Brand new TV for Las Vegas. Welcome to Camp Vegas for grownups. This campaign is designed to drive visits to Las Vegas during the traditionally slower summer travel season. With so much investment by Las Vegas hotels in pools and summer daylife events this campaign provides a platform to show all of the incredible summer fun Vegas has to offer.

Solidarité from La Boite Concept on Vimeo.

This is a very cool water based out of home execution from Paris and a company called Aquascript.

A woman creates a fake holiday celebrating the origin of wine as an excuse to skip a workout session to enjoy dining in Vegas. Find hundreds of reasons to escape to Vegas at VisitLasVegas.com.

All Twitterpated for Twitter

Rob Santwer, a digital marketing consultant at R&R, cited the rise of Twitter as his noteworthy event. Rob likes getting his news and information quickly, and Twitter makes him happy because it’s another example of how America’s ingenuity can bring about change in the world (reference the medium’s impact on the political process in Iran). He’s not alone. According to eMarketer, 12.1 million people use Twitter and that number is expected to climb to 18 million in 2010. I found a great Twitter blog that details the top new events, hashtags, sports events, people, etc., on Twitter in 2009. It’s cool. Check it out.

K9 Cop Meets R&R Employee

We had an overzealous R&R employee come to work at 5 a.m. recently. He showed up before sunrise to prepare for a presentation. Sounds like a job in advertising, doesn’t it? The only problem: The building alarm had gone off before he got here. He walked in through the back door, sat down at his desk and started working. Little did he know the police were searching the building with canines. You know … big, mean dogs with really keen noses and razor-sharp teeth. Our employee heard voices and popped up from his cube to say hello. A very large canine cop came running down the hall and lunged at the R&R employee. A human officer, who was just as stunned to see the R&R employee as the employee was to see to the cops, reached out and grabbed the dog’s collar just as his hot kibble breath reached our employee’s nose. Pat Carrigan, our director of Production Services, was thankful for the officer who saved our employee from the mouth of the police doggy.

Gaga for Gaga

Robin Milgrim, an art director in our Las Vegas office, is clearly gaga for Gaga. I can’t say I blame her. After years of pop stars badly regurgitating someone else’s lyrics to dance moves someone else invented, 2009 brought us Lady Gaga. Robin says it best when she writes:

“I’ve never been a fan of pop music, but I think the rise of Lady Gaga stands out this year. As an art director, I am wooed by her attention to theater and fashion. Whatever you think of her, or her music, Lady G stands out as a true artist – aware and in control of every aspect of her image. I say again, in control. Her actions are considerate and calculated. In a celebrity-driven world where so many are just vying to get airtime at any cost, Gaga makes a focused effort to entertain us on every level. She’s not entirely innovative, and could not have existed without artists like Madonna, Cher, Bowie, Elton and MJ laying the pavement, but she has taken everything her predecessors have done and rolled it all into one solid package, giving it just enough of a twist to make her stand out and feel fresh. As someone who generally gives credit to the world of alt/punk for breaking new ground, she gains my props for not being afraid to be controversial and for successfully mixing weird and sexy. Hence the bloody climax at the VMA’s… She makes me want to dress up like I did in the ’80s and dance my ass off in a gay club. As advertisers, I think we can learn a lot from her.”

Tiger, Tiger, Woods, Y’all!

OK, 2009 sucked big time for Tiger Woods, if not more for his poor wife and children. There is so much to say about Tiger Woods – where do you start? Jason Bailey, R&R’s research manager, found it just too ironic that Golf Digest ran a cover pre-TigerGate issue dated January 2010 – which, as you know, is like 10 mistresses later. The cover reads, “10 Tips Obama Can Take from Tiger.” As Jason says, “The unintentional comedy is a hole in one … ba-dah-dum!”

Anonymous Giving

Up north in Salt Lake City, our creative director, Kyle Curtis, lives next door to a nice family who lost their 16-year-old in a car crash. Anonymous donors reacted to the tragedy by paying for the 16-year-old’s funeral and bought the family a new car. Not that it can ever replace the loss of a child, but as Kyle says, “+1 for humanity.”

Cronkite Signs Off As We Sign on

Tara LaBouff, our public relations account supervisor in Phoenix, wrote this regarding the passing of Walter Cronkite and what it means to news in America:

“The news model is changing frantically as traditional outlets accept that they must compete with citizen journalists and digital delivery formats. When Walter passed away, it truly felt like the last page of an epic novel. Journalism as we knew it for the past century is now being practiced so differently from before. There is rampant speculation rather than presentation of facts, chronic interviewing of reporters by other reporters (rather than true subject matter experts), and few outlets employ fact checkers. The up side? Citizens have more ability than ever before to participate in the news discussion and digitally broadcast their side of the story. Going forward, whether journalism experiences another Walter Cronkite is still unwritten. For the moment, who America turns to as the “most trusted voice” appears to be the person most like you with a screen name and profile pic.”

So as we wave goodbye to 2009 and say hello to 2010, I want to wish you a happy and healthy new year. Remember, even when things seem to suck, you can always find something to smile about. I learned from this little exercise that good people still exist, Twitter is both good and maybe a little evil, Tiger should not give Obama advice, Gaga is good for pop music, and to not come to work early. But most of all, I learned people will always persevere and that human nature compels us to move forward. And, moving forward is positive enough for me.

Until 2010 … this is R&R’s resident Web geek saying “stay classy” blogosphere.

R&R Partners' Rachelle Houle-Maisner accepts the 2009 Creative Media Award from Shawn Rorick of LVIMA

The Las Vegas Interactive Marketing Association named R&R Partners’ “Chinchilli Day” interactive ad unit the best interactive ad unit for the year 2009 at the annual LVIMA Creative Media Awards show which was held on December 17, 2009. The work produced on behalf of our Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) client was part of an integrated effort to launch the “Excuses” campaign and drive viewers on YouTube to the Las Vegas brand channel. The integrated R&R and LVCVA team is way too big to list here. But, to all those who helped bring the Chinchillis to the Internet we say congratulations. Excellent work team!

This was the fourth year LVIMA has held the Creative Media Awards and I am proud to say the interactive work in Las Vegas has improved every year. 2009 was by far the most competitive awards show. My favorite winning entry was the MGM Grand “Sins” viral campaign. The work is just so brand appropriate and takes full advantage of social media to engage visitors and generate tons of really cool content. R&R would like to express our gratitude to Shawn Rorick and LVIMA for an excellent year of events. We look forward to another year of fun and kick ass interactive work in 2010. Click the links below to view a sampling of the digital work R&R Vegas is most proud of from 2009:

• Howl-O-Scream
• @Vegas Tweepstakes
• Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open
• Chinchilli Day Interactive Ad Unit
• Vegas Bound

To view a recap of the LVIMA Creative Media Awards and check out all the winning entries click here.

Then I read this headline from the Associated Press: “Publishers say they’re holding back some e-books.” My head exploded. It seems some book publishers like HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette Book Group USA intend to hold some titles back from digital release by as much as four months. Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy was quoted in the Associated Press article as saying “The rise in e-books has led to cannibalizing of new hardcover books sales.” Really! Duh! Why is that a bad thing?

Amazon sells an e-book for $9.99, much lower than what a hardcover book costs. Obviously, the publishers make greater profits from hardbound book distribution. But as I think about the types of book readers that I know, I’m not sure publishers are thinking this all the way through.

I know at least three types of book readers. One is my sister-in-law, who reads books like they are going out of style. She can read a book in a day, and she can’t wait to start a new title. My sister-in-law was the one who showed me her Kindle at least a year ago. She loves e-books because she can consume books as fast as she can download and read them. She loves to say, “I just finished a great book by so-and-so; you should read it” or “Did you ever read such-and-such?”

The other reader I know is my mother. She reads almost daily and follows a stable of favorite authors. She is not a fast reader, but rather a casual reader who loves the weight of the book in her hands as much as she loves the smell of the ink on the pages. If the book is by one of her favorite authors she will run out and buy the hardcover. She even collects vintage first-run books and loves to show off her finds.

And then there’s me. I hate reading. The last ten books I read were books on tape … so I guess I didn’t really read them. I like it when someone like James Earl Jones reads me a story while I am flying cross- country or driving in the car. As my high school and college teachers learned, if you hand me a book to read, I’ll look for the CliffsNotes or the movie. For me, nothing is better than an iTunes gift card and a good book on tape. Ahem… I mean iPod.

Now, as I think about these types of readers and put on my marketing hat, I see one huge glaring mistake with the publishers’ e-book withholding strategy. My sister-in-law is a book influencer; she reads more books than anyone else I know and uses her knowledge to influence others to buy books based on her suggestions. The book companies are wrong to withhold books from her, for two reasons. First, she buys more books than anyone I know. Volume sales! Book readers like my sister-in-law are buying reading material at much higher levels than others. She also adopted the Kindle faster than anyone and that’s the audience for e-readers and e-books. Secondly, she can sell a good book better than anyone named Simon or Schuster. Instead of withholding books, they should leak the books to their best digital customers and ask them to review it on their social media sites. That would provide instant peer-to-peer marketing through social media. Too smart!

Maybe I am wrong to think that the book industry is trying to save the dinosaurs from dying. A coworker of mine has a theory … he thinks the publishers are looking for leverage against the online retailers and that this isn’t just some shortsighted digital slight. He thinks the publishing industry is trying to learn from the music industry by establishing better financial terms with online retailers like Amazon. The music industry had no digital foresight and was forced to fight a pitched battle first with free peer-to-peer sharing sights like Napster and later with retailers such as Apple to gain control — and a share of — digital music distribution. By withholding digital titles from e-retailers like Amazon, they have leverage to negotiate a bigger slice of the digital distribution pie. He might just be right.

Either way the book industry stands to alienate their best customers and lose out on a huge opportunity to harness the peer-to-peer influencing power of the super readers. And, yes … I did get through college without reading the Iliad and the Odyssey. I have seen the movie so I know what I missed.