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It's your first time betting on race horses. How do you bet? Most of us bet on the horse names, and don't care about anything else. Which horse will win? The Loving Wife, The Favourite Daughter, The Gnarly Nephew, The Spoiled Daughter, or The Las Vegas Hotel Concierge?
There is a Visit Las Vegas commercial now airing called The Reading: What Happens Here Stays Here and it deals with the challenge of picking favourites. It takes place in a law office and the mother and children are watching a video of a recently deceased father stating his last will and testament. The loving wife is given the house and his never ending love, his favourite daughter gets the rare coin collection, his gnarly nephew gets the County Club membership, the spoiled daughter is shocked to receive nothing, and the surprise comes when the Las Vegas hotel concierge gets the Monet, the Bentley, and the Italian Villa "for reasons that will remain between us." The concierge tries to sympathize with the family, and the commercial ends with the super reading - "What happens here, stays here. Only Vegas."
The commercial is genius. It shows the power of entitlement and the amusement when expectations are not fulfilled. Not to mention poor decision making.
It reminds us of the City of Calgary's shocking decision to award its rebranding project to the Los Angles-based branding arm of San Francisco architectural firm Gensler, and not a local company from Alberta or even Canada.
Considering the project is being payed for by Calgary residents, you would think a Calgary based company would be the politically correct decision. The city has fantastic agencies like Karo, Wax and Venture (a partner in Venture is Arlene Dickinson's who is a dragon on Dragons' Den) to name a few.
Calgary Economic Development argues the decision went to the best company for the job, but local agencies are left feeling duped.
Marketing Magazine interviewed Lance Carlson, CEO of the Alberta College of Art and Design and chair do the sub-committee that selected Gensler, as saying “Gensler hit it out of the ballpark with its response to the RFP questions. What was key to us was their response as to how they would work with our community on what will be a high profile and possibly controversial project. In the end, we looked at the quality of the successful firm, not its location.”
Meanwhile Chris Bedford, CEO of Karo, expressed that "In this business you win some and lose some, but the message that Calgary Economic Development is sending out says that it doesn’t believe there is sufficient creative talent in Calgary to do this work.”
So who is right? In this case it's whoever wins the trophy. Sorry Calgary!
So what's the lesson? The best punch line winner is the dark horse. The Los Angles branding company and the Las Vegas concierge. They defy the odds, they shatter dreams, and cause people to jump out of windows (in the Las Vegas commercial that might be the extended director's cut). Unfortunately, the dark horse always gets the last laugh, and the rest get a mouth full of dust. |
