LAS VEGAS: CREATING A BRAND WITH IMC “We made a decision collectively with the agency that we needed to go into the branding of Las Vegas,” observes Rossi Ralenkotter, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). The mission of LVCVA is to attract visitors to Las Vegas through its many promotional activities. Although Las Vegas has grown from its early days as a destination for southern California residents, branding provides an opportunity for additional growth. Now the LVCVA is undertaking the challenge of creating a campaign that utilizes all of its resources and delivers a consistent message. As Ralenkotter explained, “We need to have a fully integrated program.” The first settlers to the area that is now Las Vegas arrived in 1855. The population grew and the city of Las Vegas was incorporated in 1911. To encourage tourism, gaming was legalized in 1931, and one of the first hotels, the Flamingo, opened in 1946. Other hotels soon followed, including the Sahara, the Sands, the New Frontier, the Royal Nevada, the Showboat, the Riviera, the Fremont, Binion’s Horseshoe, and the Tropicana. Although gaming was the primary attraction, entertainment by the biggest stars of film and music like Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Abbott and Costello, Bing Crosby, and Carol Channing, also became popular. By 1975 Nevada gaming revenues were $1 billion and growing. Las Vegas entered a new era with the construction of large resort hotels. Each development became larger or more expensive than its predecessors, including the 3,000room Mirage in 1989, the 5,000-room MGM Grand in 1993, the $1.7 billion Bellagio in 1998, and mega-resort Wynn Las Vegas in 2005. The hotels developed elaborate casinos and were competing for visitors with performances by entertainers. Wayne Newton, for example, eventually gave more than 25,000 Las Vegas performances and Sigfried and Roy gave 15,000. New forms of entertainment such as Star Trek: The Experience and Cirque du Soleil became popular. In an effort to become a place with more than gaming and live performances, Las Vegas built theme parks, roller coasters, and children’s activities to position itself as a familyfriendly destination. Generally, these marketing efforts were not successful and Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority decided to consider other approaches for attracting visitors. In short order, the MGM Grand replaced its amusement park with night clubs, the Hard Rock Hotel began offering blackjack in its pools, and Treasure Island replaced its child appropriate pirate show with a version targeted at adults. Dining experiences changed as celebrity chefs, such as Emeril Lagasse, Charlie Palmer, and Wolfgang Puck opened sophisticated restaurants. Hotels added extravagant spas and designer shops. There is also the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum and a gallery of works from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Finally, traditional events such as automobile racing at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, national events such as the NBA All-Star game, and relatively new events such as the Ultimate Fighting Championship became popular attractions. All of the activities proved to be incredibly popular. In fact, while gaming revenue reached $7 billion, shows, hotels, restaurants, clubs and shops generated another $23 billion! The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority was created by the Nevada State Legislature to manage the cyclical nature of tourism. Officials noticed that the number of visitors to Las Vegas declined during weekdays, summer months, and holiday seasons. The marketing division of the LVCVA became responsible for increasing leisure travel visits, and convention and meeting attendance. The marketing division created three departments to be responsible for advertising, sports and sponsorships, and Internet marketing. The advertising department uses a variety of media to reach potential visitors. The sports and sponsorship department helps create the Las Vegas brand by communicating messages about local events to millions of participants and fans. The Internet marketing department is responsible for ensuring relevant and timely Web content, responding to website inquiries, and monitoring the performance of Web promotions. The marketing division serves as a liaison with the LVCVA’s advertising and promotion agency. It also facilitates the correct and timely use of strategy and content in all promotional campaigns and branding efforts. Ralenkotter asked advertising and promotion agency R&R Partners to identify a new campaign for Las Vegas. The agency had a philosophy of using marketing research to develop a deep understanding of customers, and of using innovative thinking to create effective solutions to marketing challenges. R&R Partners also believed that it was important to manage a consistent brand message across all audiences and all media. After their initial research, they initiated a discussion with the LVCVA to begin a shift from product advertising which emphasized specific features of the city and its hotels to a brand campaign that emphasized the emotions that visitors experience when they are in Las Vegas. Over time an idea emerged. “The idea ‘What Happens Here, Stays Here’ was two or three or four years in the making,” explains Randy Snow, executive vice president and creative director at R&R Partners. He added, “We conducted a year-long account planning exercise and discovered the emotional connection between Las Vegas and its customers.” Ralenkotter agreed to the concept and authorized a $58 million, 20-month integrated marketing communications campaign. The emotional element that the research had uncovered was the idea that people often feel free to do or see things in Las Vegas that they might not do or see anywhere else. R&R Partners continued to conduct research and many of the ideas for the campaign came from actual visitors. The agency was careful to include men and women, business and leisure travelers, and visitors from different parts of the United States. Additional findings from the research made it clear that the campaign would need to be fully integrated to include advertising, public relations, personal selling, and promotional efforts. First, the diversity of the visitors to Las Vegas meant that they used many different types of media in their travel decisions. Second, several of the segments that visited Las Vegas were “multi-taskers” and used multiple sources of information at the same time. The agency also knew that an integrated marketing communication campaign would multiply the effectiveness of its budget. The initial “Vegas Stories” campaign ran television ads that told stories about enticing experiences a visitor might have in Las Vegas and concluded with “What Happens Here, Stays Here.” Print ads with the same message also began running in magazines. The slogan became an instant hit, and soon became a pop-culture catchphrase. For example, flight attendants were heard welcoming airline travelers to Las Vegas and then saying “And remember folks, what happens here, stays here.” Similarly, the tagline was used on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show, newscasts, talk shows, and TV sitcoms. Billy Crystal even closed the Academy Awards by saying, “And remember: what happens at the Oscars, stays at the Oscars.” By the end of the year the campaign was ranked as one of the top ten most likeable campaigns according to USA Today’s Ad Tracker. The public relations department was able to obtain coverage in newspapers and evening news programs when the NFL refused to run one of the new campaign ads during the Super Bowl. New television series programming such as CSI and Las Vegas became popular and added to the visibility of Las Vegas. Poker programs such as ESPN’s United States Poker Championship, the Travel Channel’s World Poker Tour, and Fox Sports Net’s Poker Superstars Invitational Tournament made the gaming experience easily accessible. R&R Partners also worked with Time magazine on an article that became a cover story. Other promotional elements also contributed to the success of the campaign. Sweepstakes offered the chance to win special experiences such as New Year’s Eve in Las Vegas, and the LVCVA also facilitated sports sponsorships, including many golf tournaments. Another element of the integrated campaign included Web offerings. The LVCVA created a tourism website (www.visitlasvegas.com) with information about hotels and activities, and links to special offers. The website also integrated the new campaign by providing interactive links such as “Be Anyone in Las Vegas.” The humorous link allows visitors to create an identity that includes a name (e.g., Vinny), a profession (e.g., double agent), and “everything you need to back up your story, including a brief history, a printable business card, a prerecorded 1-800 number, and a website.” Another link allows potential visitors to send personalized video email messages to friends with the tagline, “What Happens Here, Stays Here.” Banner ads and paid search engine advertising help generate more than 500,000 hits each month. In addition, a personal selling staff follows up on the awareness created by other elements of the campaign by calling on travel agents, corporate meeting planners, and trade show producers. Overall, each element of the campaign is designed to provide a message consistent with other elements. How can the LVCVA and R&R Partners assess the success of their campaign? One important measure is the essence of the LVCVA mission: number of visitors. Other measures might include the revenue produced by visitors to Las Vegas, the amount of gaming revenue, the number of convention delegates, and the number of airline passengers arriving in Las Vegas. Table 1 shows information about each of these measures prior to the introduction of the campaign in 2003 (shown in black), and following the campaign (shown in pink). Each of the measures had a dramatic increase, suggesting that the campaign was a huge success! TABLE 1: LAS VEGAS VISITOR STATISTICS 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 # of Visitors Revenue from Visitors Gaming Revenue from Visitors 35,859,691 35,017,317 35,071,505 35,540,126 37,388,781 8,566,717 38,914,889 31,462,337,364 31,907,491,818 31,613,937,641 32,777,906,318 33,724,467,453 36,733,452,851 39,419,205,580 7,671,252,000 7,636,547,000 7,630,562,000 7,830,856,000 8,711,426,000 9,717,322,000 10,643,206,000 # of Convention Delegates 3,853,363 5,014,240 5,105,450 5,657,796 5,724,864 6,166,194 6,307,961 # of Airline Passengers 36,865,866 35,179,960 35,009,011 36,265,932 41,441,531 44,267,370 46,193,329 So where does Ralenkotter go from here? A variation of the campaign will begin to focus on visitor stories that use Las Vegas experiences such as Broadway shows or extraordinary restaurants as an “alibi.” Las Vegas is also likely to get bigger and better as new developments such as MGM Mirage’s $7 billion Project CityCenter and Boyd Gaming’s $4 billion Echelon Place are completed. Finally, Vegas is going global; American-run casinos such as the Mirage have announced plans to build casinos in China, and others are looking at Britain, Thailand, and even Singapore. The success of the campaign is likely to lead to other new ventures. As Ralenkotter observes, “We are the talk of the travel industry!” Case Study #2: Las Vegas: Creating a Brand with IMC INSTRUCTIONS: • View It: Review the Video Case Study online and in your textbook. • Do It: Answer the questions below (also found in your textbook). Upload your responses using the assignment link in Learning Module 12. Brief Synopsis: Las Vegas has changed from a gambling location for southern California residents to an extraordinary entertainment destination for visitors from around the globe. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) is the organization responsible for attracting visitors to the city. The LVCVA uses its resources to manage an integrated marketing campaign to deliver a consistent message about Las Vegas and create a “brand” that encourages tourism growth. 1. What information about consumers led the advertising agency to suggest a shift from product advertising to brand marketing? How are the two approaches different? 2. What characteristics of Las Vegas visitors suggested that an integrated marketing communications campaign would be necessary? 3. Which of the promotional elements described in Figure 15–2 were used by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority in the “What Happens Here, Stays Here” campaign? What measures indicate that the campaign was a success? 4. What are several new strategies Las Vegas might pursue as it continues its brand marketing activities? Will the program elements that worked in the U.S. also work in China and other countries?
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