I should admit up front that I'm an advertiser's dream. Show me a clever ad, and I immediately want that product. Two hours after spotting a relatively attractive Kahlua billboard off Interstate 95, I walked like a zombie into a liquor store and purchased my first bottle in ten years. So I was quickly intrigued by a series of recent print advertisements for Las Vegas hotels. They were, how can I put this, a bit gay.
The first one I encountered was in Out magazine (although it's also appeared in nongay publications). A quite handsome, tousle-haired, shirtless young man is lying on a bed staring right at me. Directly below him, the copy (for the New York New York Hotel and Casino) states, "Luck isn't always a lady." Very clever, although I wasn't yet packing my bags. A couple of weeks later, I was reading Out Traveler and came upon an ad for Paris Las Vegas. From above, we see the clothing of two men (shoes and socks are strewn about) on the floor of a hotel room. Their pants and shirts are laid out in human positions and completely intertwined with one another. And things are apparently also getting pretty hot down on the casino floor. Another Paris Las Vegas ad features two oversize playing cards, the Jack of Spades and the Jack of Hearts. Except that the spades card is empty and the two jacks are both on the hearts card looking longingly into each other's eyes. I'm not sure what it all means, but I have always heard that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. The zombie in me is ready to book a flight and find out what I've been missing.
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