Many visitors to Doylestown fall in love with its history and charm! It’s a quaint piece of Americana nestled in the beautiful rolling hills of Upper Bucks County. When we decided to produce some social media videos for our boutique hotel, The Doylestown Inn, we decided to showcase the myriad of attractions the area has to offer and to capture a slice of life in our hometown, rather than just promote our businesses, which include the historic Inn and The Hattery Stove & Still restaurant.We went this direction because we wanted to celebrate the community as a whole. We specifically did not put any graphics or logos throughout the videos, although they each contain a quick shot of our sign on State Street. Our goal was to showcase the borough and all it has to offer tourists and business travelers in a cool way. We brainstormed with our PR team and came up with three vignettes for 30-second videos to run on our website and social media channels. The three themes were: Stay. Dine. Work.; Shop. Dine. Play.; and Stay. Dine. Play.
Shop. Dine. Play.
We set out to get beautiful shots of the neighborhood. Each video begins with an aerial view of Doylestown taken from a DJI Phantom 3 drone. We recruited local residents and friends to be actors. The married couple in the Shop. Dine. Play. piece is actually my husband Todd’s brother and sister-in-law, John and Janeen McCarty. We directed them to window shop along W. State Street. The way the video came together was really organic and spontaneous. The storefronts of local shops such as Something Else and ESTATE Boutique have quick cameos. The couple’s son and his friend happened to show up towards the end of filming, and we ended up including the kids in a funny scene outside the landmark County Theater. The kids actually stole the show with their antics, which were both typical and adorable.
Stay. Dine. Work.
The businesswoman in this video is actually Doylestown native and attorney Kellie McGowan of Eastburn and Gray P.C., who practices in our town. We wanted business travelers to know there was another option to a chain hotel — a charming, historic bed & breakfast — in terms of accommodations, complete with meeting rooms upstairs and several nooks for getting some work done in and around The Hattery Stove & Still. After a quick breakfast, you see her rushing off to work to presumably argue a case at the beautiful new County Courthouse.
Stay. Dine. Play.
In our third video, the theme was to encourage people to stay at the revived and historic Doylestown Inn, an ideal location for a romantic getaway, and to visit the multitude of museums, antique shops and historic treasures located throughout the region. We cast Doylestown residents Jeff Lavine and Skip Sherald for this vignette, and their fun-loving personalities and incredible chemistry made this piece a real treasure. As Jeff and Skip traipse around town, you catch a glimpse of the James A. Michener Art Museum, which is home to the largest public collection of Pennsylvania Impressionist paintings, and an attraction that we were really excited to include in this example of a couple sharing quality time together in our beloved community. We wanted to show that Doylestown is an inclusive community that welcomes people of all races and orientations, and I believe we were very successful in achieving that in a tasteful way.
All three videos were shot on a beautiful winter day by Philadelphia-based videographer Nick Centore and directed by Peter Breslow, President & CEO of the PR and consulting firm that bears his name. Nick Centore utilized the drone camera and a Sony A7Sll. So far, we are thrilled by the response and attention the videos are getting in town and on Facebook. The videos have racked up over 10,000 views on social media in a very short time, along with scores of shares, which equate to more visibility. We consider this campaign a serious success for us and for Doylestown early into the series, and it will likely inspire us to produce more gorgeous footage of our community and region as the campaign matures!
