Las Vegas visitors board gets look at ‘Summer is Vegas Season’ ads

There was no Hollywood red carpet hype, but members of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s board of directors had a premiere of sorts at its Tuesday meeting.

Board members got their first look at four television ads as well as some of the eight public service announcements that will be viewed by millions of passengers filing through McCarran International Airport’s security checkpoints.

The television ads already have appeared in the Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, San Francisco and Denver markets and are designed to stimulate travel to Southern Nevada in the summer months.

Production and ad buys in various markets cost the authority $26.8 million. Most of the authority’s revenue is generated by room tax collections.

The campaign, titled “Vegas Season,” plays off a common consumer complaint — that Christmas music is played and decorations displayed earlier and earlier every year before the holiday. In one new ad, shoppers commiserate that the Vegas Season music is being played earlier than ever.

The ad features visuals of a golden “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign in a snow globe, a line of people waiting to have their picture taken with a showgirl and a robotic Wayne Newton winking at a shopper. The tagline reads, “Summer is Vegas Season.”

Other ads in the series show Vegas Season carolers serenading a couple at their door and neighbors one-upping each other with Vegas Season lawn decorations, including an inflatable version of the Luxor and dancing fountains a la Bellagio.

The authority is running the summer campaign through September. For the first time, it also will extend the ad to Canadian markets June through August.

Board members also got a look at a new “What Happens Here, Stays Here” ad that is the first national ad campaign to address a gay audience. The ad is scheduled to run through September 2015 and it first aired in April in the San Francisco market.

Like many of the other ads in the “What happens here” series, it employs subtle humor. Set at a hotel check-in counter, the ad shows a man and woman at hotel counter. After the woman steps away to freshen up, another man comes to the counter and a different clerk then appears and asks if they’re ready to check in. The two men exchange glances as the “What Happens Here, Stays Here” tag hits the screen.

The authority also sponsored a new series of public-service announcements for McCarran’s security checkpoints.

The new videos replace a series that debuted in October 2004 and have been updated with new celebrities and updated messages.

“If you think it’s difficult getting through the checkpoint, you try to make a video there,” said Cathy Tull, senior vice president of marketing for the authority.

The 2004 videos won wide acclaim when they were first shown at McCarran because the attention-getting format drew an audience to a serious topic with humor.

Rosemary Vassiliadis, director of the Clark County Aviation Department, said McCarran officials consulted with the Transportation Security Administration about the most common miscommunications that occur at security lines and how to inform passengers about procedures before getting to the front of the line.

Among the new topics addressed are procedures for passengers traveling with pets and an emphasis that even toy guns or weapons parts can’t be brought aboard in carry-on luggage.

McCarran checkpoints have had problems in the past with some trade shows distributing ammunition encased in acrylic as souvenirs. Last year, security officers confiscated hundreds of souvenirs after a vendor at the Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade show handed out bullets.

Las Vegas celebrities Frank Marino, Carrot Top and the Blue Man Group are back with new videos, joined by new celebrities, comics George Wallace and Louie Anderson, ventriloquist Terry Fator, cast members from “Raiding the Rock Vault,” juggler Jeff Civillico and Murray the Magician.

The authority spent $270,000 to develop the airport videos.

The concluding taglines are in larger text than in the 2004 videos making it easier for passengers to see the messages before reaching the checkpoint.

In other business, the board unanimously approved new two-year contracts with 12 companies to manage Las Vegas marketing offices in foreign countries. The board authorized spending $1.99 million next year and $2.04 million in the 2016 fiscal year for offices in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Great Britain, Mexico and Central America, continental Europe, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and South America and China, Singapore and Taiwan.

The new deal also authorizes two-year extensions to the contract by mutual agreement.

Contact reporter Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow him on Twitter @RickVelotta.