Columnist Jeff German: Putting a spin on slogan tale

Friday, July 8, 2005 | 11:05 a.m.

All it took was a few calls to tourism bureaus around the country to see that what's happening at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority isn't happening anywhere else.

Tourism agencies in New York, San Diego, Atlanta, San Francisco, Orlando and Hawaii, it turns out, wouldn't think of turning over the rights to their marketing slogans to their advertising firms.

These bureaus hire their own trademark lawyers to protect the slogans in court and some, as in the case of the New York State Division of Tourism, even profit directly from merchandising the slogans.

This, of course, is in contrast to what the LVCVA has been doing with its slogan, "What happens here, stays here."

The LVCVA has been letting its longtime advertising agency, R&R Partners, protect the mark -- and maybe even get all of the profits, too.

The task of the LVCVA's board Tuesday will be to figure out why LVCVA President Rossi Ralenkotter went behind its back and signed away the rights to the valuable slogan.

The public meeting is several days away, but already R&R CEO Billy Vassiliadis, a powerful political figure in this state, is doing what he does best -- spinning the story in his favor.

He has turned loose his friends in the media to downplay the significance of the backroom slogan deal.

The story, we're told, has been blown out of proportion. R&R simply decided out of the kindness of its heart that it would go through the headache of helping the LVCVA sue those who have been infringing on the prized mark.

It's all so "innocent."

And it's as ludicrous a spin as you'll ever see, even from Vassiliadis, the king of the spinmeisters.

Vassiliadis is hoping that board members toe the line Tuesday and don't spoil a longstanding incestuous relationship between the LVCVA and R&R that has been bankrolled by the public.

Now that the slogan deal has been exposed, it's easy for Vassiliadis to say he had no intention to profit from the sale of "What happens here, stays here" merchandise. What else can he say with his hands in the cookie jar?

But even if we take him for his word, this is a bad deal for another reason.

The effort to protect the celebrated mark in court seems to have been botched from the very beginning.

R&R may not have legally owned the slogan when it filed suit in federal court in March 2004 to stop a California woman from marketing a risque line of clothing under the similar logo, "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

Lawyers for the woman, Dorothy Tovar, later questioned R&R's standing in the case.

That may help explain why a written agreement giving R&R title to the mark was hastily put together Nov. 9, long after the suit was filed.

Then the deal was done faster than a slot machine can empty your wallet. It was orchestrated within hours on that day.

First, Ralenkotter persuaded the board to give him general written authority to make decisions about the LVCVA's intellectual property on his own. There was no talk that Ralenkotter was about to give R&R the most valuable intellectual property it has ever owned.

Later, Ralenkotter signed the agreement that turned over the rights to "What happens here, stays here" to Vassiliadis.

And before the ink was even dry, R&R express-mailed a federal trademark application to Washington declaring it intended to market "souvenirs and clothing" under the logo it had just acquired.

It's the kind of "innocent" deal that should have been brought before the board long ago.