BulletProofBlog the blog on crisis communications

In 2002, Las Vegas launched a new $75 million tourism campaign. In 2009, just about everyone knows what happens there, stays there.

It' s all about safe excess. Come to Vegas, be anonymous, and commit whatever vice you like within our relaxed legal limits. Who' s going to know? Certainly not your spouse, boss, or minister.

But now, after spending all that time and expense getting this message across, the Mayor of Sin City is shocked and appalled to hear the President of the United States suggest that Las Vegas is not a place where businesses receiving federal TARP funds should spend Americans' hard-earned tax dollars.

Mayor Oscar Goodman told a group of Las Vegas tourism officials - some of whom probably approved the "stays here" campaign - that President Barack Obama owes the city an apology and a retraction.

The Mayor is concerned that the President' s remarks will make his city look frivolous, unseemly, and too risqué for serious businesses to consider as a place to hold meetings, conferences, and conventions. The Mayor, it seems, wants it both ways. The city is even taking out full-page ads in national newspapers touting how serious it really is.

Las Vegas wanted to shed the Disney image it had developed in the 1990s by rebranding itself as an adult playground. It worked. It was brilliant messaging. Las Vegas now owns the image for which it campaigned.

It's an excellent lesson for those in leadership. When you seek to rebrand yourself, you must be prepared to reap what you sow.

If the President has his way, what happens in Vegas will still stay there, but executives accepting TARP funds won' t - at least not on the company (and the taxpayers' ) dime.