The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority wants office workers to use their vacation time to come to Las Vegas this summer.
The tourism agency’s marketing division unveiled its summer television advertising campaign to its board of directors Tuesday.
Four humorous ads, two of which already are being broadcast in key feeder markets, depict workers’ efforts to take and use earned vacation time. The message reminds viewers that Las Vegas is the best place to vacation, using the tag line “Take back your summer.”
One of the ads includes a spoof of Sally Field’s character in the film “Norma Rae,” standing on a desk with a sign that says “Vacation now!” and exhorting her co-workers to use their vacation time. Another ad shows two co-workers whispering about taking vacation time as if it were a jail break.
The campaign was launched in New York in early May and will run through September. Two more ads in the $20 million campaign will be unveiled in mid-July.
The campaign will be supplemented with newspaper inserts and radio spots, a new Internet site, media pitches, promotions and additional sales calls. The program is being focused on cities that tend to contribute the most visitors to the city – Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, Seattle and Dallas.
Cathy Tull, senior vice president of marketing, said LVCVA hopes the campaign will reinforce the city’s core visitor segment and convince less-frequent travelers to consider summer vacations or brief getaways to Southern Nevada. LVCVA research shows that 91 percent of full-time workers accumulate vacation time in the workplace, but 226 million vacation days went unclaimed last year.
The campaign was rolled out in New York on May 4 when street teams gathered in high-traffic locations and made appearances on nationally-broadcast morning television shows. Groups staged “morning show takeovers” on NBC’s “Today” show, ABC’s “Good Morning America” and “Fox and Friends.” They also gathered at Times Square, Union Station and Penn Station.
Showgirl Jennifer Johnson was interviewed. Show hosts talked about vacationing in Las Vegas. LVCVA officials figured they received 16 minutes of free national media exposure for the city. The New York Times took note and wrote about it.
In other business, the LVCVA board approved a new one-year, $7.2 million contract with Las Vegas Events, a non-profit corporation that specializes in the promotion of special events in Clark County.
The board also approved intergovernmental agreements with the Clark County Public Works Department to coordinate projects near the Las Vegas Convention Center and with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to pay for a tourism intelligence analyst in the Southern Nevada Counterterrorism Center.
The collaboration with the county’s Public Works Department is expected to save $185,000 in tax dollars. The agreement with Metro is a five-year extension of an existing three-year agreement that will cost the LVCVA $633,000 over the five years. The tourism intelligence analyst communicates with the resort community on suspicious activities and potential threats to high-profile events in the resort corridor.