The Single Greatest Marketing Thing I’ve Seen In At Least Three Weeks

Hello, ladies. That's the basic mood created by eye-catching marketing ideas in Vegas.

A few weeks ago at a charity auction for autistic kids, the organization hired a few barely-clothed barely-legals to stand very, very still on a platform for a long, long time, near the entrance to the event. One barely-clothed was a dude. One was a lady. They looked like they needed to share a PowerBar. But it was sexy.

Then there was a charity event for a battered women’s shelter, and that charity event for battered women featured barely-clothed women from local Strip shows. There’s nothing like objectifying women for the benefit of battered women.

But the best marketing idea I’ve seen since then was at Friday’s Miss Hawaiian Tropic International pageant’s shark tank at the Golden Nugget.

As 50 barely-clothed women pranced around in circles on the stage at the pool, right behind them was the hotel’s shark tank. And in the shark tank for the whole hour or more, a diver flipped her flippers to stay in one spot so that everyone there could see the marketing sign she held. It read, “Golden Nugget Welcomes Miss Hawaiian Tropic.”

What you can’t see in my horribly taken photos of the event is the second diver who was holding a net below her. His job was to make sure none of the five types of swirling sharks ate the sign-holding diver. Awesome.

The Golden Nugget publicist who came up with this idea told me she stole it from a company-related business in Texas.

Who cares? There’s no such thing as an original idea. And so I hereby relieve any other Vegas marketers from guilt (as if they have guilt) for stealing this shark-sign idea for their next charity event that will, I’m sure, benefit naked battered women and their autistic children.