Marketing city’s unique traits to benefit community

“What happens here, only happens here.” You may have heard that is the new slogan of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The slogan was developed by the advertising agency R&R Partners. That firm is the same one that created the very successful slogan “What happens here, stays here.” I believe the new slogan has a very good chance of being at least as successful while highlighting the unique services and qualities that Las Vegas has to offer.

As part of the new marketing campaign, the LVCVA is looking to include other communities in Southern Nevada. The campaign would be based on the qualities that the other communities have to offer that are different from the attractions in the Las Vegas Valley.

We all know the unique qualities that Boulder City has to offer that are only available here. Whether it is our historic uptown commercial district, Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, Bootleg Canyon or just enjoying the open spaces of our city, these are experiences that only happen in Boulder City. Members of the staff of the LVCVA and R&R Partners will be meeting soon with members of our city staff, the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce and business owners to discuss possibly extending the advertising campaign tailored to Boulder City.

I hope our business community will consider joining this effort to partner with the extensive campaign the LVCVA is investing in for the future. I know the chamber of commerce has developed slogans over the years that also sought to focus on the unique experiences Boulder City has to offer. The chamber’s CEO, Jill Rowland-Lagan, has worked hard to get the word out about our city with these slogans and marketing ideas.

A factor that has been missing in the marketing of our city, in my opinion, is information about the type of people who already visit our beautiful city. The opening of Interstate 11 certainly brought clarity to the need to develop a better understanding of who the customers of Boulder City businesses had been and who might be enticed to visit our local businesses and attractions in the future.

I have quoted a statement I learned from Henderson Mayor Deborah March before — “Without facts and data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”

As a member of the LVCVA’s board of directors, I look to have our city staff partner with the great market research team the LVCVA has to find data that will benefit our local businesses. Our city staff, under City Manager Al Noyola’s direction, has already begun the effort to obtain information that can be used to identify where marketing efforts can be most effective. That effort confirmed that approximately half of the purchases in our town are made by residents of the Vegas valley.

By knowing where a customer base is located and the demographics of a group, marketing can be designed to be used by individual businesses to maximize their efforts. That type of coordination leads to success for our businesses and for our local government. The burden of business is the burden for businesses. And our local business owners have shouldered that burden well over the years. Government can assist the effort with some well-placed help that does not make the success of business the responsibility of the taxpayers.

Business sales have actually increased overall in Boulder City since the opening of the bypass. The sound you have been hearing over the past year is a huge sigh of relief from those businesses that have seen the improvement. Unfortunately, there have been a few businesses that did not benefit. Our city is also not immune to decisions by national firms, such as the closure of more than 500 Pizza Hut locations across the country that included the location here.

Over the coming year, I believe we can join in efforts such as the new LVCVA marketing campaign that will bring additional benefits to our community. Our city has a sound financial base with solar energy production. We can work on the foundation of our tourist-related businesses as well.

Kiernan McManus is the mayor of Boulder City. He is a native of Boulder City first elected to the City Council in 2017.