How Hard Rock Digital Hit the Fortune Cookie Advertising Jackpot
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66%
Unaided Recall
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16%
Searched Hard Rock Digital
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7%
Shared on Social
Dubbing themselves as “the future of sports betting and iGaming,” Hard Rock Digital’s play into online entertainment feels like a virtual encore to the legendary Hard Rock’s brand empire: world-class entertainment venues, gaming, night life, and hospitality, now delivered to your screen.
With over 50 years of cultural cachet backing it, Hard Rock Digital extends that iconic energy into three core offerings: Sportsbook, Online Gaming, and an Online Casino, all designed to help players bet to a different beat.
So when they wanted that beat heard louder and clearer, they called in the cookie cavalry.
Hard Rock may be one of the most recognizable names on the planet — who hasn’t seen its logo slapped on merch or walked past one of its 180+ iconic restaurants located worldwide?
But its online entertainment arm couldn’t merely cash in on that familiarity. The newer, bolder offshoot needed extra amplification.
Add in the notoriously tricky world of sports betting and casino-style advertising, with its age-gating, additional regulations, marketing message scrutiny, and the general “no funny business” energy.
Suddenly, Hard Rock Digital’s marketing playbook felt thinner than a gambler’s last chip.
That is, until they turned to OpenFortune. Hard Rock Digital partnered with our fortune cookie ad media platform to promote its welcome offer on Hard Rock Bet, targeting new users in New Jersey for the following:
Boost awareness for the welcome bonus and drive signups, compliantly teasing Hard Rock Digital’s $1k deposit match.
OpenFortune — whose rolodex includes successful iGaming partnerships with Caesars, Jackpot City, Aviator, and more, — looked like a clear winning hand.
Challenge accepted.
Choosing to work with OpenFortune wasn’t a bet placed on a whim. They chose us because we’re the reigning champs of attention grabbing media meets iGaming meets entertainment-brand wizardry. Nationally, internationally, cosmically (okay, maybe not that last one…yet).
Fortune cookies are a particular ace up the sleeve that traditional and digital-only ads can’t compete with, for several key reasons:
It’s a compliance no-brainer: Distribution and creative are tightly controlled with proper disclaimers, 21+ age gating, even international ASA CAP compliance standards — plus more guardrails letting Hard Rock meet NJ regulations without sacrificing charm or strategic impact.|
It’s brand awareness jet fuel: Fortune cookies offer messages so disarming and unexpected, people actually read them. Every time. Then tell someone about it. (Name one Subway ad that’s done so this month. We’ll wait.)
It’s a measurable, meaningful cultural icon: One of the few universally loved artifacts across regions, age groups, and demographics. Everyone knows the ritual. Everyone partakes in the cookie-enjoying experience.
OpenFortune devises creative as crisp as the cookies themselves:
Front slip: Fortunes centered on luck, prosperity, and opportunity. Thematically relevant, legally friendly, and still delightfully on-brand.
Back slip: Clear, contextual messaging touting the $1,000 deposit match welcome offer engineered to drive action.
Hard Rock Digital’s New-Jersey cookie campaign cracked smiles and connected new leads to its sportsbook, online gaming, and online casino trifecta:
66% Unaided Recall: That’s stuck-in-your-brain level awareness, perfectly complementing Hard Rock’s already household name status.
16% Searched Hard Rock Digital: Because you don’t have to be a genius to see cookies plus curiosity drives consumer action. But you do have to be willing to bet bigger.
7% shared the slip on social: Real people posting real cookies about a real brand. That’s buy-in underpinned by authenticity getting harder to nurture these days.
In a landscape where betting and iGaming campaigns often get swallowed whole by restrictions and red tape, OpenFortune handed Hard Rock Digital a playful, compliant, and still wildly engaging workaround.
Together, we turned a humble cookie into a high-performing OOH engine that delivered measurable lift, no bluffing required.
