A Super Bowl ad by KIA Motors with sock puppets in Vegas is drawing heavy fire from the NFL for violating its ban on Vegas casinos. The NFL must be very peeved, because the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) got to have the outlawed cake and eat it too, since they didn’t pay for an ad this year.

KIA Super Bowl ad

Titled Joyride Dream, the 60-second third quarter KIA spot follows a colorful cast of life-size children’s characters – including Muno, Sock Monkey, MR. X, Robot and Teddy Bear – who take a Sorento CUV for a spin through a series of dream-like adventures.

In Vegas, the ad starts with the gang in front of the Fabulous Las Vegas sign, and goes on to show them rolling past the Statue of Liberty at the New York-New York casino and then into the Monte Carlo casino, and dancing in a nighclub. Both properties are owned by MGM Mirage.

An NFL spokesman told Portfolio that they did not see the ad before it aired, and it was CBS’ responsibility to make sure the ads did not violate NFL policy. The NFL did not allow Vegas to advertise until December last year, at which time the rules were loosened to allow Vegas to advertise itself as a destination, so long as the ads didn’t show the Strip, casinos, drinking, or sexual activity.

It seems the creators of the ad, Los Angeles ad agency David&Goliath, has both KIA and Monte Carlo as its clients and while the ad was made with the approval and cooperation of all parties concerned, it somehow still managed to avoid getting flagged by CBS.

To make it even more of a raw deal for the NFL, the LVCVA decided to forego a Super Bowl ad this year and instead spent $1.4m on targeted markets, aimed at getting people to visit Vegas for the Super Bowl weekend.

End result – Vegas got free air-time during the Super Bowl courtesy KIA’s sock puppets, and used the ad money saved to good effect by bringing in 280,000 people to Vegas for the game, much more than the approximately 100,000 people who were in Miami.

EyeforTravel’s Social Media Strategies for Travel USA 2010 conference takes place March 24-25, 2010 at the Hyatt Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.

EyeforTravel

This annual conference usually provides a clear picture of where the travel industry stands, in terms of use and integration of social media for travel, and more importantly – where it’s going to be in the near future.

In 2008, it was all about the buzz factor, and how to use social media to create brand awareness. Last year, the focus of the conference was on the monetization of social media channels and tracking the ROI.

This year, the panels are front-loaded with presentations about the strategic importance of social media and it’s integration into various aspects of your business. Fascinating evolution, and seems to indicate that travel companies have accepted that social media is here to stay, and it has serious company-wide implications.

A few highlights from the agenda for the conference:-

Strategic Importance - Josh Steinitz, CEO, NileGuide, will be asking and answering questions about how you can get top management to buy into your social media initiatives, and make it work as a part of the company’s overall corporate objectives. You’ll find out how to foster a corporate culture where social media plays a vital role across all departments and communcations.

Brand Reputation -  One very important subject being discussed by this panel is whether individuals within the organization should express their own personalities when responding or follow the ‘brand personality’?

Speakers for this panel include:-
John T. Peters, President & CEO, Tripology;
April Robb, Communications Specialist, TripAdvisor; and
James Zito, Director of Interactive Marketing, Morgans Hotel Group.

Travel Search & the Social Web - “The Future of Search and the Social Web – Adding the Emotional Sentiment into Travel Search” – UpTake CEO Yen Lee will be presenting on the convergence of social web and search, and what the integration of social networks into Bing and Google mean for the future of search. 

Questions that will be answered include  – How can the emotional sentiment of searching for travel be incorporated into the search stage of the travel cycle? What technological developments support this development and how can you adapt your search strategy?

Facebook - “Best Practices to get the Highest ROI on Your Social Media Initiatives” – Many travel companies have a token presence on Facebook, but if you want a meaningful presence with a significant ROI and understand how customers prefer to use Faceboook and engage with them, then don’t miss this one.

Speakers for this panel include:-
A Representative from Facebook;
Fiona Ashley, Director of Marketing, Travelmuse;
Shashank Nigam, Founder & CEO, Simpliflying; and
Brandie Feuer, Director of Interactive Marketing, Planet Hollywood.

Twitter - “Twitter and the Rise of Micro-blogging – What Are the Implications for your Travel Business?” - Twitter success stories and how travel companies are using Twitter. Use micro-blogging to reach out to customers on an individual basis and put the human back into your brand, and learn how to deal with twitter booking services. Predictions for the future – how travelers will be using twitter and how you can prepare your business for it.

Speakers for this panel include:-
Tom Romary, CEO, Yapta.com; and
Michael Perhaes, Assistant VP Marketing, MGM Grand.

For more details and registration info, visit http://events.eyefortravel.com/social-media.

In June 2009, New York based Oyster Hotel Reviews launch was announced, backed with $6.4 million in Series A funding from Bain Capital Ventures. Oyster’s plan: to provide professional hotel reviews for consumers, written by mainstream travel journalists after in-person visits to the property.

Oyster Hotel Reviews

They promptly hired 20 reporters and at least three editors, who were sent out to stay in and review hotels with all-expenses paid trips.

In September, Bain agreed to an extended $4 million Series A round, bringing the total to $10.4 million.

But $10 million doesn’t get you what it used to. As the year draws to a close, Oyster has dramatically changed its trajectory, with 17 staffers being laid off, including over half the reporters. Elie Seidman, Oyster CEO and co-founder, says the layoffs are part of a plan to focus on “winning in the markets we’ve already covered” and slow down the rate of new market coverage.

Fact remains that slow growth wasn’t part of the announced plans in September. This chapter in the Oyster story is one we have seen before: failure of travel editorial based exclusively on a direct-to-consumer model. Examples of prior failed editorial efforts: Gorp (now owned by Orbitz) and most recently in the rise and fall of Professional Travel Guide (formerly – owned by travel content giant Northstar Travel Media).  The issue isn’t whether a travel editorial site can create a compelling experience. They can. It’s that a direct-to-consumer (only) business model can’t support the editorial costs.

And perhaps direct-to-consumer (only) can’t even support the operating costs of a site when they get the content free. Despite getting “free” content from Northstar. Professional Travel Guide was unsuccessful.

Let’s clearly separate editorial-for-consumers-only businesses from other successful travel editorial businesses that are doing well.  NorthStar’s core business model is solid. They, and others like Frommers and Fodors have built lasting brands and profitable business models based on licensing and book sales. Others like 10Best and wcities are profitable solely licensing their content.  Supplier licensing drives the business model of other editorial companies like VFM Leonardo and Tripfilms.

As Oyster starts its search for additional funding and embarks on the path to profitability, it will rekindle the debate over user generated content vs. professional/editorial content (see Dennis Schaal, Troy Thompson, Pauline Frommer, Robert Flynn).

Oyster Hotel Reviews was differentiating itself from TripAdvisor as a source of authentic hotel reviews.

Oyster vs Tripadvisor

Professional Travel Guide’s failure and Oyster’s slowdown will likely tilt the favor in favor of the UGC proponents {disclosure: as a semantic search engine that searches over 5,000 sites including editorial sites like Frommers and Fodors as well as consumer UGC sites like Yahoo! Travel, TripAdvisor, we are agnostic in this debate – other then knowing different consumers want both types of content at different times but generally most want the ‘gestalt’ necessary to make a confident decision}.

The blogosphere hasn’t been kind to Oyster, but Oyster’s reviews are of very high quality and we hope Oyster is able to raise additional funding and create a viable business.

What do you think? Can standalone consumer-only travel editorial sites create a viable business? Or does new travel largely come from consumers in the future?

In a surprise announcement on Wednesday, 25th Nov, 2009, Dubai made it public that it was seeking a 6-month delay from creditors on about $60 billion worth of debt – mostly held by Dubai World and its real estate division  – Nakheel Builders.

In the US, their hospitality investments include the Mandarin Oriental and W hotels in New York, and a $375 million investment in the Fontainebleau Miami. Their biggest investment in the US hospitality sector is with MGM Mirage, where they plowed in nearly $6 billion in 2007 for a 50% stake in the City Center project and a 9.5% stake in MGM Mirage. 

City Center, Las Vegas

The 67 acre, $8.6 billion project is too big to fail, with the fortunes of tens of thousands of people in Las Vegas riding on it, not to mention the future of MGM Mirage, Las Vegas tourism and the political future of Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV).

For the record, MGM Mirage has put out a statement asserting that Dubai World’s decision to delay debt repayment does not change anything, including the phased opening schedule and operations which begin on Tuesday. The last thing that City Center needs now is talk about uneasy lenders.

To make matters worse, Dubai World has already tried once before to back out of its funding committments for the project. Dubai World’s subsidiary Infinity World, which is the on-paper partner with MGM Mirage, filed a lawsuit earlier this year in March, asking to be freed of its obligations.

Their reason for backing out was an SEC filing made by MGM Mirage on March 17  which stated that they “cannot provide assurance” that City Center would generate sufficient cash flow from operations to meet future payment obligations and other liquidity needs. Dubai World wanted out because they apparently believed MGM and City Center was heading in a -quote “unsustainable direction”.

Or they already knew Dubai had a big debt crisis about to blow, and the City Center lawsuit was one way of starting disengagement. Either way, MGM Mirage was in a soup.

Sen. Reid's City Center ad

Sen. Harry Reid and investor Kirk Kerkorian (who has a 37% stake in MGM Mirage) stepped in, and made calls to the banks and lenders, cobbling together a $1.2 billion financing package, which helped stave off a crisis at that point in March.

Sen. Reid has been running a campaign commercial touting how he saved City Center from being shut down by the banks and saved 20,000 jobs.

But now, as Dubai’s debt crisis hits Las Vegas, and Kerkorian – one of Sen. Reid’s close friends, says that he might reduce his stake, MGM Mirage is officially on it’s own now, with a massive project being unveiled one week after it’s partner country goes broke.

City Center photo by snowpeak

Related posts:-
Hard Rock Hotel Gambles all it’s Chips on Paradise Tower