Out-of-the-box Talent Attraction Approach Shows Off Chattanooga’s Sense of Humor
June 5, 2017 | By: DCI
Talent continues to become increasingly important for both economic development organizations and for companies considering a location for expansion or relocation. According to DCI’s Q Report, “Talent Wars: What People Look for in Jobs and Locations,” 46 percent of the survey respondents indicated that they are “somewhat or extremely likely” to relocate for a new job opportunity in the next five years. For respondents under age 35, this increases to 57 percent.
So, what can communities do to stand out in the battle for talent attraction? The Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce is tackling this issue through a series of hilarious videos targeting entrepreneurs, tech workers and business owners that portray Chattanooga as being “Literally Perfect.”
A riff on the Academy Award winning “La La Land,” the latest video in the series, “CHA CHA Land,” follows Stanton, an executive who travels to Chattanooga in an attempt to bring back the workers who left her company in the big city to settle there. However, once she arrives and sees all that Chattanooga, “the Tom Hanks of places,” has to offer—like blazing fast internet speeds, high quality of life and low cost of living—she ends up ditching the big city for life in the Gig City.
Other videos in the series produced by the Chattanooga Chamber in partnership with Chattanooga-area film company, Pathfinder Films, include:
- “MouthTime,” in which entrepreneur Sadie relocates to Chattanooga from the West Coast after facing endless obstacles for her mobile kissing app, MouthTime, including an “internet connection that was essentially carrier pigeons.” Once in Chattanooga, she finds great coders from the local talent pool and takes advantage of the city’s 10-gigabit internet speeds, ultimately finding that “Chattanooga literally made everything perfect.”
- “Undo,” which follows Scandinavian entrepreneur Felix, the creator and manufacturer of the “Undo Button.” He moves to Chattanooga and for “mere pennies, Felix gets a warehouse that smells like freshly baked brownies and Christmas trees.” Again, Chattanooga “literally made everything perfect” for the entrepreneur.
To promote each of the videos, the Chamber developed a special landing page, ChattanoogaPerfect.com, which elaborates on the key points made in each video about quality of life, cost of living and high-speed internet access, and links back to job openings at area tech companies.
In addition, the Chamber developed a digital strategy, creating blogs relating to each video, including a “Kiss and Tell Quiz” sponsored by fictional MouthTime and a Buzzfeed-style listicle on “Why Nerds Rule in Chattanooga.” The Chamber’s plan also involved paid promotion of the videos on social media and proactive media pitching, which ultimately resulted in a CityLab story that called the videos, “a rare entry in the canon of decent city-branding efforts” that “might have something to teach other cities scratching about for a tagline.”
When looking to stand out in a sea of talent attraction campaigns, communities may want to consider an out-of-the-box approach, like the Chamber’s Literally Perfect videos.