Now, there's an interesting question that we're surprised no one has sent in before, and it was submitted by players-club expert Jeffrey Compton, no less.
It's been more than a decade since Las Vegas-based advertising agency R&R Partners, of which the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is a client, came up with the "What happens..." slogan, in part as a move to re-brand the city's image away from being gambling-specific and to identify it more broadly as the ultimate escapist destination, where anything goes (and, more crucially, won't come back to bite you in the butt later on).
The campaign was every marketer's dream: What better encapsulates the concept of "going viral" than a slogan that's been cited, quoted, and alluded to by a list of celebrities including Laura Bush, Billy Crystal, Usher, and Ben Affleck, to name just a few? Smash-hit movie series The Hangover essentially took its inspiration from the "What happens in Vegas" concept, while What Happens in Vegas, the 2008 Cameron Diaz/Ashton Kutcher romantic-comedy vehicle, was openly and entirely based on the slogan.
After several successful years, "What happens" was dropped, briefly, and a new media vehicle sought for promoting Sin City. However, the attempt to introduce an alternative campaign featuring a retail-oriented character named Las Vegasdotcom did not prove successful and "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" is now back and with an even more developed identity that now incorporates "The Code" -- an oath revelers are invited to take that involves protecting their Las Vegas activities from the dangers of social-media sharing. The latest campaign, launched just a couple of weeks back, features homegrown music phenomenon Imagine Dragons and acts as a symbiotic platform to promote both the city and the band's new album.
Still, as intrinsically associated with Las Vegas as the famous slogan now is, that 2003 brainstorming session in the offices of R&R certainly wasn't its birthplace. From what we can ascertain, it actually harks back several decades and owes its origins to sporting and music tours, where a bunch of guys traveling together would honor an unspoken pact that whatever happened on the road -- sexual exploits, drinking escapades, and so on -- would forever remain the knowledge of those on the trip and would never be revealed to anyone who wasn't present at the time (particularly wives and girlfriends).
According to Wikipedia, a 1970 rugby union trip is credited with actually coming up with the phrase/concept, "What happens on tour [or 'on the road'] stays on tour ['the road']" and, familiar as we are with practitioners of that sport's reputation for outrageous exploits, it would seem more than plausible, but any further specific details remain hazy. According to Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee's 2005 autobiography, Tommyland, the origins are in rock 'n' roll and "Vegas stole that sh!t from us." All we can say is, next time rock 'n' roll had better take a leaf out of Paris Hilton's book and slap a trademark on it -- consider this payback, Mr Lee, for all the people who've "borrowed" from our uncopyrighted "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign!
While we'll probably never know for sure how/when/for whom we have to thank for it, there's no doubting that "What happens..." has now been very effectively appropriated by Las Vegas, the only city that promises never to kiss and tell.
