A group of representatives from Amazon visited Chicago last week, touring some of the 10 sites that the city is proposing as potential homes for the internet retailer's second North American headquarters. According to Crain's, the Amazon scouting team also dined with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Bruce Rauner in the Chicago Cultural Center, took a water taxi ride and visited local tech hub 600 W Chicago, where entrepreneurs talked up the benefits of working in the Midwest.
Sometime during the group's visit, it was shown a short video that was commissioned by City Hall to help explain why Chicago is a place for "doers and dreamers, alike." The one-and-a-half-minute clip is narrated by Star Trek actor William Shatner, who was born in Montreal, Quebec and, as far as we know, has never actually resided in Chicago. Shatner never mentions Amazon by name, but some text flying dramatically toward the camera during the video's opening moments makes its intention clear: "Amazon makes its second city the Second City."
"Really, the press release writes itself and there's something to be said for the poetry," Shatner intones with all the gravitas of his infamous spoken-word performance of Elton John's "Rocket Man"—you can practically envision him taking drags from a cigarette as he stoically refers to Amazon as "a vision beyond Earth's orbit." The clip compares Amazon's beginnings in a "garage piled high with books" to Chicago's resilience and innovation following the fire that destroyed a huge portion of the city in 1871. Set to a rapid montage of fireworks, a robotic arm and the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park, Shatner describes Chicago as "a thriving ecosystem of transit and tech."
The clip wraps up with Shatner describing Chicago as a city built on reinvention and ready for its next big change, closing with the slogan "It's day one in the Second City."
The abstract video doesn't really show much of Chicago or its people, but the clip looks expensive, boasts a recognizable (if not Chicago-native) narrator and is packed with all the flattery and self-seriousness you might expect from a Super Bowl advertisement. Chicago may be among the 20 finalists for Amazon's HQ2, but this video might be the clearest look we've had at City Hall's pitch to the tech giant. Take a look at video and judge the effectiveness of their approach for yourself:
