The Story of the Stripes: A Red Rock Case Study

What’d we do? And why ever did they want to work with us? Well, here’s the story…

The Main Characters

Station Casinos, the third largest publicly traded gaming company in the US.
1650 (one arm of Farmhaus), a 10 person boutique agency in lovely La Jolla, CA

The Setting

Summerlin, Nevada – a full 20 minutes away from Las Vegas’ traditional premiere address: “The Strip.” Station Casinos, known as a locals casino focused on convenience and value, begins building a $1 billion luxury property.

The Conflict

So, there we were – way away from the “buzz” of Vegas in Summerlin, Nevada with a group not known for luxury and they were getting ready to build a luxury hotel – the most expensive in Vegas’ history, in fact.

Our challenge was to develop a brand that would convey that Red Rock was a true destination and worth the trip from the strip. Moreover, we were tasked with ensuring that it was a place not only for tourists, but also for Station’s core customer group: the locals. Red Rock was to be known as a destination for gambling, spa, dining, drinking and a night out – oh yeah, they had a lot of hotel rooms to sell each night too.

The Resolution

After a lot of time thinking quite hard, we came up with a clean, modern and playful solution based on lots of white space and some fabulously fun stripes – the “Red Rock Stripes.” With the addition of a wry sense of humor (one billboard toted the “suitest rooms”) we thought we had a winner. We then rolled that out internally across every element of the hotel – from slot toppers to the do not disturb sign. We also developed the identities of each and every restaurant, bar and lounge on property to ensure that all delivered on the Red Rock idea of modern luxury. In rolling this out externally, we focused both on the locals market (we pegged Red Rock as “the new locals’ favorite”) and the tourist market with targeted advertising to ensure that the Red Rock Stripes became a known entity.

In the end, the Red Rock opening was one of the most successful in the history of Las Vegas. Today, the resort dominates the Summerlin locals market and it was ranked as the number 1 hotel by Vegas4Visitors – the perfect balance of “destination” and “right in our backyard.” Most importantly, the Red Rock Stripes are more than a “brand element” they’re a Las Vegas icon – at only 1 year old.