SEARCH NEWS:

 

Las Vegas Casinos Bring Back Old Sex Appeal

”…But these days, plenty of cities offer haute cuisine, theme parks and even casinos. So starting this week, Las Vegas is hoping to stand out with a titillating new image that’s more like its old one — naughty, mysterious and very adult.

”…The strategy shift follows a $250,000, 18-month study commissioned by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority that asked consumers what they want from the resort city. It turns out folks weren’t going just to see the buildings.

“`We found some nostalgia for 1970s Las Vegas,’ says Randy Snow, creative director at R&R Partners, the Las Vegas advertising agency that developed the new campaign. `What was appealing to them was the feeling of abandon they got when they get here. ... Time has no meaning. You can eat breakfast at 2 in the afternoon and dinner at 4 in the morning.’

”…The TV and print campaign, budgeted at $18.5 million for six months, will be paid for by the visitors bureau — a group that is largely made up of casino operators. Some of the 30-second TV ads were shot by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. The print ads, which come in 10 languages, proclaim, `Rule No. 1: There are no rules.’

”…The study indicated that regular visitors weren’t turned off by the repetitive shots of hotels and restaurants. In fact, the prospect of new properties encouraged them to make return visits. But Las Vegas’s recent building splurge is over, with no new hotel-casinos on the scale of MGM Mirage’s Bellagio, Park Place Entertainment Corp.’s Paris or the privately owned Venetian being built right now.

”Moreover, for those who have never visited Las Vegas — and that includes an estimated 59 percent of the adult U.S. population — all the messages about accommodations conflicted with the way people think of the city. These people, the survey suggests, seek something emotional in Las Vegas that they can’t get anywhere else…”

< Gaming News