What a summer it has been! Being a marketer in the Tourism Industry, the summer season is by busiest season and this summer was no different. It started off the launching of a music video to promote spending a summer getaway in Lake County, Illinois.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iphhBSYiE44&w=560&h=315]
I will start at the beginning to give you a sense of how this video came about. Now, just sit right back and read about how a small tourism destination won with a little video. My boss and I had been talking about doing a lip dub video for a couple of years, ever since Grand Rapids did the best lip dup of all-time. We even had one of our mayors bring up doing a lip dup. Well, over Christmas break last year, I was singing and dancing with my son and thought it would be cool to take a song and make fit to Lake County. I went back to work in January and the thought was in the back of my head but I just kept moving forward on the tasks at hand.
In February, I returned to the office from the Illinois Governors’ Conference on Tourism, where I had won ‘Best Social Media Marketing Campaign’. I went into my boss’s office and told her that I think that we could do a music video and the time was now. She like at me probably thinking, “Oh, here goes Anthony trying to accomplish something that we do not have time for”. The next week, in our marketing department meeting I told our Communications Specialist what I was thinking and quickly started brainstorming. After on hour, I had a rough idea to show my boss. She said that she really liked the idea and lets explore it. The following week, I brought one of my board of directors into my office and informed him and he said it was definitely do able. At that point, the idea was fully stuck in my head and that is all I could think about. I was off and running.
I found a local Lake County musician, Justin Yates, who had a good following on Social Media and had created several professional looking music videos on YouTube. After several discussions with him, he was convinced into recording the song, “Best Day of My Life” by American Authors, into his own style. I worked out the agreements with the record labels of the song. Which was a lot smoother that I had anticipated and actually got back to me quicker than I thought they would. Justin lead us to a recording studio in Lake Forest, IL, owned by Dustin Bennett. He also led us to YouTube sensation, Rob Scallon.
While Justin was recording the song, I continued to work on laying out the scenes and trying to incorporate as many Lake County celebrities and people as possible, with also staying true to our mission of attracting visitors from 50 miles outside of Lake County to stay overnight. I got a local mayor to participate, several of our board of directors, and the Chairman of the Lake County Board. I also received agreements from the Instagram sensation Nugget_thefrench_bulldog (a Lake County Instagram celebrity), mommy bloggers from Little Lake County, Lake County Social Media friends (Beth Rosen, Eddie Soto and Casey Karl), actors in the play CATS at the Lincolnshire Marriott Theatre, our partners, and Chicago Bears players Kyle Long and Jordan Mills. We also did a call for local residents to participate in a scene down a street in Waukegan.
We were able to film all of the locations in 3 days. Which was pretty amazing with all of the schedules that we had to coordinate. We promoted the video through Social Media, Newsletters, blogs, etc. We ran a Facebook contest to giveaway tickets to see American Authors and One Republic at Ravinia Festival. We were informed that if we hit 10,ooo views on this video, as we were missing the “it” factor to make it go viral, that we would totally win. Well, we won alright! In my 7 years with Visit Lake County, this was by far my favorite project to have worked on and something to this day I am extremely proud of.
I hope you enjoyed the video and please comment with your thoughts.
