Creative Brief: Think Local Video Series
Participants
Julie Culjak, Liz Knapke, Molly Weatherill-Tate, and David — July 8, 2020
Overview
What would you like us to do for you? What is the purpose and scope of the project?
The goal is to kickstart a campaign to show what our community has to offer. We can all find and discover new things in our backyard. We can source the stuff we need locally instead of online.
The campaign should remind folks that there’s a lot to do here, a lot of joy to be found and that our local neighborhood (defined below) deserves our support. We are lucky, and we have a high quality of life. It’s up to residents to sustain that quality of life. Let’s connect with our neighbors and understand that each of us is a crucial component in our local economic recovery.
We will use the existing Think Local campaign as a springboard to reinforce the existing sense of belonging we all feel. We will strive to strengthen the connection to the people and places in our unique community.
We must focus on the quality of life. This campaign must NOT be a “shop local” campaign. Our focus is on encouraging our neighbors to immerse themselves in the local experience.
The Project
We would like to create a series of short videos for social media distribution.
Since social media videos are so often viewed silently, we must make beautiful silent movies. Social media videos are often organically shared by folks who have very specific interests, so we would be wise to focus our videos on particular interest areas. We want to encourage organic shares and organic excitement.
We’d like to include a wide variety of reasonably specific “verb local” themes. We should build focused short pieces that use a single verb with a tag pointing to other interests. It may be possible to combine food and drink or other matched interests, but generally, we’d like to stick to individual themes. When all the short videos are complete, we’d combine them for s supercut that includes everything. That video may be shared on social media, a website (ThinkLocalDaily.com), in tasting rooms, and similar businesses in our community.
For the longer video, it might be helpful to include short interviews with local business owners and other community partners. The focus of the conversations would be on what’s unique about this place and our local community.
The videos must be equitable for all involved communities and partners. We need to find locations in each community and involve businesses from all over the Valley.
Themes we’d like to include for sure would be outdoor experiences, eating, drinking, hobbies, and topics that touch small businesses. We may even need to find a way to include unique experiences in stores like Dingle’s Hardware in Dayton. The videos must show hidden gems in our community and add subtitles so residents can explore their new favorite spots.
As we hunt for locations, we should ask for input from the steering committee and possibly a larger group of stakeholders.
Creative Considerations
What limitations or constraints do you have? What elements or colors or other personal preferences must be represented in this project?
The video series will follow the intent, look, and feel of the existing Think-Local campaign.
The feel of the videos should be bright and cheerful.
We must be inclusive and show a diverse population.
We must show mask safety in every context where mask use is suggested or required. Face masks should look appealing. We must be careful to portray our neighborhood as a safe place. We can show outside seating and restaurants with socially-distant seating where people are not wearing masks. Also: The safety of the video crew and other participants is primary.
Color: It’s interesting to note that the existing campaign is subtly red, white, and blue. The new Walla Walla orange (as seen in downtown seating) might be included as well. There are not strong opinions about color. In general, colors will be up to the creative team.
Let’s Define Our Community
Our Valley extends east to Dayton and Bluewood. The Valley spans west to Wallula Junction. We reach north to Prescott and south to Milton-Freewater and Harris Park.
Partners include:
City of College Place
City of Milton Freewater
City of Waitsburg
City of Walla Walla
Dayton Chamber of Commerce
Downtown Walla Walla Foundation
Milton-Freewater Community Development Partnership
Milton-Freewater Downtown Alliance
Milton-Freewater Chamber of Commerce
Port of Columbia
Port of Umatilla
Port of Walla Walla
Umatilla County
Visit Walla Walla
Waitsburg Commercial Club
Walla Walla Valley Chamber
Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance
We must focus on universality. The verbs that work in all communities should be the focus of our efforts.
Target Audience & Market Realities
Who is your current primary audience (gender, age, socioeconomics, employment, geographics)? How much do they know about the product? What are their attitudes toward products or businesses like yours? What motivates them? Who do you want your audience to be?
The campaign is for EVERYONE. We want to appeal to all ages and ethnicities. At this moment in time, we should show as much diversity as we can. It’s not a MUST for every video, but we must generally show our community’s makeup and make sure that everyone feels included. We must have a broad representation of race.
The campaign is broad, and it is aimed at a full spectrum of ages and interests. We’d like to interrupt someone who would go to Tri-Cities or Spokane to shop. Let’s encourage these folks to look around and see what resources are available in our community. We’d even like to promote the possibility of “Vacation Local.” We may be wise to stay away from age demographics and focus more on the makeup of interest groups.
User Benefits
How will the user be better off using your product or service? Will he or she save time, effort, or money? If so, how much? How important is this product to the consumer? Are there tradeoffs (higher quality, but higher price)?
The quality of life in our Valley is unmatched anywhere. Our Valley is full of high-quality ingredients, and our community uses ingredients creatively to make an outstanding lifestyle.
What’s great about Local? The air, the culture, the atmosphere, the wine, the mountains, the ease of living, the access, the lack of traffic, the lack of crime. We have four seasons and easy access to golf, skiing, hiking, biking, and a huge variety of other leisure activities. Our Valley offers incredible outdoor access, shopping, dining, agriculture, and more. We have wide-open spaces and a HUGE sky. The expanse of the place makes it unique.
In our community, you can be who you are. There are not a lot of concerns.
Liz says: “I have shortened the list of the things that I need. Sometimes there are TOO many options in the city. When I came here, I found that the things we have are so QUALITY. The folks who are here are often following their passion, and that brings us a high-quality lifestyle. We have a fantastic connection to local farmers and quality ingredients. I don’t need to leave the Valley, I have it all at home. We have a simple life and a quality life.”
Side note: It would be interesting to promote the idea of Dayton residents traveling as far as Milton-Freewater and vice versa. There are extraordinary experiences in all our sub-communities.
Drawbacks: There could be more outdoor dining. Affordable housing is hard to come by on the Washington side. Dayton and Milton-Freewater and other smaller towns in our Valley could benefit from more retail. We are well connected, and thus we sometimes feel a lack of anonymity.
Most Important Point (MIP)
What are the top three (or more) ranked benefits of your product or service? If you could choose only one thing the audience remembers from your advertising, what would it be?
We have outstanding ease of access. Everything is close. The drives are easy, and we can find a lot of variety in our Valley.
We have a wide range of activities available. Outdoor or indoor. Expensive or inexpensive.
We have lots of attractive recreational opportunities.
For a small community, we have outstanding dining with fresh and local ingredients.
Our tightly woven community is a big part of our success. We are connected. We are safe. We live in a small town (all of them). We are well connected in ways that larger communities are not. We are all part of something. We all feel invested in and connected to our communities.
We have all fallen in love with this place.
We spent some time discussing the ONE THING that makes our community most amazing:
Liz says: “I can make a difference. I matter here. I am connected — my purchase matters at a local store. My presence makes an impact and is acknowledged. We all matter to each other here. That’s the big all-encompassing theme.”
MIP: We can all make a difference here. We all matter.
Questions
Can members of the group please offer a list of verbs that they would like the creative team to consider.
Can members of the group please suggest specific locations that might be included in the video series? Maybe we should extend this question to stakeholders beyond the steering committee? What are the extraordinary experiences in our community?