The Cosmo, Queen and a slightly naughty ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
What do a legendary British rock band and a luxury Las Vegas Strip resort have in common?
Apparently not much, except for The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas’s decision to use Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” to pique viewer curiosity about the
$3.9 billion resort.
The commercial is the latest as the Cosmopolitan evolves its “Just the Right Amount of Wrong” campaign, which debuted in October 2010 about two months before the resort opened.
The first commercial featured an elderly woman groping a much younger man and a dominatrix being strapped into a corset.
The Cosmopolitan’s second ad shows an elevator at the hotel. Each time the doors open, someone, or something strange can be seen, including a man wearing a bear head and a woman in a short red dress, accompanied by a wolf.
The new ad, first shown during Sunday’s Grammy Awards, features a man flirting with a blond woman at the pool-side bar, sliding her a champagne flute bearing an origami swan with his phone number. Her much older male companion and his bodyguards challenge the interloper, with the lyrics of the famous rock ballad as the commercial’s only dialogue. At the end of the mini-opera the woman leaves with her companion, but clutching the paper swan.
Lisa Marchese, The Cosmopolitan’s chief marketing officer, said the offbeat commercial is about “keeping the brand fresh and keeping our story relevant.”
“It helps to remind them that we are something different in Las Vegas,” Marchese said.
The ad agency behind the commercial is Minneapolis-based Fallon Worldwide. The group is responsible for ads for brands such as Cadillac, HR Block, the Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League and Nuveen Investments.
“The experience at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas is one we know will leave guests with a story worth telling,” Fallon Chief Marketing Officer Rob Buchner said in a statement. “This spot shows just that, and does so with a creative twist.”
The ad will continue to run in Miami, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles and other Las Vegas feeder markets, and in Las Vegas.
Contact reporter Chris Sieroty at csieroty@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893.
The Cosmopolitian Las Vegas commercial in “Just the Right Amount of Wrong” campaign
