ML - Vegas Magazine

2013 - Issue 3 - May/June

Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.

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POWER DUO marketing machines FOR 10 GLITTERING YEARS, DAVE KIRVIN AND BILL DOAK HAVE PUT VEGAS STARS IN THE NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT. BY DAVE BERNS I ts client list has featured some of the biggest names in the recent history of Strip entertainment, fine dining, and retail: Cirque du Soleil, Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group, Tiffany & Co., Siegfried & Roy. With such a high-profile roster, you might think that Kirvin Doak Communications would want to expand to New York or LA. Yet the publicity powerhouse, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, continues to focus primarily on Las Vegas. Dave Kirvin, a former sportswriter in Southern California and Colorado, and Bill Doak, an ex– public relations director with MGM Grand, say their reasoning is intuitive. "If we thought we needed an office to talk to media in LA, we would have done it," Doak says. "Sometimes the decision to not do something is as important as the decision to do something." Adds Kirvin, "When you talk about Jim Murren and the late Terry Lanni of MGM, Guy Laliberté of Cirque du Soleil, Larry Ruvo with the Cleveland Clinic, or you're talking about Siegfried & Roy… if you can't get inspired by those folks we work with day in and day out, I don't know where else you could go to find that." Kirvin, 47, the more talkative public face of the 46-employee company, was the point person for the media barrage after the 2003 onstage mauling of Siegfried & Roy's Roy Horn. With journalists calling from around the 70 world, the PR executive sought a meaningful context for the tragedy, as Horn, with the aid of his surgeons, fought to stay alive, then waged the difficult battle to recover much of his mobility, although he hasn't returned to the stage full-time. "This was a man," Kirvin says, "who was also an entertainment brand at the Mirage, which in some ways reinvented Las Vegas." Doak, also 47, was the one out front in June 1997 for MGM's media relations at the Mike Tyson–Evander Holyfield "bite fight," during which a troubled Tyson took bites out of both of Holyfield's ears. "We started to play scenarios out when it was clear that Tyson had actually bitten Holyfield's ear," Doak recalls of an evening that also included multiple reports of gunshots in the MGM lobby. Doak and MGM officials later attributed the sounds to brass stanchions falling on the marble floor amid the post-fight mayhem, as well as the cork of a Champagne bottle. "I never would have guessed some of the things that happened that night." Sixteen years later, the tools available to publicists have grown enormously. "There's a lot of noise out there," Kirvin says. "Twitter has become a news service for 22-year-olds who have never viewed a daily newspaper. So the questions we must consider are: How often do I get it out? Which outlets? What message? What do I say? In some ways it's more challenging." V PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JEREMY DEVERATURDA; PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN REASON (KIRVIN AND DOAK); POLY LISS (VELVET ROPE); GUALTIERO BOFFI (RED CARPET); MAGICINFOTO/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (PHOTOGRAPHERS) The tables have turned, as publicity gurus Bill Doak and Dave Kirvin get the celebrity treatment. VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 070_V_SP_PowerDuo_MAY/JUNE_13.indd 70 4/19/13 10:35 AM

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