Episode 11 Part 02
Nehme Abouzeid has built a career on daring bets, from pioneering Vegas’s first homegrown NHL team to ambitious projects like the Sphere. In part two, host Jonathan Gudai delves into Abouzeid’s CMO perspective, showcasing his approach to reaching audiences through diverse advertising channels while pushing creative boundaries.
Transcript
Nehme Abouzeid
Those sort of intense periods where it feels like you’re flying the plane as you’re building the plane. It takes a different kind of marketer for that.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it takes a ballsy one.
Jonathan Gudai
All right, we’re here with Billboards, Bets and a bit of Booze. This is Jonathan Gudai, your host, and I’m very, very happy to have as a special guest name, Nehme Abouzeid, a Vegas marketing legend.
Nehme Abouzeid
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Jonathan Gudai
And I want to talk about marketing stuff because when we’re talking about a lot of cool, kind of like parts of your career. But before we do that, we dive into that. I remember it was, the fall of, I think, 2023 taking my wife on a date, at the Venetian. And we cross over on Sands and for the first time, maybe it was July. It was summer. The first time the Sphere had been activated. I remember just like driving, driving. And all of a sudden, this basketball that was like, the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life just emerges like, that is what this, that, that these guys have been working on. Like it’s, it’s been this black dome, all this potential. But that is unbelievable. So talk about that. How early were you in the Sphere project here, which everyone sure knows. The Sphere now it’s a worldwide famous but massive LED dome that’s right behind the Venetian. How did you get involved in working with those guys?
Nehme Abouzeid
Well, what’s funny is after I left the Golden Knights in 2017, I launched my own consulting firm called Launch Vegas. And the whole point of it was for me to be like a fractional CMO for brands that were from out of market, trying to launch on the strip, but didn’t know how to do it. So that was really the narrow niche. And MSG was one of the first clients. And so they were like, hey, we got this project. It’s not many people know about it, but we need some guidance on the business and marketing side, even though it was only half way out of the ground at that time. but I had spent nine years at Venetian so I knew everyone there and that was their land partner. But essentially I was a year as a consultant and then in ‘22 they brought me back as SVP of Sales and Marketing. And so you’re right, when we lit it up on July 4th, that was kind of the first time. We were only doing test patterns before then, but it was the first time that anyone really had seen what the outside could do and we lit it up. I was there, I was on a balcony across from it with MSG people, and it was like that big aha moment. So it was like a greatest hits type of show that did a little bit of, fireworks display, a little bit of a jack o lantern basketball. But it was like, I couldn’t believe it because I was on a balcony at Howard Hughes Parkway. I was watching people just get out of their cars. Run across the street to take selfies in the middle of traffic and it was far better than you expected in terms of the clarity of the visuals. and it kind of told a story. So it was like a, almost like a sentient being of like Sphere, like I had a personality, was happy, was sad. And we’ve all seen that since. But I used to think the marquees on the strip were pretty, you know, technologically advanced. But once Sphere got lit up, it put like all the hotel marquees to shame in a lot of ways. And even the fireworks display that the city was putting on at the time that was coinciding with Sphere. It looked like they were playing off each other and they weren’t. And it really augmented what the city was doing. And it just made every other type of board or message feel a little bit flat. Once you lit up Sphere. But, it was pretty amazing. I mean, I think the two watershed moments were that July 4th, which you’re talking about. And then, you know, the first U2 concert on September 29th –
Jonathan Gudai
Which I was there that weekend as well, and that was unbelievable.
Nehme Abouzeid
I mean, look, there’s a difference between being a corporate marketer where it’s like, okay, it’s Hilton, like, here’s the brand standard. You know, here’s the here’s basically the, the the, you know, here’s the palette, you know, here’s the tagline, there’s a certain skill set, I think, in taking an entrepreneur’s vision, whether they’re a billionaire or not a billionaire or, you know, Silicon Valley 20 something. Taking that vision, putting it into those gen one brand documents and then going to market with it. So, like I said, the last seven years has really my focus has been on that kind of stuff because I think that’s, that’s the most interesting is like that first like unveil of a logo.
Jonathan Gudai
Sure.
Nehme Abouzeid
Or, you know, do we do a focus group around like this tagline. And, and to me that’s just exciting, but also to, to realize, like Golden Knights to become, you know, a household name. Now Sphere is becoming a household name and it’s certainly one of one worldwide. So, yeah, I kind of gravitate towards those projects, you know, and it’s just, it’s, people are calling because of that. And I do think that honestly, when you do it once and you start to get those reps, no matter those sort of intense periods where it feels like you’re flying the plane as you’re building the plane, it takes a different kind of marketer for that.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. I mean, it takes a ballsy one, right? I mean, you have to be willing to kind of you – don’t have data behind you, right? On what’s going to work for the first ever hockey team in town here or, a project of the kind of grandeur of the Sphere. So some really interesting projects and some really big scale projects. But there certainly is the theme of the 0 to 1 where you’re either launching something, or you’re having to kind of transform something that is partially baked, but then really bringing it to life. talked a little bit about like, what are some of the things from a CMO perspective that you’re prioritizing there? And how did that play out with those last few examples that you gave of the sphere and then some other projects?
Nehme Abouzeid
Yeah, it’s really, you know, it’s tough to map out, you know, a launch budget and then stick to it because so many dynamic things happen. Right. You may launch ticket sales. Right, which we did, you know, at both Gold Knight, Sphere and, and also with Bally’s customer acquisition. Like you may launch that and then you’re getting data and then you either need to spend or you need to kind of slow down because of, you know, you’re hitting certain KPIs. But yeah, you know, with hospitality, it’s interesting because you’re talking about brand building versus acquisition. And there’s always that fight. Now everybody wants everything measurable. And there’s that fight on last click attribution where it’s like, well, give all the credit to digital because that’s where the product got acquired and that’s where the sale got made. But a lot of the times they don’t give, you know, the appreciation and to kind of more these offline channels. I’m a big proponent of offline drives online. you know, behavior. And so, you know, offline exposure drives online search and so and we’ve seen that in my recent, you know, projects that, you know, you do a big budget TV ad on linear or you do something else and you see a festival sponsorship and then you see those that search volume, and you can track it. So I think that, you know, it’s always going to marketing is always very subjective, even as much as it’s become science over art, it’s still very subjective. There’s always, and the CMO is always a hotseat job. It always just by nature. And, everybody’s an expert in things. But I think it just helps when in Vegas particularly, this is not a consumer packaged good, right? It’s not the Nike.com website. This is a product you can only consume in Vegas and you can only consume on site. And there’s 40 plus million people who visit every year. So sometimes you ask yourself, you know, is brand awareness of a venue to someone in Malaysia who will never come to Vegas? Is that a good use of
Jonathan Gudai
Is it worthwhile?
Nehme Abouzeid
Is it worthwhile? Is it good use of spend? It’s like, you got to fish where the fish are, you hit ’em at the airport. They land, you know, 19 million people are landing and arriving annually, and then, you hit them with a billboard there because it’s within their consideration time set to make a purchase decision. So we look at a lot of data. But the good news about Vegas as a destination, it’s loved by all generations, even the young generation. It’s the number two most cost effective destination in America to get to. There’s plenty of hotel room. There’s plenty of product availability. And now that we have events flattening out the 52 week tourism calendar, it’s really just a matter of price and availability. And brands generally have mental availability and physical availability. And as a CMO it’s my responsibility to determine like make sure it’s sellable and purchasable across all physical points of channel. Or points of sale and then mental that availability. We got to be in your consideration set. And if and if we’re not we haven’t done enough marketing.
Jonathan Gudai
Sure. You know. So when you stepped into the Sphere I mean obviously this is a very big project and you had from a product perspective, you’re trying to drive people in for the U2 concert. And then there was also, like a recurring show. Is that where those are the two things you were selling tickets for from an end game perspective?
Nehme Abouzeid
Yeah, yeah, we had the concerts, right. The residency of U2. Quote unquote residency. But yes. And then we had this immersive experience, the Sphere experience. So. Okay. but yes, those were so as much viral interest that Sphere was generating then you realize that the core products are a concert and a movie or an immersive experience, rather. And so you got to take that funnel and like, you know, winnow it down to like the people who are coming when we’re showing –
Jonathan Gudai
To Las Vegas
Nehme Abouzeid
and can actually buy tickets and at full price, you know, and fill seats. And so that’s kind of the fun part for me. I think it’s like because there’s tons of information, but somebody that’s like, a practitioner of marketing and I was able to bring a great team on at Sphere and is basically helped me make, you know, parse all that information, parse all that data, and just, you know, you turn it into knowledge, like on the ground knowledge that we can actually use and optimize our marketing budget. So, you know, to me, that’s the fun part. And that kind of separates the way I look at resorts. Casinos on the strip is everyone has a box, and it’s up to you to decide what to put in your box. Some people put theaters, some people put nightclubs, some people put big, you know, casino floors, some people put restaurants. It’s really up to you. But the end game, it’s like how much cash flow can you generate, right. And you know, Venetian is more of like was more of a real estate optimizer, whereas Wynn was more of like, we want to be the best hotelier in the world. And they kind of own and operate most things whereas Venetian will gladly outsource, you know, farm it out to Wolfgang Puck and third parties. They both kind of get to a similar destination but they do it different ways. And that’s how I always viewed the casino resort industry. And it’s just fun that back now there’s a lot of more independent players now whereas there was a period of consolidation. And now there’s people taking risks, opening boutique hotels, buying stuff, rebranding. I just think that that’s better for the consumer, that there’s more operators and there’s more choice.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. So my father in law says so. Kenny Epstein is always like, I always say, oh, there’s another hotel that’s opening downtown or another hotel in town. It’s like, that’s great more, more investment into the community, more innovation bring it will bring more people. And, and he doesn’t see it that it’s a zero sum game.
Nehme Abouzeid
Exactly. It’s I mean, it’s again and now he’s a legend in the industry as well. And the idea that these events like these sports teams that are not sort of anchored to a hotel casino, right, to any one could those are citywide events that drive demand. Right. And now the hoteliers can just benefit by adjusting rate and pricing. Yeah. So the city has this like, you know, Adam Smith like invisible hand of the economy at work. Right. Because everybody, suppliers you know provide different support for the strip and it’s just amazing. I don’t think there’s any destination in the world. It gets 42 million people to visit four dense miles of pavement.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah, yeah.
Nehme Abouzeid
It’s so concentrated.
Jonathan Gudai
Special. It’s very unique. I mean, the, the, you know, the captive audience thing, the fact that 19 million go through the airport and the rest are maybe driving in from California or Arizona. So when you were thinking about your channels, like you said, a lot of people land and they don’t have plans, right? I don’t know what percent. What is the percentage of these days where where people who are tourists.
Nehme Abouzeid
It’s high. Back in the day, the old travel agent used to book your trip six months out. That’s long gone, right? By and large, the data says people are making their purchase decision when they get here.
Jonathan Gudai
When they’re here.
Nehme Abouzeid
And even people driving in, a lot of them don’t even have their hotel rooms yet, which, you know.
Jonathan Gudai
It’s kind of a testament to how easy it is to still figure it out when you get here. But that as a marketer that’s the opportunity where, yes, you know, you’re thinking about your channels which we know that there’s more channels, there’s more fragmentation than ever before in terms of reaching audiences. How are you slicing and dicing when it came to selling tickets and driving awareness like was there, you know, did you end up finding, like, a perfect balance or were you, were you still kind of tinkering?
Nehme Abouzeid
Well, it depends. I think hockey, for example, was more about teaching the local market how to buy season tickets and how tickets are sold. But it was a very much an established sport, right? Going to a hockey game was very established. It just wasn’t established here. you know, so it’s a different things, you know, and then of course, like Singapore, a casino in Singapore, locals have to pay 100 bucks to gain entry. Like every market has their own regulations and rules and stuff. So it’s really, you just become a sponge and you try to do your due diligence before you open, of like, what’s the optimal marketing and sales strategy for each particular project? So, and you know, of course, like sports betting is crazy because every state like some states, you can bet on their local college team, other states you can’t. The rules on promotions like free bets and risk free bets is just oh my god, it yeah, it was maddening. But that two and a half years for me was like, maddening.
Jonathan Gudai
Yeah. I would go so far as to say that it’s maddening, even just today, trying to keep up with all the trends, with consumer like content consumption and, you know, where their attention is. We’re in an attention economy. But that attention is changing and shifting. And the TV ad you were saying that might have been effective for Wynn back in the day. You know, people are watching linear television anymore or the kind of audiences you might be want to trying to reach aren’t doing it like that. How do you how do you look at. So as we look kind of forward in the bets that you see in terms of, just modern day marketing, what do you what do you see winning? What do you see losing in terms of just the channels that historically people invested into versus kind of what you see now and in the next few years?
Nehme Abouzeid
Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, television is having a big reckoning, you know, linear TV versus connected TV and, just the ability to buy everything programmatically so that there’s no waste, you know, is a huge edge for a marketer. And, but again, you know, TV is still like the most effective mass market medium when you look at CPMs, you know, and so you want to get in front of the widest audience possible. You know, TV’s still pretty effective. It’s getting it’s still tough to measure in a lot of ways, but, you know, I do think that —
Jonathan Gudai
Do you lump CTV with TV in terms of linear versus CTV as like one type of a thing, or are you thinking of those as different things because of the way that they are bought and sold?
Nehme Abouzeid
I’m kind of lumping. I’m putting them together, okay. Because obviously it’s a lean back, right? It’s a lean back thing for the most part. If it’s a big TV and you’re leaning back, you’re watching it. Maybe you’re watching a communal activity, but then again, you have a tablet, you know, 1 to 1, you know, viewing of CTV where it’s like tablet driven.
Jonathan Gudai
OTT.
Nehme Abouzeid
But I do think that, you know, you know, television is the more measurable it gets, the better it is to try to compare it to other forms of media. You know what I’m saying? Because sometimes, look, even some of these digital like you look at display some of these, you know, I sometimes I question, you know, the impression data and things like that on display and how effective it truly is in driving consideration.
Jonathan Gudai
And so, that might be one of your kind of pull back from bucket where like display you just find it harder and harder to justify based upon the targeting.
Nehme Abouzeid
It’s yeah I mean the targeting it just as long as targeting continues to iterate and get better and things. But there’s just sometimes you just got to sit back and take a commonsense business approach to it’s like, hey, billboard in Times Square or billboard during the Super Bowl or something like that, that, you know, for me, actually, I remember when I was a journalist, as we used to have, you know, talk about if you didn’t break the story, then advance the story, right, with follow up articles, right? So if you, you have an ad that sort of breaks the story with for someone’s mind about a brand, as long as you use other forms of marketing to advance it and bring them down, that funnel, then it, you know, you got to factor in how that message contributes to the ultimate purchase. You can’t just say, oh, you know, we served them up an ad, they clicked on it, give them 100% of the credit, because those people may have been exposed to those ads during travel, during, you know, whatever. So linear TV. So you really have to look at it holistically and integrated. Not everything is measured to the nth degree. And it just doesn’t mean it’s not effective. It just means that, you know, you gotta use a practitioner’s gut to some degree as well. And that’s the hard part of it.
Jonathan Gudai
Sure. Yeah. We say that all the time that one of the superpowers of, you know, historically out of home, we call it video IRL just reaching people and touchpoints in real life is the priming opportunities where you can really kind of get a message across where you’re not interrupting them. And it may not be, like you said, clicked and measurable to the extent that you can with a search ad, but it is being seen you’re sitting in traffic on the 15 or you’re, you know, you know, you’re in the, you know, the doctor’s waiting room and there’s a TV showing you a video ad, you know, in the waiting room screen, you’re going to be exposed to that. And then when it comes time to actually move down the funnel and you’re serving, you know, whether it’s a display ad, social media ad, you’re more likely to engage with that because you’ve already been primed to that. So that’s what you were talking about with that journalism thing of like, there’s those channels like TV and out of home that serve that purpose. And it’s a really important purpose. And in the age of maybe data and measurement, maybe it’s lost. Some of it, I don’t know, respect, value. Would you agree with that?
Nehme Abouzeid
Yeah. I mean, look, it’s, you know, I, I for Bally’s, we managed a lot of sports and broadcast deals and you know, we entered the RSN space (the regional sports network) at a time where like people were cord cutting. So it’s like, how do you value a partnership in the regional sports network where from one day it was Fox Sports Net, the next day was Bally Sports and we were the Bally’s.
Jonathan Gudai
Right.
Nehme Abouzeid
So you say, oh, those are worth $9 billion, those networks are like what’s it worth in the present day, as you know, viewers are declining, subscribers are declining, and everyone’s cord cutting. So it’s almost a depreciating asset in that sense. But does it have value? Yes it has tremendous value. The repetition of the logo Bally Sports, Bally, you know, on a polo shirt, on a mic flag, you know, on a, on a dasher board in a, in a hockey rink. So, you know, sponsorships to a large degree are tough to quantify and measure the brand value of a sponsorship. There’s a leap of faith you take when you sponsor a sports team. But if you look at, studies, you know, like something like 74% of consumers are more inclined to buy a brand’s product if they’re affiliated with their favorite sports team. You know, and that’s from, you know, sponsorship agency research. And, you know, so if someone that’s why so many brands got in early on the Golden Knights because, you know, people like Derek Stevens at Circa got in early and at Golden Knights because it elevates. When you have one of the four major U.S. sports brand, the NHL shield behind you, like it elevates your brand. You know, you could debate it a million ways to Sunday analytically, but sometimes you just got to take a leap of faith.
Jonathan Gudai
That’s an interesting point because we talk about that a lot, that sometimes marketers spend too much time putting out products focused, sales focused ads as opposed to content. And that content, like you said, could just be in affiliation with a sports team or if it’s like a, you know, let’s say a chocolate brand, it’s like a recipe, you know, that is with their logos next to it. But they’re bringing something that’s a value or they’re, they’re creating an association with things. Yeah. and again, it goes back to that whole branding versus performance. And unfortunately I feel like a lot of companies in the past, especially agencies, have separated out those into like siloed groups. And do you agree with the statement that you’re seeing or you believe that there’s a convergence that’s happening, or were you seeing that at all at the sphere or elsewhere or is it still kind of two sides to the –
Nehme Abouzeid
I think organizations are better served having a CMO that has a remit that covers all touchpoints. So if it’s public relations, organic media impressions, paid media impressions, it’s just better serve an organization that it’s under one person. Like the buck stops here. They can make that decision because, you know, an impression is an impression is an impression, right? It could be an article that on Google, you know, discovery, it gets served up to you because of the algorithm. Or it could be paid or could be whatever. You know, it’s really about brand touchpoints. And so I think, I think a lot of organizations vary by industry, of course, but they’re missing the boat. If they have brand over here or they have acquisition over there, they have dual lines reporting. I just feel as though they’re losing. They’re a little short sighted. Right. and so that’s where you have all those, like, tone deaf, you know. Oh, this CEO, this, this brand did this. And it’s super tone deaf, right? There’s myriad examples in today’s media. But I do think, like I, I appreciate reporting structures where like the CMO is responsible for everything. And the buck stops with that person because like I said, there’s so many touch points right now that you really have to be responsible for everything. Wynn had a very simple, Wynn, it was like, we want to be the best, like we want to be affiliated with the best entities, the best, you know, influencers, the best creators, the best festivals, the best, whatever.
Jonathan Gudai
DJs, everything.
Nehme Abouzeid
DJs. And so they wanted to be number one in every category. And so basically the best thing about Wynn is like you could go down to, you know, a bellman on the floor and you could kind of say, hey, does this feel on brand for Wynn and show him something, whether it’s a partnership or whatever? Yeah. And even someone like a bellman might be able to say, no, that doesn’t feel like us. Yeah, like, that’s the best thing about Wynn I felt when I was there, you know, between 2013-2016 is actively marketing because everybody from top down kind of knew what the brand identity was and the brand DNA. And they knew that doesn’t feel like us. Brands that don’t do it as well. They’re like, yeah, that could be us or that might not be us. But the fact that, like, especially in a hospitality brand, you’re only as good as your last guest interaction. If that’s a housekeeper. If that’s, you know, a bellman, if that’s a front desk agent, or if that’s like, you know, a nightclub attendant, then, you know, everyone else to be on the same page. Vegas does a great job. I think Vegas does a better job than most cities because it’s a service.
Jonathan Gudai
Service first. Yeah. Service first. And that quality versus quantity. I feel like unfortunately, as a society, I think we’ve kind of moved to more quantity. And it’s a byproduct of the access to information, access to platforms and communication flows, but you see that Wynn continues to, you know, people are staying at the Wynn, staying at Encore even today when there’s been new places that have opened, you know, because of that emphasis on quality. And I think in marketing, too, the definition of what quality is I think we’re starting to kind of move closer back to the fundamentals. And its brand is important. And it’s a mixture of certain things. And we at Adomni are playing a part certainly in the real life aspect of it. but CTV is something that we’re actually about to embark on as a complement to your Video IRL stuff so that you can expose people outside the home. And then eventually you can have that message delivered in the retargeted way inside the home where people can take an action. And so I think we see things very similarly in that regard.
Nehme Abouzeid
I’m very impressed with what Adomni has been doing. I think to take something that’s been tough to measure and to bring a programmatic element to it, and then extending it to other forms of media so that everything aligns and you can measure that, then that through line. I think that’s amazing. I don’t know that many companies that are doing it and the fact that you have Vegas as a test bed.You can iterate and you can test and measure. And I think that gives you a leg up on a lot of those other measurement companies out there as well so my only regret is not pouring more money.
Jonathan Gudai
So. No, it was great you know, over the years getting to know you and certainly I feel like as we launch this next chapter for us, I’m going to be calling you for some tips, because Luba, our CMO, is here in the studio today. And I think that there could be some ways that you can even help us influence what we’re doing here at our company. But this is great. And I’m very excited for your next chapter, the entrepreneurial vision. The next, you know, where you’re going to kind of switch over to the other side in a way and just, you know, go through the, the, the full ownership stake, which is really fun and exciting. And also, you know, open, open their doors to a whole new paradigm. And thank you for joining us today. It was great to see you.
Nehme Abouzeid
Thank you Jonathan. Appreciate it.
Jonathan Gudai
Thanks.