Branding & Marketing: Las Vegas, Nevada
November 7, 2016
Destination branding is use to promote and market a place for specific visitors of business or leisure travellers. Different destinations has branded themselves differently according to what their region/country/city has to offer. According to Guardian News and Media, there are two features of a city’s brand: its “assets” - attractions, climate, safety and economic prosperity. Plus its “buzz” - a combination of social media (eg. Facebook likes) and media mentions. These two are each graded out of 10. A few key roles of branding a city is through history and culture, economic values and natural landscapes.
Las Vegas’ “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas” slogan has been ranked as one of the most famous phrases and most recognized ad campaign in the modern tourism marketing industry. Not only does this slogan attract foreigners to Sin City, but also inspired an Usher song and the Hangover movie sequel. It started in 2003 when Las Vegas tourism department of ad agency R&R Partners held a meeting to brainstorm for a brand name. They wanted to give Las Vegas a brand that meant something more than just gambling. A year later, they finally came up with something meaningful about Las Vegas - Freedom. Las Vegas provides freedom on two levels. According to The Week, it’s the freedom to see things, do things, wear things and feel things. In short, it’s the freedom to be someone we couldn’t be at home. Secondly, it’s “the freedom from whatever we wanted to leave behind in our daily lives” (The Week, 2016). The word freedom becomes their strategy to form a connection between Las Vegas and the freedom that people desire to have. Las Vegas branding strategy has been very effective because their content is shown in many different social media channels, such as facebook, vine, youtube and tumblr. The amount of social media exposure for this city has expanded its range of people looking to visit. In addition, each channel allows different types of section of visitors to experience the destination in a different way.
“Millennials have become the new target market for Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority” (Las Vegas Review-Journal, 2016). Their highlight is to attract conventioneers, corporate meetings and international travellers as well as the millennial generation who seem to spend freely for quality entertainment.
Sources:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/business/tourism/las-vegas-marketing-gurus-target-free-spending-millennials
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/oct/01/city.urban.branding