New TV ads try to coax travelers to Las Vegas for holidays

The city’s marketing machine will try something it’s never attempted before — coaxing tourists to come to Las Vegas for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board got its first look at two television spots showing scenes befitting of Griswold family holidays that will attempt to convince travelers to come to Southern Nevada during what traditionally is the slowest time of the year.

“We know that holidays are when families get together to talk about future plans on travel, so to become a part of the conversation in social media is important to Las Vegas,” said Fletch Brunelle, vice president of marketing for the LVCVA. “Families typically get together at Christmas and they talk about, ‘Hey, where are we going to go next summer?’ ”

The ads, prepared by R&R Partners, the LVCVA’s contracted advertising consultant, take a humorous approach to Thanksgiving preparations gone wrong and use a “Vegas Changes Everything” tagline.

Typically, January, February and March are the busiest months of the year in Las Vegas because of the robust convention calendars. Thanksgiving week and December, between the end of National Finals Rodeo and New Year’s Eve, have light visitation.

Las Vegas has never tried a focused campaign for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

The ads are airing on connected TV outlets and social media in the Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Phoenix markets. Thanksgiving ads are running now, but the campaign will shift to Christmas themes on Black Friday.

The drive-market campaign was generated because LVCVA researchers determined that traffic on major highways leading to Las Vegas have declined in recent months.

A boost in advertising, including the LVCVA’s “Party of One” campaign appealing to solo travelers, helped boost traffic last summer.

The “Party of One” ads received an 88 percent favorability score from viewers, which the LVCVA said was the highest score ever registered for a Las Vegas advertisement.

“It’s been a really fascinating and interesting year, and it’s all happening in a most dynamic sort of changing consumer mindset marketplace and the information revolution continues,” R&R principal Billy Vassiliadis told the board in a presentation Tuesday.

Vassiliadis explained that the LVCVA juggled campaigns directed at specific age demographics, via different unconventional channels with different messaging, throughout 2019.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.