New Nevada ad campaign targeting lovers of the outdoors

Monday, Feb. 4, 2002 | 11:13 a.m.

The Nevada Commission on Tourism will appeal to outdoor adventure seekers in a new series of advertisements that showcase the state's wild back country.

The state will spend $1.5 million in the campaign, which will appear in several outdoor magazines, in some newspapers and on billboards.

The ads, which feature the tag line, "Nevada. Bring it on," are a stark contrast to past promotions that have glamorized the resorts and neon glitz of Las Vegas.

"It's a completely new approach that the Nevada Commission on Tourism has never used before," said Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, who chairs the commission.

"Nevada's rugged mountains, spectacular trails, canyons, rivers and lakes are a primal playground for people seeking true adventure," Hunt said. "The landscape is dramatic. It offers you a chance to feel the satisfaction of meeting a true physical test."

The ads will be exposed to some of the world's top outdoor sports enthusiasts next month when they run in the Salt Lake Tribune, Utah's largest newspaper, during the 2002 Winter Olympic Games Feb. 8-24.

Ads also will appear in Outside, Blue, National Geographic Adventure, VIA and Nevada magazines. Because it serves a top market for visitors arriving in Nevada by car, ads also will appear in the Sacramento Bee. And, Nevada's metropolitan newspapers also will feature the ads.

The ads use a basic formula of a close-up portrait of an enthusiast dominating the ad, with rugged terrain and a smaller image of a participant in the background. The main headline uses what appears to be someone's scrawl and the text issues the reader a challenge.

"We test things here," one ad headline says. "Like you for example. For within my borders awaits the most savagely seductive proving ground America has to offer. An unblinking world of dares. Inquests and pop quizzes. All bent on exposing the true you. The big you. The strong you. The amazing, living, breathing, shout-at-the-top-of-your-lungs you. Can you handle the truth."

The commission's phone number and Internet site are listed and the location of the photo also are included.

Hunt said the demographic the state hopes to reach outspends their more urban counterparts.

The Travel Industry Association of America, the largest tourism trade organization in the United States, conducted a study in 1997 and determined that adventure travelers have an average household income of $49,000 -- $6,800 a year more than other travelers. The TIA also said so-called "hard adventurers" spend $1,275 a trip while their softer counterparts spend an average of $820 a trip.

Hunt said the hard-driving outdoors enthusiasts -- back-country skiers, kayakers, mountain bikers, off-road racers and extreme hikers -- play as hard in the resort environment as they do in the wilderness and are likely to be good customers for the casinos when they return from the wilds.

She said she expects the ads to appeal to "Silicon Valley types" who need to escape their desk jobs for places no one else goes.