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 Business News | September 2007 
New Ad Plan for Las Vegas Set
 Ryan Nakashima - Associated Press
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| | What happens in Vegas is getting reproduced all over the country, to the chagrin of Southern Nevada tourism boosters trying to protect Sin City's trademarked slogans. (see article below) |
Las Vegas - Las Vegas tourism officials will reveal Tuesday a roadmap that outlines a strategy over the next three years to attract visitors from other countries who have shied away from the United States since the 9/11 attacks.
Part of the campaign involves targeting Hispanics in a Spanish-language version of the "What Happens Here, Stays Here" television ads, which began running domestically and in Mexico in May.
In one of the series of ads, a guy and his girlfriend are in a long-distance telephone chat on their beds. Neither wants to hang up, but when she finally relents, the camera reveals she is with girlfriends in a Las Vegas hotel room and just getting ready to go out.
The piece ends with the tag line in Spanish: "Lo que pasa aqui, se queda aqui."
Tourism officials said the message of promoting Las Vegas as a place of "adult freedom," where you can do things you can't or wouldn't at home, has resonated well with Mexican focus groups.
"That kind of story was very acceptable," said Rob Dondero, executive vice president of R&R Partners, the firm that created the ads.
"The second spot we have in Mexico is a guy who just comes back from his trip to Las Vegas and he's sitting down with his buddies in the cantina, and they all want to know details of what he did and he gets halfway through the story and he decides, ‘I can't tell the rest,"' Dondero said. "And they're left hanging. That was also something they understood very well."
Officials are to present the vision to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board on Tuesday.
Tourism officials are also targeting the United Kingdom as the third largest source of out-of-country visitors, following No. 2 Mexico and No. 1 Canada. Canadians, who watch American television, will get no special marketing campaign, but the "What Happens Here, Stays Here" message is being tailored to "British humor" for the U.K. market and is in focus group testing now in London, Dondero said.
The authority is aiming to boost the share of visitors who come from abroad to 15 percent, up from the current 13 percent, by 2010. The destination's percentage of visitors from abroad have fallen from 18 percent before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, buffeted by tougher visa restrictions, wariness of travel and customs checks.
Agency Keeps Fighting Copycats to 'What happens Here ...' Phrase
Benjamin Spillman - Review-Journal
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What happens in Vegas is getting reproduced all over the country, to the chagrin of Southern Nevada tourism boosters trying to protect Sin City's trademarked slogans.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority voted 11-0 Tuesday to oppose a trademark application by an Illinois woman who wants to sell shirts at the Kentucky Derby.
The shirts, which would read "What happens at Derby stays at Derby," are too close for the comfort of tourism boosters who zealously guard the popular, and protected, "What happens here, stays here" slogan.
But the most recent dispute prompted discussion among tourism officials, who are fighting at least six similar battles over the slogan, about whether some trademark protection victories are worth the cost of the fight.
"This is not going to be the last of these," said Oscar Goodman, mayor of Las Vegas and chairman of the convention authority's board of directors, of the Derby application. "If it doesn't hurt us, I'm not sure we want to spend the money to stop it."
Legal wrangling over trademarked Las Vegas phrases in the six cases, including one in which the authority is a defendant, have cost $732,123 to date.
At issue Tuesday was a May 2006 application by Michaelle Latas-Wisniewski of Chicago to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The application seeks to trademark the phrase "What happens at Derby Stays at Derby!" for use on hats, T-shirts and novelty buttons, according to a filing by Latas-Wisniewski.
Neither Latas-Wisniewski nor the attorney listed on the application returned a call for comment.
Luke Puschnig, the visitors authority's legal counsel, said the Derby phrase infringes on the tourism group's trademarked phrase, which is attributed with helping to make Las Vegas one of country's the most recognized brands.
"We believe it will create confusion in the marketplace," Puschnig told the authority board.
The Las Vegas phrase made its debut in 2002 and since then more than $131 million has been spent marketing it as a catchy slogan to attract visitors to Southern Nevada, where tourism is a nearly $40 billion annual industry.
But protecting the phrases hasn't been cheap.
A dispute with a California woman, scheduled to go before a judge in Reno April 18, has already cost the authority $623,283.
Last year a judge stopped the woman, Dorothy Tovar of Placerville, Calif., in her attempt to use the phrase "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," on souvenir clothing, including underwear.
"I don't want to be monitoring underwear for the next several years," Goodman said.
The court date next week in Reno is regarding whether Tovar will owe the authority damages over the dispute. The cost of the legal fight rankled authority members who took umbrage with Tovar's use of the phrase and the costly battle.
"Put to a vote, I wouldn't give her a cent," Goodman said.
In another recent dispute, the authority voted to challenge a trademark application by a software company seeking to use the phrase "Only in Vegas," for a video game. The authority argued the video game title would infringe on its trademarked phrase, "Only Vegas."
Puschnig said ignoring trademark applications, even if they seem benign, could be dangerous.
That's because inaction in one case could be used against the authority in future cases, which could dilute the value of trademarked phrase, Puschnig said.
"If we don't fight this one, our argument to dispute dilution may be compromised," he said. |
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