Photo above: Screenshots from NETWORKS Sullivan County “Northeast Tennessee Quality of Life Video”
NETWORKS Sullivan Partnership has released a quality-of-life video it plans to offer to companies and organizations free of charge. The near-three-minute video features dozens of short vignettes showcasing locations both inside and out of its own coverage area. NETWORKS is the economic development organization for Sullivan County, Tenn., and its cities of Bluff City, Bristol, and Kingsport, and marketing and recruitment arm for Hawkins County.
NETWORKS launched the first in a series of promotional videos May 31 to serve as supporting pieces to the community video the organization first made public two years ago. Like the first video, the latest marketing piece was produced as a collaborative effort with Cumberland Marketing. Because of its regional flavor, NETWORKS is offering to allow the second video to be used by other organizations and private companies, either with the NETWORKS logo still attached, or replacing that logo with the organization or company’s own logo.
“After the first collaboration with Cumberland went so well, turning out a product that has received more than half a million views and been recognized with an award of merit by the Southern Economic Development Council, we knew that keeping with our plan to produce a subset of topic-specific videos was the right path,” says NETWORKS CEO Clay Walker.
Walker said that from the beginning, the team recognized that in order to show the quality of life people enjoy here, the video would need to include footage beyond the Sullivan and Hawkins counties’ borders.
As the video neared completion, NETWORKS staff thought that it was something anyone in the region might want to use, so Walker proposed the idea to make the finished product a “gift to the region” at the April Board of Directors Meeting. The Board voted unanimously to do so.
“This video was intended to showcase the variety of exciting things to do that we enjoy and can sometimes even take for granted. You can’t tell that story within city or county boundaries, just as you can’t tell our available workforce, network of supporting industries, or countless other stories we tell in economic development,” Walker added. “So, if other organizations can use this video as a vehicle to tell our story, particularly to attract visitors, residents, and people to fill key positions, we obviously want to make this available to them.”
So far, Walker said, NETWORKS has received interest in the video from Bristol Motor Speedway, Friends of Steele Creek Park, YPTri, the Northeast Tennessee Regional Economic Partnership, Tri-Cities Airport, Bristol Tennessee Essential Services and TCI Group – Jerry Petzoldt.
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