Brands bet on new casino in NBC’s ‘Vegas’

By Andrew Wallenstein

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – The sprawling new set of
the NBC series “Las Vegas” could be mistaken for an actual
casino.

Built on six soundstages at Culver Studios in Culver City,
the 40,000-square-foot Montecito boasts genuine felt on the
blackjack tables, faux marble walls and 30 surveillance cameras
installed in the ceilings.

The lavish gambling palace also features an Aston Martin
dealership inhabiting one of the storefronts on a new wing of
the set. The automaker is one of a growing list of real-life
brands posing as a tenant in “Vegas” story lines.

To help ease the financial burden of what may be the
largest set in TV series history, executive producer Gary Scott
Thompson turned to marketers.

“We have a set that cost us a fortune,” said Thompson, who
declined to disclose estimates. “We’re a high-budget show; we
need help. By help, I mean, we’ll put your shop into our
casino. We’ll need some help building that shop.”

“Vegas,” which begins its third season on September 19,
provides a more marketing-friendly setting than shows featuring
forensic investigators and alien invaders.

“We are an anomaly,” Thompson said. “This is the one show
you can get away with doing it.”

NBC is busy lining up marketers in several categories
including clothing, jewelry and food; in addition to the
Montecito’s new mall, an entire restaurant space sits empty
awaiting a brand. General Motors and Hewlett-Packard, which
integrated their products in previous “Vegas” seasons, will
return but without a retail presence on the set.

Reality shows have largely driven the upswing in product
integration in recent years, but sitcoms and dramas have
gradually gotten into the act, including ABC’s “Desperate
Housewives” and Fox’s “Stacked.”

Building replicas of retail outlets into a set is not
unprecedented in Hollywood. Two recent Steven Spielberg films,
“Minority Report” and “The Terminal,” featured a multiplicity
of brands. It is a rarer sight on TV, though gourmet chain Dean
& DeLuca was something of a recurring character on the WB
series “Felicity,” serving as the site for the title
character’s part-time job.

Not every brand integrated into “Vegas” will command its
own actual space. In the case of Aston Martin, the dealership
depicted is actually just a storefront with branded signage;
shots of the facade will be mixed with footage taken from a
real Aston Martin outlet.

As a brand bombarded with requests from all sorts of
productions for use of its vehicles, Aston Martin was keen to
get involved with “Vegas” because it could convey its retail
presence, according to Geno Effler, the automaker’s brand
communications manager.

“That’s a key reason that got us over the hump and enticed
us to participate in this,” Effler said. “It’s not just a car
sitting out in front of the hotel.”

As part of the deal, Aston Martin also is handing over the
keys to its most expensive model — a $250,000 DB AR1
convertible — for inclusion in the show as the pet vehicle for
“Big Ed” Deline, the casino boss played by James Caan. The car
occasionally will get its own story line, like an upcoming
episode in which Deline lends his beloved vehicle to an
employee trying to impress a date, only for it to wind up at a
chop shop.

If putting a fancy car dealership in a casino seems
familiar, that’s not an accident: Ferrari has set up shop in
hotel magnate Steve Wynn’s eponymous new palace. Thompson wants
“Vegas” to keep step with the real city, which has seen retail
outlets and other entertainment rival gambling as the main
attraction.

“We couldn’t accurately portray what true Vegas was,” he
said. “So when we decided to move to the new studio, we said to
NBC that we needed to get real brands into the casino.”

The brands will find themselves in pretty spacious new
digs. The “Vegas” set is three stories high, making room for
new features including a sports book with multiple large-screen
TVs and an elevator bank fronted by stained glass with working
elevators. But don’t be fooled by stunning shots of the
Montecito’s exterior; it’s all computer-generated, from the
heliport to the waterfall spilling over the facade.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter