Las Vegas CVA Shows Us How to Promote an Event

how to promote an event Las Vegas CVB style

photo by potx.com

*Note – this article has been updated to correctly portray the Las Vegas CVA (we previously called it the Las Vegas CVB) Thanks to reader Candy Adams, from “The Booth Mom®” for alerting us.

We all know the famous slogan; “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas”. Well almost everybody that is. You see apparently some of Prince Harry’s confidants broke the code and distributed, how shall we say it, compromising pictures of the Prince recently in Las Vegas. Well, as you can imagine, the Prince has been royally embarrassed by situation. And by his so-called confidants selling those pictures it became rather obvious that they broke the Las Vegas code.

And That Did Not Sit Well with the Las Vegas CVA (Convention and Visitors Authority)

It’s what the Las Vegas CVA did about the situation that I’m going to talk about here. In my opinion, to borrow an old cliché, they took lemons and made lemonade. The brilliant marketing department took the opportunity to promote the city’s, now very famous, code; What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.

On their website, they created a page asking potential visitors to take a pledge that says you will honor the code and promise not to distribute any compromising pictures of activities that may have occurred during a visit to Las Vegas.

And it’s working brilliantly.

They have literally taken a negative situation and have turned it positive. By doing so, the Las Vegas CVA has shown us how to promote an event that would have normally been rather negative coverage of the destination and have turned it into a very positive marketing campaign. On their website they have close to 100,000 pledges by people declaring that they promise to protect the code to its fullest.

Promoting an Event from a Negative to a Positive Position Takes Talent

The CVA is demonstrating how to promote a negative event into a positive spin. What it is also showing us is the power of branding. It’s obvious that Las Vegas has successfully termed the slogan “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas” into a brand. In other words, when you hear that slogan you think of all of the activities that Vegas has to offer. From its famous casinos to its many nightclubs and restaurants, Las Vegas is a city that you associate with having fun. And sometimes when we are having fun we all get a little carried away. So rather than highlight the negatives of such activities, the tourism officials decided they would have a little fun and encourage people to be discreet.