Casino competition keeps McGuinness energized

STRATEGY SESSION: Megan McGuinness owns a media and marketing firm and is an advertising and marketing consultant for Twin River Management Group. She is speaking with Neil Fernandes, senior database marketing manager for Twin River Management Group. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO
STRATEGY SESSION: Megan McGuinness owns a media and marketing firm and is an advertising and marketing consultant for Twin River Management Group. She is speaking with Neil Fernandes, senior database marketing manager for Twin River Management Group. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

In a time when casinos are proliferating across the region, Megan McGuinness’ job is to find new ways to entice patrons to choose her clients over the competition.

McGuinness, owner of McGuiness Media & Marketing LLC, entered the casino industry in 2009 after spending seven years working at a global communications agency in Boston. Having previously managed accounts for national and global brands, including Reebok International Ltd., an Adidas AG company, McGuiness took a job as advertising manager at Lincoln-based Twin River Management Group, which marked the beginning of what’s now the focal point of her career.

“Within the business [of casinos] you have the hospitality business, the gambling business, the shows and concerts and everything else in between, which is what I love about marketing [for it],” McGuiness told Providence Business News. “There’s always a new message and we have a new call to action all the time.”

In her first year of working at Twin River, McGuiness was recognized as employee of the year. She continued to work as an employee of Twin River for three years, until she decided she wanted a little more flexibility and decided to go out on her own, starting McGuinness Media & Marketing.

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Twin River, however, wasn’t entirely ready to let go of her expertise, so a deal was struck that she would continue to provide services for the casino as a consultant. Today, McGuinness continues the advertising efforts for Twin River and has picked up Newport Grand Casino, acquired by Twin River earlier this year, and she does media and advertising for Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Biloxi, Miss., also a Twin River establishment.

All-in-all, McGuinness is responsible for three casinos, 15 restaurants, a hotel and nine entertainment venues.

She says work is busy, as is her home life. She says she balances her high-energy job with her high-energy sons Paxton, 5, and Miller, 2.

But that’s how McGuiness likes it.

“I couldn’t have a quiet job because I like busy,” McGuiness said.

Despite having teams of people working with her at the ground-level of each venue, she runs McGuinness Media & Marketing on her own. But with the mounting work, she sees the possibility of that changing in the future.

“My plan is to have an office and employees and establish myself … as a full-scale ad agency,” she said.

The regional casino industry has experienced a number of changes in the last couple of years. Besides the stalwarts Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos in Connecticut, competition has emerged in Massachusetts, as Plainville-based Plainridge Park Casino opened June 24, with others slated to open in the next few years.

The federal government in September allowed the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe to re-establish its sovereign lands in Taunton and Mashpee, Mass., which would let the tribe build a resort casino.

From a marketing perspective, McGuinness said, strategies of the competition must be understood in order to create an advertising campaign that will maximize return on investment.

“It’s always interesting to see the competition, which is there on any brand you work with,” McGuinness said. “You have to watch it closely.”

McGuinness is content with the casino business and while she’s done retail marketing and some other business-to-business accounts, casinos are a field she sees herself sticking with.

“I have the capability to do more, but this is where my head lives and I don’t know how far I could branch off from it,” she said. “You can market a restaurant one day and then launch a nightclub the next … there are so many moving parts that it never gets stale.” •

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