The National Museum of Organized Crime & Law Enforcement, or The Mob Museum, is a centerpiece museum destination headquartered in Las Vegas’ former federal courthouse. It has been named one of TripAdvisor’s Top 25 Museums in the United States and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
Three floors of interactive exhibits, historic artifacts, and immersive displays showcase both the local and national history of organized crime from the Prohibition era to the present. The collection includes one-of-a-kind artifacts like Chicago’s famous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre wall alongside immersive experiences like a simulated forensic crime lab.
Gold Addy Award
for Prohibition Microsite
20,000
Additional Visitors
for the Underground
within 8 Months
Record-breaking
attendance of
360,000
Museum Visitors
from around the world
“Cardwell Beach helped us turn vision into reality and made the entire creative process a seamless one.”
— Ashley, Senior Director of Marketing, The Mob Museum
Ultimately, our efforts shaped nearly every public-facing piece of the Museum’s marketing efforts and connected with both long-time locals and first-time visitors alike, including:
Naming and launching new exhibits
Leading a complete website overhaul
Creating two new advertising campaigns for local and national markets
Updating the museum's membership program
Refreshing museum collateral
Launching an award-winning microsite and online game
Developing a long-form promotional video
New
The Underground
Speakeasy & Distillery
Website Overhaul
Experience the Mob in the heart of Downtown Campaign
Where Your Vegas Trip is MADE Campaign
Driving Membership
Driving Sponsorship
Prohibition Microsite and Game
Overview Video

This multi-million-dollar effort ushered visitors into a totally immersive experience, complete with a password-protected speakeasy, a full bar with authentic spirits made on-site, and artifacts and exhibits. We were tasked with developing cohesive messaging and visuals that sparked visitor interest and connected with real history.
Our team conducted historical research, led branding exercises, and plumbed customer insights to develop a name for the space— “The Underground”—and even design the labels and packaging of the in-house spirits from the distillery, the cocktail menus, and the grand unveiling invitation.
To help raise visitor awareness of the new space, we designed a full range of marketing and advertising campaigns, ranging from print and digital to billboards and bus wraps. Then, to help jumpstart attendance to the new space, we redesigned, reconfigured, and relaunched their website to better reflect these new visitor offerings.
To help raise visitor awareness of the new space, we designed a full range of marketing and advertising campaigns, ranging from print and digital to billboards and bus wraps. Then, to help jumpstart attendance to the new space, we redesigned, reconfigured, and relaunched their website to better reflect these new visitor offerings.
Behind The Scenes:
Speakeasy Visual Branding
One of the most rewarding aspects of working with a world-class museum is the historical research that goes into every phase of launching and marketing a new exhibit.
For our print ads focused on this new exhibit, we included recipes for the actual favorite cocktails of notorious mob bosses. We plastered the elevators to the new exhibit with real archival photography from Prohibition-era parties. And for The Underground itself, we ensured the visual branding reflected the Roaring Twenties of reality, not just fantasy.
To start, we studied typography and layout of that era for both the cocktail menus and spirit labels. We used reference art to identify the way printed materials would have looked at that time, then sourced antique textures to give all the new design elements an aged, dated look and feel.
In designing the cocktail menu, we experimented with fonts, textures, and materials including leather, etched copper, brushed steel, and gold foil before selecting designs robust enough for a bar. The final look of the menus, which incorporated metallic finishes, linked the physical item back to the interior design of the speakeasy and distillery, which used copper as a primary metal. The inside pages were laid out in an Art Deco style, reflective of the Prohibition era.
Each bottle was also strung with a hang tag featuring historical information about each spirit, proving that immersive learning didn’t need to stop when the drinks began.
To promote the new space and welcome guests to its grand unveiling, we created an invitation using a historic grille cipher, a simple decoding method that revealed a mystery message by sliding a pre-cut envelope over the invitation.
Overview Video
Utilizing archival footage and images from inside the museum, we crafted a brief promotional video that highlighted the museum’s story, new exhibits, and immersive history.