Highly trusted brands run more risk of offending customers

Rebranding is currently big in Las Vegas, where the town is working on sloughing its family-friendly skin (that itself the result of a 1990s attempt to brand the city as a family vacation destination) in exchange for a more adult and carefree image. With the popularity and success of The Palms, several lagging resorts are now scrambling to garner the coveted younger crowd that flocked to the casino after its successful collaboration with MTV last year. While MGM "Kick Boredom in the Teeth" Grand and the Flamingo undergo more subtle personality makeovers, the most radical of these changes will be seen at Treasure Island(who now prefer to be called TI, thankyouverymuch), where the kid-friendly pirates are being buried to be replaced with a style and theme a bit more uh, edgy and hip, or something. I wouldn't be surprised if they introduced their own energy drink.

I'll be playing a role in the site redesign of a rebranded gaming company this Fall. As Park Place, being a parent company and global at that, is aimed more at the business customer rather than the typical resort consumer, and therefore less inclined to move away from a "trustworthy" and "reliable" image (paramount to a gaming company), it'll be interesting to see if any of this fever catches on, and what kind of identity or company personality we'll be given to work with.