Case Study
MGM National Harbor
BRAND STRATEGY
Entertainment + Gaming
Targeting potential customers to attract them to a new entertainment venue.

THE CHALLENGE
MGM was new to the DC metro market and needed to unlock the right mix of retail, dining, leisure, entertainment and gaming activities to cultivate interest and drive sustained visitation to its National Harbor property.
In a town known for its hyper-competitiveness, especially in the life-games of politics, knowledge, sports, wealth, and status, MGM needed to cultivate a thorough understanding of the current casino/resort destination landscape in the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) to position and market its forthcoming National Harbor property to reach the hearts and minds of potential visitors.
The key was to focus on local residents (drive-able) and identification of target segments who showed greatest interest, consideration and spend potential.

OUR STRATEGY
Heart+Mind Strategies conducted quantitative research and advanced analytics to create a customized business and marketing-communications based segmentation to guide the visitation appeal of MGM National Harbor to relevant target segments both deep (within segments) and wide (across segments).
Part of the solution included the development of county-based heat maps to identify the geographic areas where the new property would have its strongest draw.

IMPACT
The research generated insights to identify, target and size priority segments for the property, and to develop an effective communication strategy by understanding what messages held the strongest appeal and resonated with target segments in addition to isolating the most effective channels to reach them.
MGM National Harbor opened in December 2016 and in its first full month of operation the property surpassed all other casinos in the state to become the top revenue-producing casino.
