Monday, October 10, 2011

When Good Promotions Go Bad

Posted By on Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 4:00 PM

You think the University of Arizona football team has had a bad season? It’s nothing compared to the marketing department at the Desert Diamond Casino.

The casino looked to have scored a touchdown by teaming up with the Wildcats for the “Cats Win You Win” promotion. But since there’s an emphasis on the word win, things aren’t going as planned.

The deal is, whenever the UA wins a game, one hour after it’s over anyone with a Desert Diamond player’s club card could head down to either the Nogales Highway or Interstate 19 locations and swipe their card for a chance at free hotel stays, free meals or even $1,000 in cash.

Sadly, only those folks fortunate enough to be at the casino an hour after the season-opening win over Northern Arizona have been able to benefit from the promotion. It’s been five hard-to-watch losses since, and no sure victories appear anywhere soon on the Cats’ upcoming schedule.

Such promotions are all about spending money to make money, with the casinos giving away prizes as an enticement to get people to come down and risk their hard-earned paychecks. But this promotion might end up being a wash for Desert Diamond, since the way the Wildcats have played this season they might not have to worry about doling anything out — or, unfortunately, taking in any extra revenue — until the UA’s Nov. 26 finale against no-name Louisiana-Lafayette.

By the way, the Ragin’ Cajuns are currently 5-1, lead their Sun Belt Conference and could go into that game as the favorite.

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