Wednesday 20 May 2015

What Happens in Vegas is Apparently Some Terrible Advertising

If you had to advertise Las Vegas, what would you say? What would be your tagline? What would be the brand truth you would be extolling?

Would it be the concept of sexual mistakes and regret and drugs and regret and gambling mishaps and regret? And regret?

Because it seems someone in the Las Vegas tourism board thinks that that’s the way to go.

“What happens here, stays here.” That’s the campaign lead line. Very much the essence of leaning in to a sleazy image.

If nothing else it’s a confusing move because everyone already knows that Las Vegas is that strange mix of glitz and distress. Repeating the message doesn’t tell you anything new, it doesn’t expand the market, it doesn’t make you think.

The variants on a theme just reinforce the banality. “Where your accent is an aphrodisiac”. Classy. Again leading with sex, and this time just retreading an old stereotype of the British accent in America. It’s as if they simply have nothing more to say.


Perhaps that’s just a reflection of Vegas as a city with shallow offerings, a one-trick-pony. But surely there must be more to say than that.

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