Las Vegas "Changes Everything" Campaign Puts a New Spin on the City

Apr. 08, 2020

Las Vegas is a city that is known across the world. It’s considered by many to be the casino capital of the world, although it was recently overtaken by Macau as the city with the highest gaming revenues. 

Sin City has had a long standing slogan that’s made its way into pop culture: “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. This was actually coined by the agency R&R Partners in 2003 as part of an advertising campaign commissioned by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority, although it seems like it’s been around much longer. 

However, at the end of 2019, the city began heading down a path to broaden its appeal slightly when it launched a new ad campaign featuring a new slogan. 

The new slogan “Vegas Changes Everything” is a hint at the fact that the city is a unique destination that offers visitors an experience unlike any other city or resort in the world. 

That’s probably a fair statement to make, since Las Vegas is home to one of the broadest selections of entertainment in the world. 

• Quieter Months and Increased Competition

The ads launched in the run up to the holiday season in the United States, just before Thanksgiving, which happens just over a month before Christmas.

This is one of the quietest parts of the year for Las Vegas, since the city has developed a perception as a place you go with your friends for a party, rather than a place you’d take your grandmother for a holiday. 

Since most Americans tend to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at home, Las Vegas sees a fall in hotel bookings and visitors during the winter. Research has shown that American’s spend around $180 per-head for Thanksgiving, so Las Vegas wants to show it can offer a cost effective alternative to that that also doesn’t require cooking or washing up.

In addition, the growing prevalence of online casinos means that casino destinations are having to find new ways to compete. Most online casinos offer the same types of games that are available in land based casinos in cities like Las Vegas, so they no longer have a monopoly of this type of gaming.

In addition, online casinos have been refining their “live games” for several years now. These are games like roulette and blackjack that are played online with a human dealer who can be seen via a video stream.

The dealer can communicate with customers, creating an experience closer to that available in physical casinos. 

Competition is strong in the online casino market too, with most operators offering attractive incentives like to encourage customers to sign up. For example, Coral Casino in the UK offers free spins and a deposit bonus to new customers. 

Therefore, the “Vegas Changes Everything” campaign helps to show how the city in the Nevada Desert is different to its competitors.

• Unique Combinations

While Las Vegas no longer enjoys a monopoly on casinos and sports betting, it does offer visitors the ability to create unique combinations of activities that are not possible elsewhere. 

Nowhere else in the world will you find world famous casino resorts, models of international landmarks like the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty, rollercoasters, Michelin starred restaurants, and A-List celebrity shows all in one place. 

Las Vegas hosts many of the world’s biggest boxing matches, it’s also home to the Ultimate Fighting Championship. It has a famous motor speedway which sees annual NASCAR and Indycar events, and it of course has more international poker tournaments than anywhere else in the world. 

One of the Vegas Changes Everything campaign’s TV ads starts with one woman telling another about her plans to see Gwen Stefani, visit some clubs and head to a spa, before inviting her to join. 

The friend makes an excuse, but changes her mind when she finds out it’s “not just Gwen Stefani, it’s Gwen Stefani in Vegas!”. 

A similar ad that showed two men talking over a garden hedge, referenced the Aerosmith residency in the city. 

• Targeting Neighbouring Residents

An ad titled “Chaos” was targeted at residents of cities within “driving distance” of Las Vegas, such as San Diego, Phoenix, and Los Angeles; all of which are around 4 to 5 hours away by car.

In it, a Thanksgiving turkey was burned which had set off the smoke detector in the kitchen. This led to a large argument and the turkey being thrown on the floor. The ad then says “Change Your Thanksgiving” before showing the campaign slogan “Vegan Changes Everything”. 

• R&R Partners Still Delivering for Las Vegas

The Vegas Changes Everything campaign was produced by R&R Partners, an agency that has been working with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Agency for several decades. 

In 2018, the city saw a -0.2% decline in visitor numbers, a figure that would have been much lower if it had not been offset by increases of 5.4% and 2.3% in November and December respectively. 

The Vegas Changes Everything campaign is hoped to build on this holiday travel market and bolster visitor numbers even further in its quietest months.

R&R Partners, which is based in Las Vegas, has launched several other campaigns for the city in recent years. In 2017 it launched the “Only Vegas Moments” campaign that portrayed Las Vegas as a city where people can find themselves.

A year later it created the “Party of One” campaign which was designed to make the city appeal to solo travelers, particularly those that wanted to escape the traditional holiday gatherings. This was a campaign that was described by some to be “What Happens in Vegas 2.0” as the city struggled to battle declines in visitor numbers and casino revenues. 

• Success

The campaigns appear to have been a success. According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority, visitor numbers were up 6.1% in December 2019 and 0.9% in November 2019. 

The December figure was skewed slightly by a huge 60.6% increase in convention attendance, but casino revenue was also up, while hotel room rates were up by around 5% in both November and December.