Backfires on firms' intangible assets of the casino industry in Macau and Las Vegas: investigating advertising expenditure

PurposeThis study quantifies the casino-industry-specific intangible assets and brand equity models from a different perspective (relative to Interbrand approach, or EquiTrend approach) to investigate the relationship between advertising expenditure and firms' intangible assets in the casino industry.Design/methodology/approachThis study collected the casino's data from the financial reports during the period of 2007–2018. The proposed model incorporates a brand structure moderator, and the peculiar characteristics (e.g. ΔS, HHI) of the casino industry based on previous research. We constructed three models for dependent variables using Tobin's Q−1. Model (1, 2, 3) as the primary regressions to firms' intangible assets (and thus serving as tests of hypotheses), as depicted in the diagrams of the firm's brand equity in different scenarios.FindingsThe results suggest that: (1) advertising expenditure has an adverse effect on firms' intangible assets; (2) the coefficients associated with brand structure dummy variables are both positive and significant; and the adverse effect is stronger for firms with house-of-brand's (HOB) and brand of house (BH) structure than for those with mixed branding structure (BH-HOB hybrid); (3) global brands have higher brand equity than local brands, with higher variance over time.Originality/valueThis study gives new evidence of the negative effect of advertising on the casino industry, which primarily reports the adverse effect of advertising in a sinful industry. Meanwhile, the proposed FBBE models can be an efficient tool to monitor a firm's annual brand equity performance with respect to their major competitors in the market.

Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting in the Casino Industry: A Content Analysis

The purpose of this study is to provide preliminary exploration of how corporate social responsibility issues are currently reported and communicated by US major casino companies. Empirical evidence is drawn from standalone CSR reports and websites of the 30 largest casino companies in the US, which is explored through content analysis methodology. This paper finds that there are substantial variations in the reporting and communication of CSR issues by casino companies. While casino companies mainly rely on websites to communicate CSR issues, 23% of the sample companies use standalone CSR reports. Whereas websites tend to provide relatively limited information about CSR activities, standalone CSR reports have a tendency to cover comprehensive CSR themes in a detailed manner. In addition, the content analysis based on website reveals that while most casino companies tend to be passive about responsible gaming, some are trying to behave more actively and responsibly about this issue.