Hotel Finds 'Phame' From Viral Video, Song

Late last year, Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino played host to the world’s first “flash mob” in a casino. Hundreds of people descended on the property en masse and began a choreographed dance routine to the catchy tune, “PHamous,” recorded specifically for the event.

More than 1.3 million YouTube views later, the video of the 3-minute dance party has become a marketing and branding boon to the Las Vegas Strip resort, with “PHamous” getting limited radio airplay across the world and even being featured in group dance-offs at high school homecoming dances.

In terms of pop-culture exposure, this isn’t quite on the level of, say, having your hotel as the setting for the highest grossing comedy film of all time. But still, it’s not too shabby to have what amounts to an extended audio commercial become a popular iTunes download.

Exactly how the flash mob came into being is something of a magician’s secret, but the baffled looks on the faces of hotel staff and bystanders in the above video are genuine; only a handful of people in the marketing and security departments had any advance heads-up.

“PHamous” is now the nightly intro song for the casino’s Pleasure Pit girls, and the resort is cooking up ways to extend the song to other aspects of Planet Hollywood’s branding identity. The resort is also working with the song’s creators, Midi Mafia, to further raise the song’s profile—possibly by creating a music video. “I love the song, but I never thought it would take off like it has,” says Andrea Roqueni, Planet Hollywood’s public relations director.

The resort, which adopted the Planet Hollywood branding in 2007 after scrapping the tired Arabian theme of the former Aladdin Hotel, is undergoing its own transition at the moment. Until a couple weeks ago, the property had been managed by Sheraton Hotels & Resorts and was affiliated with Starwood Preferred Guest.

Harrah’s Entertainment, which owns neighboring Paris Las Vegas on the north and Caesars Palace across Las Vegas Boulevard, took over as Planet Hollywood’s manager on January 16. Most Vegas observers further expect Harrah’s to take ownership of the property soon, though no formal announcement has been made.