Our life

New chamber video series focuses on area’s appeal

January 20, 2021 by G. Chambers Williams III

Clinton is the focus of a new online video promotional campaign coordinated by the city and the Anderson County Chamber of Commerce.

Called the “Anderson County Chamber Video Tour,” the collection of seven individual videos, each about a minute long, puts the spotlight on different aspects of the city and community.

They can be viewed starting at the chamber’s website (andersoncountychamber.org), which then links to a separate website that showcases all of the “Clinton Movies.”

The series of videos, professionally produced by a New York-based company called CGI Communications, begins with a “Welcome” to the area by Chamber of Commerce President Rick Meredith.

Following that are videos titled “Quality of Life,” “Education,” “Real Estate and Relocation,” “Economic Development,” “Downtown Historic District,” and “Member Benefits” of the chamber.

Also on the page are links to several other short videos about some key local businesses, including Hoskins Drug Store, Johnson & Co. General Store, Meadow View Senior Living Community and more.

Some of the featured businesses don’t have a video posted, but there are links on the page to their websites.

The campaign kicked off with the “Welcome” video and links to the CGI special webpage in late December, and there are still a few more to be added or tweaked, said Jared Forgety, public-relations coordinator for the Anderson County Chamber.

“The city contacted us and asked us to do this along with them,” Forgety said. “We partnered with a company the city partnered with first, and the videos essentially are brief infomercials about the community. They’re primarily designed to be used in social media.

“We will use them to promote the chamber and the community,” he said. “Hopefully, there might be other municipalities that get on board and do some of their own videos, too. I think Oak Ridge has in the past. Some of the local small businesses also did them.”

Although CGI Communications is based in New York, the company has offices in Knoxville and Nashville, Forgety said. “They used a videographer from the Johnson City area who came down and shot most of the videos.”

It doesn’t take long to watch all of them, and they are full of local information that even lots of people in the community might not know. The quality of the videos is clearly quite professional, and the chamber is pleased with how they turned out, Forgety said.

The “Quality of Life” clip starts out with colorful video views of the new South Clinton Inclusive Playground that opened in late 2019, and mentions other recreational facilities, the new 17-acre dog park (coming soon), and the privately funded Aspire Park under construction on the Clinch River in South Clinton.

That clip also shows the new bridge under construction over the Clinch River, the Riverwalk area, and Market Street on special antiques-show weekends.

The “Downtown Historic District” video starts out with views of Market Street, but then turns to the Green McAdoo Cultural Center and talks about the history of the desegregation of Clinton High School. The video shows the statues of the Clinton 12, the Black students who were the first to attend the school.

Focusing on the city’s manufacturing industry is the “Economic Development” video, which notes that Clinton “maintains its reputation as an industrial hub,” with more than 5,000 jobs in companies including several automotive suppliers. There’s even an exterior view of the new Clinton Tractor Supply store, which opened just last summer.