Vegas, The Mirage, Monte Carlo, New York-
New York, Luxor, and Excalibur in Las Vegas;
Beau Rivage and Gold Strike in Miss., and
MGM Grand Detroit.
M life members can earn Tier credits for
virtually every dollar spent at our worldrenowned
properties by spending on the most
exciting slots and table games, luxurious
rooms and suites, amazing restaurants, and
awe-inspiring shows. I can’t think of another
program that offers this type of depth and
breadth of experiences for members. We also
are working on leveraging our global network
of resorts and entertainment experiences to
provide additional value to our members
throughout the world.
G&L: How many people are under you, and
who do you report to?
JS: My boss, Josh Swissman, oversees our
Loyalty Marketing Division and more than 45
people who are responsible for campaign operations,
reporting, analytics, and my area –
Loyalty Marketing Strategy. I have 7 amazingly
talented individuals on my team who
focus on all aspects of strategy, operations, and
performance of the M life loyalty program,
including our Partnership Marketing efforts
and social media. We work with teams
throughout MGM Resorts on a daily basis to
ensure M life is successful.
Loyalty Marketing falls under the organization
of our new Chief Experience Officer (CXO),
Lili Tomovich, who recently joined MGM
Resorts from MasterCard. She is extremely
knowledgeable and focused on the customer,
and we are very excited to be working with her.
G&L: Describe a typical day in your work
schedule.
JS: I am happy to say that every day brings
something new. One day may be focused on
preparing an executive summary on the performance
of M life. We communicate about
program performance on a monthly basis to
all VPs at MGM Resorts. The next day might
involve meeting with our Casino Marketing
Committee and discussing ideas and programs
with senior leaders throughout the company. Another day may be spent working
with the team to think about how our loyalty
strategy will shift 5 years from now, and
develop appropriate program mechanics.
With a number of changes for our company
on the horizon, including MGM National
Harbor in Maryland and MGM Cotai in
Macau, as well as other opportunities here and
abroad, our company will look very different
in a few years. No two days are the same and
that’s what makes this role so exciting!
G&L: What are some of your top departmental
priorities?
JS: Our top priority is always determining how
to better engage our M life members through
program enhancements, personalized offers and
strategic relationships. We also focus on growing
our customer base but not at the expense of
providing great service and value to our current
members. We do this by evaluating the value
proposition of the program and our ability to
consistently execute.
We monitor key metrics and results, but we
also look at member feedback. We communicate
to our members with offers, newsletters and other
program communications in a targeted and relevant
way. And most importantly, we ensure our
62,000+ employees throughout the organization
are knowledgeable about M life so they can provide
the best possible service to our members.
G&L: MGM Resorts has been very successful please
share with us some of your Marketing
strategies that helped you attain this success.
JS: I have been extremely lucky to be part of an
organization that values innovation, and I have
personally been involved with many of them –
including our loyalty programs (our first
Players Club that developed into M life), and
most recently the myVEGAS social game – a
partnership with PLAYSTUDIOS, which is led
by Andrew Pascal. Players Club was one of the
first “one-card” programs in the industry, and
FREEPLAY was a big part of its success. With
M life we have been able to successfully expand
our loyalty program beyond the casino, and
provide an integrated program that values all
of our members’ spend. myVEGAS has allowed
us to introduce our brands to new customers,
which creates new demand for our resorts
through special rewards.
G&L: Where do you see the future of the
industry going?
JS: Changing demographics will necessitate a
change in the types of products we offer. We have
already seen this with some of the nightclubs in
Las Vegas, but it has not yet translated to the
gaming floor. I believe we will see more convergence
between casino gaming and social games. I
am also interested to see how technologies such as
BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) and NFC (Near
Field Communication), as well as mobile payments,
will impact our industry. There will come
a day when I tap my smartphone on a slot
machine to earn points, instead of inserting my
loyalty program card. It is just a matter of when.
Thank you Jordan for your insights and words of
wisdom, and I hope our readers enjoyed it too. If
you have any comments or questions I would love
to hear from you. Until next issue, have a great year!
Marc Weiswasser is a Managing Member
of CasinoRecruiter.com, an Executive
Recruiting firm for the gaming & hospitality
industry. He can be reached at 702-
798-0180, Marc@CasinoRecr