How Greentube built the Hard Rock social casino platforms
Gabriel Cianchetto, the president of market development for Greentube North America, explains the challenges and opportunities of the Hard Rock deal
The verdict is in and it’s now widely-known that building an effective social gaming platform for land-based casinos is no easy task. What was once a marketing backwater within the land-based casino ecosystem has become a revenue-positive marketing marvel that that engages new and existing players, builds brand equity and drives players back through the casino doors. When the executives at Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming looked to us to build customized platforms for each of their North American properties, our team knew that we had our work cut out for us.
Challenge One: Organizational Considerations
Hard Rock/Seminole tasked us to create a multi-property and multi-brand framework for all of their North American casinos. This framework reflected a true branded experience for each property, enabling players to choose their preferred casino when they register. We began our focus on the state of Florida, which contains two Hard Rock Casinos and four Seminole-branded properties; each with their own local and regional presence. In response, we created two separate portals: SeminoleSocialCasino.com and HardRockSocialCasino.com as the jumping off points for each brand.
Given the global appeal of the Hard Rock brand, HardRockSocialCasino.com also acts as the gateway for players around the world to experience the brand online, subject, of course, to the forthcoming GDPR in Europe.
Challenge Two: Catering to the Client’s Business Strategy, not Ours
The Client presented us with a clear vision of what they wanted from their social gaming platform. Hard Rock and Seminole Gaming are large, multifaceted organizations with specific design demands and quality standards for each of their web properties. This meant that our private-label social casino program, Greentube Pro, had to evolve to meet their needs.
Part of Hard Rock’s business strategy was to make their social casinos available to all, meaning mobile compatibility with not just Apple and Android, but also Amazon platforms. By now offering Hard Rock/Seminole social casinos to players on Amazon Fire devices, we’ve opened up an entirely new marketing channel to Amazon aficionados.
Challenge Three: Technical Requirements
As with any project of this nature, technical requirements follow business strategy. Hard Rock/Seminole Gaming demanded a streamlined architecture that enabled each property ‘s marketing team a high degree of autonomy to promote to their respective feeder markets. For example, each casino can curate their own game titles, relative to their local players’ preferences. Another technical consideration of the new platform is the ability for marketing teams to present their players with property-specific promotions while operating an enhanced offering system that enables players to earn rewards for extended gameplay. This function integrates with the parent company’s existing loyalty system, Seminole Wild Card.
Another technical challenge worth noting: we improved the existing customization abilities of Greentube Pro to enable each casino’s marketing team to tailor their respective social property based on their proprietary brand book. This means that each team can add their specific logos, local art and more, thereby making the site brand-specific as well as recognizable to their local players. Finally, each Hard Rock/Seminole property can now realize the revenue-positive benefits of a social casino through the sale of virtual currency.
Challenge Four: Operations
The greatest realization is that we are just getting started. We’ve already launched the Seminole properties in Florida and we have an aggressive deployment schedule for well into 2018. Our live operations team will work with Hard Rock/Seminole’s internal operations to coordinate marketing campaigns (player registration, retention and more) for each individual casino. Very soon, Hard Rock/Seminole properties are about to realize the myriad benefits of social casino gaming.
About Gabriel Cianchetto
Gabriel Cianchetto is the president of North American market development for Greentube Internet Entertainment Solutions. He leads Greentube’s expansion into the US’s B2B social casino gaming market and has spearheaded development of Greentube Pro, the company’s recently launched B2B solution.
