Chicago & Midwest + Office | March 26, 2018

Mayor Goes Public with Top-Secret Video Pitch to Amazon

Some five months after giving City Council members a private screening of the city’s video presentation to Amazon as it vies for the online giant’s second headquarters campus, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has gone public with it. The mayor tweeted the video pitch this past Friday, following an Amazon scouting team’s tour of potential sites for its HQ2.

Created by FCB Chicago and narrated by William Shatner, the video draws parallels between the city’s rebound from the Great Fire, and transformation into a tech powerhouse, and Amazon’s origins in “a garage piled high with books” that would eventually become “a vision beyond Earth’s orbit.” Until the mayor took to Twitter with the video, the city had kept a tight lid on it.

Last week’s visit by Amazon scouts reportedly encompassed visits to five of the 10 potential HQ2 sites the city had identified in its response to the e-commerce giant’s RFP.

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About Paul Bubny

Paul Bubny serves as Senior Content Director for Connect Commercial Real Estate, a role to which he brings 13-plus years’ experience covering the commercial real estate industry and 30-plus years in business-to-business journalism. In this capacity, he oversees daily operations while also reporting on both local/regional markets and national trends, covering individual transactions across all property types, as well as delving into broader subject matter. He produces 15-20 daily news stories per day and works with the Connect team and clients to develop longer-form content, ranging from Q&As to thought-leadership pieces. Prior to joining Connect, Paul was Managing Editor for both Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com at American Lawyer Media, where he oversaw operations at both publications while also producing daily news and feature-length articles. His tenure in B2B publishing stretches back into the print era, and he has served as Editor in Chief on four national trade publications. Since 1999, Paul has volunteered as the newsletter editor of passenger rail advocacy groups (one national, one local).

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