In this interview with CalvinAyre.com’s Rebecca Liggero, Roberto Coppola of YWS explains how casino operators can innovate their products and services without alienating their customers.
More and more casino operators are becoming obsessed with millennials partly because of the generation’s purchasing power and large demographics.
Bitten by the so-called “millennial mania,” casino operators are now in for a mad dash in terms of innovating their products and services to capture this “free spirited” generation.
But Roberto Coppola warned that too much fixation on millennials may alienate other groups, particularly their current customer base. While there’s a need for casino operators to change their mindset to appeal to the younger generation, he said that they shouldn’t forget about their older customers.
“There’s some sort of have been a short term focus with this topic in particular, focus on demographics and not psychographics. We are all millennials I like to say. My grandma is on Facebook,” Coppola told CalvinAyre.com “If you look at Facebook’s fastest growing user segment, it is 60 to 70 years old. Increasingly, everyone is adapting a new way of thinking about leisure entertainment.”
In order to get the best of both worlds, Coppola advises casino operators to create exclusive areas for different types of customers in order to appeal to the young and old generations.
He cited YWS’s La Zone at Casino Montreal, which created a micro environment that specifically appeals to younger generation. To attract the party-loving millennials, Coppola said that they created a party cruise ship-like environment in the casino.
“No one wants to alienate their current customer base so that 55-year-old slot players will be going to be important for a quite a number of years to come,” Coppola said. “So we certainly don’t want to turn your casino into a “millennial casino” but you do want to start thinking of micro environment zones, creating exclusive areas for different types of customers to interact in a different way.”
When asked why change has yet to come in the industry despite having a new mindset, Coppola mentioned a couple of reasons including the lack of prioritization of what supposed to be an emerging trend.
“Regulatory certainly plays a role as well, their manufacturer hindered by what they can do certainly, that’s why we are seeing non-gaming really outpacing gaming in terms of innovation. It is an easier solution.”
