Award Date

Spring 2011

Degree Type

Professional Paper

Degree Name

Master of Science in Hotel Administration

Department

Hotel Administration

First Committee Member

Robert H. Woods, Chair

Number of Pages

44

Abstract

In the spring of 2003, the poker world saw the launch of the World Poker Tour; that same May, an amateur poker player and online qualifier named Chris Moneymaker won the Main Event of the World Series of Poker and the $2.5 million first prize, demonstrating that virtually anyone can win at poker. The result of these two events was a “poker boom” that, by September 2005, had the two largest poker book publishers on the planet reporting ten-fold increases in sales. And yet, outside of their own company websites, most of the largest poker book publishers on the planet spend little – if not nothing – on advertising. What, then, drives the sales of poker books? The answer would seem to be word of mouth.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the power of word-of-mouth (WOM) communication as a marketing tool for poker books. This study reviews the extant literature relating both to WOM as a general concept, as well as to role that WOM plays in driving book sales in particular. Based on the literature review, the author provides recommendations for creating a WOM campaign designed to drive poker book sales.

Keywords

Books – Marketing; Booksellers and bookselling; Handbooks; manuals; etc.; Poker; Word-of-mouth advertising

Disciplines

Advertising and Promotion Management | Gaming and Casino Operations Management | Marketing | Other Communication | Sales and Merchandising

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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