Las Vegas What it means everywhere else: The City of Sin. The most scandalous city in the US. Whether it's gambling, strippers or the booze, what happens there 'stays' there. What it means in Nevada: A place that gets a ton of attention for its 4 mile Strip. But everyone from Nevada knows that Vegas is actually a giant area of land. LAS VEGAS GLOSSARY OF TERMS 86'd (eighty-sixed): The act of getting booted from a casino for cheating. Action: Sum total of your winnings. All in: In poker, to put your last remaining chips into the pot. Ante: In poker, a small portion of the minimum bet that each player is required to put into the pot before a new hand starts. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Quotes Showing 1-30 of 148 'No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride.and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well.maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.'. Seriously, any other town you go to there's this little devil and a little angel on your shoulder. A little good advice, a little bad advice.You go to Las Vegas, there's like a devil and a devil and they're just battling it out the whole time. It's like, 'Smoke some crack!' And then I go, 'YEA! Yea, this is a good town.
Las Vegas' 'What Happens Here, Stays Here' slogan is one of the more famous taglines in modern tourism marketing and one of the most quoted, talked about, and recognized ad campaigns in any industry. The phrase has not only been a spark that's helped drive millions of visitors to Sin City, but it's also inspired an Usher song and the trilogy of Hangover movies, been quoted by Laura Bush, closed an Oscar ceremony, and been banned from Super Bowl time slots.
The campaign, which turns 10 this fall, was first cooked up in 2003 at a brainstorming meeting in the Las Vegas tourism department of ad agency R&R Partners. The meeting was sparked by a need to brand Vegas for something other than gambling. A year of research resulted in the following conclusions, as explained in R&R's case study of the campaign:
The emotional bond between Las Vegas and its customers was freedom. Freedom on two levels. Freedom to do things, see things, eat things, wear things, feel things. In short, the freedom to be someone we couldn't be at home. And freedom from whatever we wanted to leave behind in our daily lives. Just thinking about Vegas made the bad stuff go away. At that point the strategy became clear. Speak to that need. Make an indelible connection between Las Vegas and the freedom we all crave.
The result was a decade of ads that create situations around missing information. This allows viewers to fill in the blanks and begin imagining their own Vegas adventures.
Vegas Quotes
The campaign turns 10
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority runs two types of campaigns: Retail campaigns that encourage direct bookings with a very strong and specific call to action (which are released in the spring) and branding campaigns promoting some variation of 'What Happens Here, Stays Here' (which arrive in the fall).
The campaign just finished a nine-month hiatus during which LVCVA introduced a new retail-focused campaign starring a personality called Las Vegasdotcom. The character didn't exactly catch on with viewers and is not guaranteed to return during the 2014 retail advertising period.
The branding ads continued to run in Mexico and the U.K. during this time.
In early September, R&R announced the return of 'What Happens Here, Stays Here'.
Just mentioning its return generated 15 to 20 calls from media outlets, says Courtney Fitzgerald, public relations manager at LVCVA.
Catchy Vegas Phrases
'The plan was always to return with it,' explains Fitzgerald. 'That's what our research told us people like.'
The ad will be not be a review of the last 10 years. It will have an original story line much like the 'know the code' narrative in which Vegas visitors are encouraged to not share their friends' shenanigans with the world via social media. (Especially when Price Harry is involved.)
The agency is planning to release a full review of the 10-year campaign in the first week of October. The agency does not disclose how much the campaign costs to run each year.
A decade of Las Vegas tourism
The campaign persisted through the recession following the 2008 banking crisis and the collapse of the real estate bubble, which hit Las Vegas particularly hard.
The annual visitor count fell more than 4 percent in 2008 after reaching a high of 39.2 million visitors in 2007. Visitor numbers have since climbed back past pre-bust levels to a record 39.7 million gamblers, clubbers, and convention attendees in 2012.
The recession also impacted occupancy rates. Citywide occupancy hit a high of 90.4 percent in 2007 before dropping to a low of 80.4 percent in 2010. Occupancy rates continue to recover but have not yet reached the near-perfect balance reached before the recession.
Get ready to laugh
The 'What Happens Here, Stays Here' ads make people laugh. And although print and digital assets have been added to the campaigns, video drives the message.
'The heart of the campaign is the video,' says Sara Gorgon, an account supervisor at R&R Partners.
R&R shares 15 high-quality videos from the past 10 years on its Vimeo page, but none are available for download. So, we've collected seven videos from campaigns that ran from 2006 to 2013. Many are recordings of TV commercials, so please excuse the poor quality.
This ad from 2006 shows a man trying to pick up girls by testing out different occupations. The message: He's free to be whoever he wants in Vegas.
Posted in 2006, a lawn mower charges his boss $35 extra to keep secret what he saw him to do in Vegas. The ad was criticized for going off strategy, but was comical nonetheless.
Posted in 2007, this ad suggests that even the best-behaved, buttoned-up people can let loose in Vegas.
Posted in 2009, this clever ad turns the recession and Vegas' dropping visitor numbers into a positive for potential guests. A newswoman bemoans the empty cabanas as sign of the times but quickly rushes off camera so she can enjoy private pools and smaller crowds for herself.
This 2011 campaign starred actress Tristen MacDonald, a woman who 'broke the code' by tweeting and taking photos. In the ad, she is ostracized for breaking the code by her friends, DJs, and other partygoers.
Posted in 2011, this ad sees a father struggling to explain to his daughter what grown-ups do in Las Vegas.
This rather strange ad ran in the U.K. in May 2013.
More from Skift...
I shouldn't be near Vegas and have money in my pocket.
-- Adam SandlerEverytime I go to Vegas, I seem to incur some kind of fine.
-- Artie LangeVegas means comedy, tragedy, happiness and sadness all at the same time.
-- Artie LangeI do a lot of Vegas work and work with the comedians.
-- Ben E. KingI like the Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas more than the actual one.
-- David LaChapelleAnd actually, about three weeks ago, Micky, Peter and I were in Vegas at the MGM Grand. And we did about 12 shows in seven days. It was quite an experience.
-- Davy JonesI was trying to take the band in a direction that I thought was appropriate, and Roth was trying to take the band in more of a Las Vegas direction. And there he is.
-- Eddie Van HalenLas Vegas is a 24-hour city. It never stops.
-- Eli RothAlmost six years ago, before I was given the incredible opportunity to be in 'Leaving Las Vegas,' I was going through a long period of artistic confusion. I'd spent years doing work that hadn't pushed me enough, and I was beginning to wonder if I had any talent.
-- Elisabeth ShueAfter Leaving Las Vegas I did assume that things would get a lot easier than they've been. But it's just been a mirror of the way my career's been from the beginning, so for it to have changed would have been strange. My career has never been perfect.
-- Elisabeth ShueMan, I really like Vegas.
-- Elvis PresleyMany a man who goes to Las Vegas to get away from it all soon finds that Las Vegas gets it all away from him.
-- Evan EsarLas Vegas was such a teeny, tiny place.
-- Eydie GormeIn a city of illusion, where change is what the city does, it's no wonder Las Vegas is the court of last resort, the last place to start over, to reinvent yourself in the same way that the city does, time after time. For some it works; for some it doesn't, but they keep coming and trying.
-- Hal RothmanIn Las Vegas, people seem to believe, the prosperity spawned by tourism and gaming can make them whole, financially and spiritually. Las Vegas now melds fun, work, and wealth, showing a path toward the brightest vistas of the post-industrial world. It is the first city of the twenty-first century.
-- Hal RothmanIf you were black, you experienced prejudice. It wasn't a real horrible thing for us; we went through it. We noticed it mostly in the South and in Las Vegas, where we couldn't stay in the hotels where we entertained. But that began to change.
-- Harold NicholasI love performing in Las Vegas.
-- Holly MadisonA little bit of this town goes a very long way.
-- Hunter S. ThompsonHallucinations are bad enough. But after awhile you learn to cope with things like seeing your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth. Most acid fanciers can handle this sort of thing. But nobody can handle that other trip-the possibility that any freak with $1.98 can walk into the Circus-Circus and suddenly appear in the sky over downtown Las Vegas twelve times the size of God, howling anything that comes into his head. No, this is not a good town for psychedelic drugs.
-- Hunter S. ThompsonI love coming to Las Vegas. I've always loved it and always had a good time.
-- Ian ZieringShe talks with a broken heart - Her voice lutes brokenly like a heart lost, musically too, like in a lost grove, it's almost too much to bear sometimes like some fantastic futuristic Jerry Southern singer in a nightclub who steps up to the mike in the spotlight in Las Vegas but doesn't even have to sing, just talk, to make men sigh and women wonder I guess...
-- Jack KerouacThis desert town was man's own miracle of pure purposelessness.
-- Jane RuleI had a great time doing Vegas. It's just that it takes a lot of time.
-- John ElwayYou can't be a proper comic unless you've been out on stage and felt the fear.
-- Johnny VegasThey look outside the windows of their apartment in town and realize they're not living in a terrace anymore. This is a room full of dreamers who like to go to London for a day.
-- Johnny VegasI also want to return to doing stand-up. I've become frightened of live audiences. This is a really telling sign that I need to go back on the comedy circuit again.
-- Johnny VegasYou can sway an audience if you win the women over. The gentlemen will follow 'cause they can be so foolish like that at times, they are easily led.
-- Johnny VegasI actually enjoy being heckled; it keeps it interesting, and I think it is a nice feeling for people once they have left the show.
-- Johnny VegasBaldness is visually enough of a stigma as it is without a big sweaty bloke on stage pointing it out.
-- Johnny VegasI always feel like an interloper when I do serious drama. It's my own paranoia.
-- Johnny Vegas
Las Vegas Catch Phrases
Las Vegas Sayings For Tee Shirts
