If you’ve been bouncing around Detroit for awhile, you know that about every year or two there’s another website/video/program/etc. that’s created by corporate types to “get the word out” about Detroit being the place to be.
It’s a few minutes of poetry slam meets informercial — infoetry, if you will — with captivating shots of the city and the state.
Not to rain on anyone’s parade or good intentions, but our experience is most initiatives last for the year or so of initial funding, then can’t find more funding and collapses — or never finds a sustainable revenue source and fizzles away once the corporate champion for it moves on to another job.
The latest edition of that hype Merry-Go-Round is tied in timing to the Amazon bid. The beautiful video, embedded above, is making the rounds on various social media and news platforms. It’s well produced and the timing is perfect for sharing since we’re at the due date for submitting a bid to Amazon.
Tied to the video is the release of a new website, Detroit Moves The World.
The slick site makes the pitch, especially to businesses, on why they should locate in Detroit. It seems a logical extension of all the work that had to be done for the Amazon bid to then use that content in another way.
There’s also the required hashtag on social media, #MoveTheWorld, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
The initiative is led by the folks at Bedrock Real Estate, which makes sense.
After all, if you’re looking to move into downtown Detroit from another city, Bedrock has the most to gain if a company makes that decision with a deep portfolio of buildings under their ownership and ready-to-go space leased by them.
It’s well produced. It seems some creatives of many types have done a great job putting their talents to work, and kudos to them.
Hopefully, the organizers don’t repeat past mistakes and actually invest in the project and evolve it going forward, or the real impact beyond Facebook likes and easy clicks for media outlets will be limited.
It’s obviously aimed at out-of-towners — but those of us who’ve been here awhile don’t need a hype video to know Detroit is the place to be, though we appreciate the love.