Foxwoods Taps Zeta Interactive To Promote MGM Grand Expansion
- by Tameka Kee , April 9, 2008
Adjacent to the Ledyard, Conn.-based Foxwoods Resort Casino, the new hybrid property will feature a 5,000-seat concert theater, a spa and nightclubs. Zeta will manage the digital campaign in its entirety, from the design and management of the Web site, to display ad creation and placement, to email, search and social media marketing.
"It's a full-service kind of relationship, the poster child for what we're trying to do at Zeta," said Glenn Whiting, Zeta Interactive's senior vice president of client services/account management. "It's not just about being a one-stop shop or getting a client to consolidate with us. It's about having them integrate each aspect of a campaign so that they can be smarter at communicating their message."
The Web site is at the cornerstone of the campaign, and Zeta's redesigned version will go live within the next few weeks. The New York-based agency has implemented a dynamic content management system (CMS) that will serve visitors customized content depending on where they come from. Email respondents will see a landing page, ensuing offers and editorial tailored to the email's copy, while search or display ad clickers will see their own content.
The CMS is back end-linked to both Foxwoods' own and Zeta's analytics programs (Foxwoods uses Omniture), thus enabling them to track visitor behavior from first-to-last click. "Because of our Insight Grit platform, we know that someone clicked on a banner ad maybe a week ago, left, then came back through a search term. And because we know that they clicked on a poker banner ad at Boston.com, or a specific offer within an email, the system can make content-specific adjustments," Whiting said.
Though the agency uses a CMS platform built by Nashua, N.H.-based Ektron, Whiting said that Zeta designed a data-marking engine specifically for Foxwoods and that the agency was working on pulling together a similar technology for future clients.
In the midst of the MGM Grand at Foxwoods' construction, Foxwoods conducted research to determine who their target audience was, and came up with a number of unique personas. Zeta has tailored the display, search and Web site creative to each persona, in addition to crafting email messages based on additional research on the resort's existing client base. The agency also worked with blogs and sites like Twitter to launch some events-based promotions. While the campaign has a few national elements, the focus is primarily on entertainment-seekers in the Northeast.
Although crafting a seamless, integrated effort is what brands seek out full-service interactive agencies for, Whiting said the Foxwoods team deserved accolades for their collaborative mentality. "MGM has an agency, Foxwoods has a few agencies, some handle buying and others handle branding, but our client has done a good job of keeping us coordinated," Whiting said. "They actually pulled us all together last year to share the results from their persona research, and it has continued from there. That collaboration is the one thing we can't control. We can ask to get in line, but it comes down to the client to make the decision."
