In this edition of the Industry Insider, we spoke with Adam Borden, VP of Digital Marketing at Live! Casino & Hotel about his journey into gaming, the evolution of marketing strategies and trends, what he is most looking forward to seeing at G2E 2025, and more.
 

Tell us about your career path how you got into the gaming industry and your position as Vice President of Digital Marketing at Live! Casino & Hotel?

I started in the gaming industry four years ago at Live! Casino & Hotel and brought with me over 20 years of skills and experience as a marketer and general manager primarily in the food industry. I started out of college as a management consultant and then ran a mail-order caviar business. I went back to school at the University of Michigan to enhance my business knowledge and leadership skills with an MBA. Afterwards, I started a food industry consulting and investment firm that led me to Hershey and McCormick where I managed brands. Running brands like Hershey’s Kisses and McCormick black pepper taught me the importance of consumer research, gave me experience managing large advertising budgets, and honed my P&L responsibilities. These skills are the same as what you need in the gaming industry– understanding the customer’s needs, strong communication, strategic thinking, managing the P&L, making sure the operations deliver, creativity, adaptability, an innovative and entrepreneurial mindset, brand strategy development, and leadership.

At Live!, my team runs our websites, search engine marketing, mobile app, affiliate partnerships, social media listening, and hotel marketing. We work collaboratively and partner with our individual property teams as internal clients to enable scale, serve as an additional resource, and trusted consultants. Additionally, we work closely with our advertising agencies to identify best practices and implement test-and-learn opportunities. Specifically, looking at our mobile app, we develop its roadmap and partner with our bricks-and-mortar marketing teams to activate promotions. And don’t forget the other duties as assigned!

With online and land-based gaming converging, engaging with customers in different ways is more important than ever. In your role at Live! Casino & Hotel, how do you leverage digital marketing strategies to attract a broader and more diverse customer base?

Through an integration of data-driven insights and an omnichannel strategy, we continuously grow our customer network. We use the data to segment our customers and present them with customized promotions. To encourage the use of our mobile app, we offer exclusive sign-up bonuses and app-specific deals. Catering to the diversity of our audience, we ensure our marketing strategies are inclusive by providing multilingual website translations and adhering to ADA compliance . We distribute our promotional content across various platforms including core mailers, emails, on-site posters, postcards, website, and the mobile app to maintain consistency and enhance navigation.

When building your marketing strategy, what role does community-building play in fostering long-term loyalty among casino customers?

Building a strong Live! community is essential to our marketing and growth strategy. We are trying to foster customers who feel a strong connection to our brand with shared values, interests, and experiences that can excite them to connect with us in each of our locations and keep returning. Social media plays a strong role in building this excitement and engaging our customers with reasons to come in.

We just wrapped up our second social media contest to send a casino guest to one of our sister entertainment districts in Orlando. It builds knowledge and awareness of our Live! brand, creates enthusiasm for our casino guests to engage with our multiple channels and increases followers for the destination – a win, win for all of us. Keeping up that interest is what fosters long-term loyalty. We consistently find that our social media share of voice – our percent of engagements within our markets – punches far above our weight in casino market share. We’re looking forward to doing the same in the Bossier City/Shreveport market where we open February 13th.

With the industry constantly evolving, what innovative trends in casino marketing have proven effective? How does attending G2E help you stay ahead of the game?

A lot of non-casino marketing innovation is happening with technology, but our industry is notoriously slow to catch on. I believe this is because our core systems do not talk easily with one another, something non-casino industry platforms can do well. We just launched mobile hotel check in and mobile key, which allows our guests to skip the line and go right to their hotel rooms. Guests increasingly want self-service, which a mobile app can do, but we need to demonstrate its value to them. Through a concerted effort communicating our app online and on property, offering app-only promotions, creating an incentive contest for our hosts to engage our top customers and constantly measuring our performance, we were able to generate 59% more customers using our mobile app versus 2023. We consumers rely on mobile apps for our airline, bank, and cups of coffee – now it’s our turn to catch up as an industry.

I have been particularly impressed with the number of companies that are coming up with innovative ways to get gifts to guests. Whether it be product delivered or gift cards via email, many guests do not want to lug stoneware and pillow sets around the casino floor. Attending G2E allows me to see companies that have already integrated with casino systems and how they are working with our peers; those are the most likely for us to partner with.

G2E is the catalyst for legal, regulated gaming – fostering innovation and driving growth by convening the global industry in one place to get business done. What are you most looking forward to seeing at G2E 2025?

As a marketer, I love learning at G2E! The educational sessions always teach me new perspectives as does the industry research presented. Like most operators, we meet with a number of our key partners to plan out the next year or see new offerings. Since we’re already working together, their innovation (in theory) should be easier for us to adopt than something new. Most importantly, G2E allows me to catch up with some existing friends and make new ones!