Jingle, media blitz encourages visitors to 'Rosemont It!'
Rosemont has unveiled its 2017 media blitz that includes TV commercials with a catchy jingle encouraging visitors to "Rosemont It!" on social media while enjoying the village's entertainment offerings.
The R&B-inspired song, performed by Chicago vocalist Thair Thompson and a 10-piece Nashville studio session band, is the brainchild of a creative team at a video production company and public relations firm Rosemont officials tasked with promoting the village's entertainment offerings.
"You want style, well now I'll show you where you gotta be, tell ya what you gotta see, ooo it's gonna make you smile," Thompson sings while images of MB Financial Park, the Allstate Arena and Rosemont Theatre flash on the screen. "You want it. We've got it. It's all here. Rosemont it!"
The TV commercials are part of Rosemont's advertising campaign, which also includes radio spots, billboards, taxi tops, and digital and print ads coordinated by Chicago public relations firm Carol Fox & Associates. The village inked a $235,000 contract last August with Chicago-based Big Shoulders Digital Video Productions to produce the ads.
Rosemont is also getting more than $1 million this fiscal year from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity's Office of Tourism, helping to pay for the ad campaign and other activities of the Rosemont Convention & Tourism Bureau. The money hasn't been affected by the state budget impasse since the funds come from hotel-motel taxes.
Like other TV commercial jingles, "Rosemont It!" may get stuck in your head. But that's the point, its creators say.
"It's like the holy grail for advertisers," said Mike Coletta, an editor at Big Shoulders.
Coletta and his staff decided early on, after being hired by the village last summer, that they needed a catchy song to sell Rosemont's story. They considered hiring famous actors and filming them in a comedy bit, but that would have cost too much, Coletta said.
"It would've been darn funny, but when we heard a demo for the song, that was it," he said. "If you've ever heard a song on the radio for the first time and said, 'I'm gonna love this for the rest of my life,' this is it."
Composer and lyricist Gary Fry had Thompson sing the song at a local studio, while the band performed it at their Nashville studio. Fry then mixed the two recordings together.
A holiday version of the song and commercial will air in the winter.
The jingle is a lot different from the cutesy "Everything's Coming Up Rosemont" song featured in a mid-1980s-era video production promoting the village's hotels and convention center. In it, a female singer exclaims, "Things look swell, things look great, go ahead you're a show on a plate. Starting here, starting now, honey, everything's coming up Rosemont."
That 10-minute video, also produced in cooperation with the state tourism office, featured Rosemont employees and young actor Richard Kind as a limo driver who serves as a visitor's personal tour guide.