Advertising for Revel in Atlantic City Keeps Gambling on the QT

Atlantic City casino and resort Revel is a place for people to relax and enjoy themselves. They can gamble, too, but you wouldn’t know that from Revel’s new ads, which focus on the leisurely qualities of the resort and sidestep explicit citations of gambling.

The state of New Jersey invested heavily into the 2.4-billion dollar Revel, which opened its doors this week for a preview and has a formal opening scheduled for May 25th. The resort’s 15- to 20-million dollar ad campaign was started in January and will run throughout the remainder of the year. Ads are posted on billboards in Atlantic City and close to bridges and tunnels just outside Philadelphia and New York City. Print advertising includes recent ads in newspapers such as USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, and magazines such as Bon Appétit, ESPN The Magazine, GQ, Men’s Health, Travel & Leisure, Vanity Fair and Wired, with ads of the digital variety likewise appearing on some of the magazines’ websites.

One particularly extravagant ad was an insert included in the April issue of the magazines, Washingtonian, New York and Philadelphia. Its cover showcased a stack of items such as a glass of red wine, a pair of dice, a red platform shoe, and a snorkel: all references to entertainment options for Revel guests. It also has an Ace of Spades, but another similar ad with stacked objects – a bundle of asparagus, a lobster, a chef’s knife and more wine – has no mention of gambling.

The resort has also turned to TV and radio for advertising. A 30-second TV spot highlighting guests dining and poolside is currently being broadcast in New York and Philadelphia on local NBC, CBS and Fox stations, as well as cable channels such as AMC, the Travel Channel, VH-1 and the Food Network. Five 15- and 30-second radio spots have a parallel approach, with a concentration on the resort’s entertainment and not so much on the casino. The radio ads can be heard on stations airing in Atlantic City, Philadelphia and Monmouth County in New Jersey.

“We’re focusing on lifestyle passions of foodies, on getaways for women, retail, fashion, wellness, the spa, music lovers,” Sid Yu, the resort’s senior vice president for brand and revenue, told The New York Times. “It’s for people who dine and shop in the meatpacking district in New York and care about Fashion Week.”

“We’re trying to get the leisure and lifestyle customer to Revel,” Yu added, noting the intentional dodging of allusions to the casino in advertisements. “Some will come and gamble, and some will not.”

Revel was constructed on 20 acres of beachfront property. The resort is 47-stories tall and 6.3 million square feet. Guests can see the ocean from any of the 1,900 rooms or regale themselves at 14 restaurants, two theaters, a couple of nightclubs, 10 swimming pools, a huge spa and a 130,000 square-foot casino – but let’s not think about the casino right now.