How would you brand Nevada to the world?

By Richard N. Velotta

Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011 | 2 a.m.

Here’s the challenge: capture the essence of Nevada with a simple slogan that will tease the imagination.

That’s a task the Nevada Tourism Commission will assign to a brand development expert over the next couple of months.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has done the same thing to invent what arguably is the most successful destination branding scheme ever conceived. Love it or hate it, “What happens here, stays here” is uniquely Las Vegas. And the ad campaign, along with branding the city as a place for adult freedom, is something that people have talked about, mimicked, ripped off and recycled for years.

But the goal may be greater for branding Nevada.

The state’s diverse and distinctive landscape is difficult to put in a one-size-fits-all box.

To some, Nevada is a vast desert wasteland. To others, it’s a rugged snow-packed mountain wilderness. It’s outdoor adventure and indoor entertainment, gaming palaces and ghost towns. It’s canyons and caves, dry desert lakes and clear mountain streams. And, it’s for backpackers, RVers, ATVers, PWCers, zip liners, rock climbers and NASCAR driver wannabes.

It’ll be important to capture all that as the commission tries to sell the state’s uniqueness to would-be visitors. Because of the state’s dire financial straits, it has to streamline and economize the message to get results.

State officials hope to have proposals by mid-January, revise and tweak them by early February, seek out the research and development proposals by mid-February and evaluate proposals by early March.

“We’re trying to determine what’s the essence of Nevada,” said acting Tourism Commission Director Larry Friedman. “What is it about Nevada that appeals to people as a place to visit?”

Readers often have ideas about how Nevada and Las Vegas should market the product.

How would you sell our state? Send an e-mail to [email protected] and the best ideas will be delivered to Friedman.

Don’t forget, you’re trying to present a brand that fits the whole state, and we’re competing with other states that have similar amenities. The Sierra Nevada and the Rubies near Elko are scenic, but Colorado has the Rockies. Many of our deserts have a rugged beauty, but there’s nothing like a saguaro forest in Arizona. Lehman Cave is great, but New Mexico has Carlsbad Caverns.

And just about everybody has casinos now.

Get creative. Sell me on Nevada.

World Trade Center

Sadly, what pops into our heads when we hear the words “World Trade Center” is terrorism and catastrophe. Because the Las Vegas Convention Center has been designated as the World Trade Center, Las Vegas is broadening global commerce in our city.

There are actually dozens of world trade centers worldwide.

Some are in hotels, others in office buildings, and they provide the services, benefits and comforts for global road warriors conducting business in a foreign country.

Las Vegas has been one of the nation’s larger cities without a World Trade Center (although, the World Trade Centers Association says it doesn’t appear Phoenix has one — and should). Southern California has some in Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oxnard. Also in El Paso, Texas, and Missoula, Mont.

Some amateur commentators and blogger wannabes who commented about the Las Vegas designation sloughed it off as a stupid gimmick. They were half right — it may be a gimmick. But not a stupid one.

In the city’s economic rebuilding, we’re going to need a few gimmicks to reach prosperity. If Las Vegas can provide a haven to the businessperson by putting a sign on a building, creating a few offices with desks, installing a few phone lines, a fax machine and Internet access and invite a vendor who can handle foreign currency transactions, Las Vegans should be all for it.

Of course, it’s not quite that simple and there are expenses involved.

But it’s important.

A longer version of this story appears in the current issue of In Business Las Vegas, a sister publication of the Sun.