{"id":1488,"date":"2009-12-03T15:12:02","date_gmt":"2009-12-03T23:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=1488"},"modified":"2009-12-03T15:32:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-03T23:32:00","slug":"best-casino-commercial-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/best-casino-commercial-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Casino Commercial Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

It seems like if you’ve seen one casino commercial, you’ve seen them all. Recent efforts by M Resort<\/strong> and Green Valley Ranch<\/strong> were state-of-the-art examples of the same old same-old.<\/p>\n

However, it was impossible not to be stopped in one’s tracks by a cryptic, 97-second spot that ran during the morning news earlier this week. It’s a free-associative succession of images, regularly punctuated by the distinctive geometric forms of CityCenter<\/strong>. However, that’s mixed with very un-Vegas shots of people yachting, lounging by the seaside or doing business in a distinctly older metropolis (New York<\/strong>? Chicago<\/strong>? San Francisco<\/strong>?). Woven through it all are stylized arm movements, reminiscent of tai chi<\/em>, which are intended to express those aspects of CityCenter for which words are inadequate.<\/p>\n

The commercial is so devoid<\/strong> of the imagery we’ve come to expect from a casino ad, that for once the overworked term “outside the box” actually qualifies. It’s better than anything that’s been done in this market, period — and, no, I’m not forgetting the Wynn Las Vegas<\/strong> and Encore<\/strong> rollouts. (As for The Venetian<\/strong>,\u00a0 it’s still running spots from 1999. You can see them during that interminable wait for your baggage at McCarran International Airport<\/strong>, where vacations go to die.)<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, MGM Mirage<\/strong> has not made this ad available in an embeddable form, so I snurched it off Aria<\/strong>‘s Facebook<\/strong> page and uploaded it on mine<\/a>. I doubt MGM will mind the free “product placement.” Lord knows, this filmlet deserves to be seen. It’s somewhere in the jungle that is CityCenter’s Web site but given the processing power you need to mine that thing effectively, it’s probably not worth the safari.<\/p>\n

Breaking news<\/strong>: A man generous with his time and expertise, UNLV economist and all-around class act Keith Schwer<\/strong>, died yesterday<\/a>. He will be greatly missed. Schwer was the Cassandra who saw the Las Vegas recession coming while others scoffed, sometimes in a very crude and demeaning manner. Set against such jackasses, the dignity and restraint of Schwer shone the more brightly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It seems like if you’ve seen one casino commercial, you’ve seen them all. Recent efforts by M Resort and Green Valley Ranch were state-of-the-art examples of the same old same-old. However, it was impossible not to be stopped in one’s … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[56,28,53,11,12,32,8,9,19,100,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1488"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1490,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1488\/revisions\/1490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}