Las Vegas has long branded itself as a uniquely social vacation spot, a "playground" where visitors from all over the world can mix it up over the craps table or the dance floor. Now, tourists can start interacting with one another before they've even chosen a hotel.
The Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Authority this month is planning to launch a social network for people planning a Las Vegas vacation. Modeled on sites like Facebook and MySpace, MyVegas gives tourists a virtual meeting place where they and their friends can choose a hotel, buy tickets to events and interact with other visitors.
"We recognized that there are people out there—we call them instigators—who get everybody jazzed up to get off their butts and go to Vegas," said John McLaughlin, vp and managing director of Critical Mass, Chicago, which designed the site for the LVCVA. (R&R Partners, Las Vegas, created the concept.) "We wanted to give this person a way to entice his peers to go, a place to collect everyone's thoughts and let the peer group take part in the planning."
Like other social networks, MyVegas, found at VisitLasVegas.com, gives users a profile page on which they can list their interests, upload photos and network with other users. But unlike sites like Facebook, MyVegas actually encourages its members to pretend to be something or someone they are not.
One of the site's main features is a name generator that creates a fanciful identity for users based on their interests. For example, a male golf enthusiast may be given the name "Bogey McDriver," or a female craps player could become "Monica Sevens." Users have the option of displaying their real names as well or remaining anonymous.
"The inspiration behind this is that people have their real personality, and their Vegas personality," said McLaughlin. "Traditional social networks push a bit more true-to-life representation of who you are. But MyVegas is all about representing who you want to be when you go to Vegas."
That may seem a risky proposition for a city and an ad campaign ("What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas") that's drawn fire for promoting irresponsible behavior—even marital infidelity—among its target audience. But David Armano, vp of experience design at Critical Mass, said that previous attempts by Vegas to brand itself as "family friendly" fell flat and "damaged the brand." Armano was careful to make sure that MyVegas delivered on the full character of the brand rather than a "watered-down" version.
Las Vegas is hardly the first brand to launch its own social networking site. In the past year alone, advertisers such as 7 Up, Univision and even Pepperidge Farm have experimented with hosting networks where users can interact with one another in a brand-friendly environment.
Other destinations, including New York, have increasingly launched sites that help tourists create comprehensive itineraries in advance of their visit. But MyVegas may represent the most extensive use to date of Web 2.0 tactics by a tourist destination, a tactic that will not only ease interaction with tourists, but yield a treasure trove of data about those tourists for the LCVCA.
"What we're doing is setting up a platform for continual relationship marketing, an incredible tool to help us learn about the people coming to visit Las Vegas," said McLaughlin. "That's going to be incredibly valuable for us going forward
"Our strategy is to get people thinking about Las Vegas when we're not on their radar screen," said Rob Dondero, executive vice president of R&R Partners.
"From a city-wide marketing perspective, MyVegas.com promotes the destination as a whole while driving Web traffic directly to hotel sites. It also works in concert with our new Your Vegas is Showing campaign to promote the Las Vegas product—the dining, shopping, entertainment experiences that are unique to the city," he said. "Like Facebook, we're providing a way for people with similar interests to connect before they arrive."
