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StumbleLVCVA committee studies draft of R&R ad contract
Fri, May 8, 2009 (2 a.m.)
A Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority committee has begun developing a new advertising and marketing communications contract with R&R Partners that includes a list of provisions that indicate the relationship will get more scrutiny than it has in the past.
The four-member audit committee, headed by Keith Smith, CEO of Boyd Gaming, picked through a draft that sets the framework for a three-year deal with Las Vegas-based R&R, Nevada’s largest ad agency, which has held the authority contract for nearly three decades.
The authority board agreed at its April meeting to sign a new deal with R&R instead of requesting new proposals. Smith and the audit committee agreed last year to take a more hands-on approach to all of the authority’s contracts and the proposed deal with R&R was one of the first to be scrutinized.
LVCVA’s relationship with R&R has been frequently criticized by the conservative Nevada Policy Research Institute, which monitors public policy issues and distributes reports on its findings. The institute has been critical of a cozy relationship between the authority and R&R, alleging the authority was guilty of extravagant spending, lax accounting and shoddy oversight. In April the institute questioned whether the LVCVA’s ad campaign developed by R&R was effective in luring visitors to the city.
The 22-page contract draft is a framework for the start of negotiations with R&R. Once the contract is completed, it will be reviewed by the full authority board.
The draft includes, among other things, a “morals clause” and marketing references to new technologies being used to reach potential Las Vegas visitors.
The agreement enables the authority to terminate the contract if it determines that R&R has engaged in any conduct “which might tend to result in public contempt, ridicule or scandal” for the LVCVA or its resort partners.
The draft also would require R&R to get permission from the authority to obtain any third-party services in excess of $25,000. R&R has been criticized for contracting for such services with companies affiliated with R&R’s management.
The proposal also establishes a goal for including minority- and women-owned businesses, defines the scope of services to include domestic consumer marketing, business and convention marketing, international marketing and extended destination marketing for Laughlin, Mesquite, Boulder City and Primm as well as Las Vegas.
The contract also defines communications channels R&R could develop for its Las Vegas campaigns that didn’t even exist a decade ago, the last time the contract was negotiated. They include social media marketing, such as Facebook and Twitter, to deliver tourism messages to users of those media.
Discussion: 3 comments so far…
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"The proposal also establishes a goal for including minority- and women-owned businesses ...." Why do race, ethnicity, and sex need to be considered at all in deciding who gets awarded a contract? It's fine to make sure contracting programs are open to all, that bidding opportunities are widely publicized beforehand, and that no one gets discriminated against because of skin color. But that means no preferences because of skin color, etc. either--whether it's labeled a "set-aside," a "quota," or a "goal," since they all end up amounting to the same thing. Such discrimination is unfair and divisive; it costs the taxpayers money to award a contract to someone other than the lowest bidder; and it's generally illegal to boot (see comments we submitted to the Colorado DOT here: http://www.ceousa.org/content/view/655/8... ).
Wow Rodger, you are soo out there. In a perfect world your point would be valid but unfortunatly we do not live in a perfect world. There is still a lot of discrimination out there in the business world. Minorities and women still need protections against those who would discriminate. Face it, white corporate america is not the most the inclusive club you seem to believe it is.
Roger is right on affirmative action and the dreaded quotas that come with it benefit blacks and underserve America and rarely benefit anyone else.Quota's,set asides and anything that allows anyone to advance at the cost of better prepared people is wrong,dead wrong and almost fifty years of this crooked thinking has proven it. It allows under achieving, opportunists a free pass by those who have sacrificed and earned their place in life.It cost's uncountable tax dollars for this foolish thinking to pacify incompetent people.