Columnist Jeff German: LVCVA is sold on ‘sex sells’

Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2004 | 11:12 a.m.

The good news is the latest reality-based "Vegas Stories" campaign doesn't feature a 30-second spot of Mayor Oscar Goodman stumbling around one of his martini parties with constituents.

That might be too realistic for America to take, even by the standards of R & R Partners boss Billy Vassiliadis, the creator of the edgy advertising campaign that encourages tourists to live out their vices here.

Yet it didn't stop Goodman from being the lead cheerleader Tuesday while Vassiliadis gave tourism officials a slick presentation hailing "Vegas Stories 2" and its slogan, "What happens here, stays here," as the second coming in Las Vegas marketing circles.

With the happy mayor's blessing (he said he was "proud" of the multimillion-dollar campaign), Vassiliadis poured it on real thick during his high-tech PowerPoint presentation.

Vassiliadis boldly suggested that the slogan -- which has found its way into television drama scripts and late night talk show monologues -- has ingrained Las Vegas in American culture.

I thought Bugsy Siegel, topless showgirls, Moe Dalitz, the Rat Pack, Howard Hughes, the Chicago mob, Elvis, and countless others of notoriety and fame accomplished that feat years ago. The phrase "Sin City" comes to mind.

Vassiliadis appeared to be thinking about that phrase during Tuesday's lovefest at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

He told Goodman and the other LVCVA board members that the four new "Vegas Stories" ads are designed to reinforce "popular assumptions and truths" about Las Vegas and give visitors permission to "break the bounds" they have at home.

One of those truths -- that it's easier to get sex here, legally or illegally -- is highlighted in a new vignette about a young man pleading with a hotel operator to give him a wakeup call on his cell phone the next morning.

"Here's the thing," the young man says with a tone of nervousness in his voice. "I'm not quite sure if I'm going to be in my room tomorrow. So I just thought, if you could call my cell phone, it would cover all the bases ... please."

In another 30-second spot four women are in a limousine driving down the Strip thinking about a bachelorette party they attended earlier in the evening. Laughter breaks out among three of the friends as they recall the activities of the fourth woman, who seems embarrassed. Eventually, everyone ends up laughing, leaving us to speculate about what could have happened -- a sex act maybe -- at the bachelorette party.

For the most part the new ads appear toned down from last year's commercials, leaving me to wonder whether Vassiliadis might be more sensitive than he has let on to the criticism "Vegas Stories" has received within the tourism and advertising industries.

But if there's reason to be concerned about a campaign that encourages people to do things here they would never do at home, you wouldn't have known it Tuesday. None of the 12 LVCVA members attending the presentation raised a single question about whether this is the right message to send to the rest of the country.

Only in Vegas could that happen.