As published in the Jackson Hole News and Guide
What do whitewater rafting outfitters, coffee roasters, real-estate agents and restaurants all have in common?
They can all connect with customers through web-based short videos produced by Circumerro Video.
“We believe every business needs one, and every business can be successful creating a video,” said Circumerro founder and President Latham Jenkins.
Jenkins sees incredible potential for businesses that produce short-form videos because there is very little video content related to Jackson Hole on the web right now, calling it the “first mover advantage.”
Video is especially important for businesses in Jackson Hole because it is so hard to encapsulate the valley’s landscape and experience with traditional layouts of text and photos, especially for clients and customers who are coming from another state or country.
“We believe you can pre-live the experience, through video online, that a business would offer, further engaging that consumer to come see you or participate in what you have to offer,” Jenkins said. “Particularly in this valley, where out-of-town buyers are using the web to find services and real estate.”
According to studies, when people view a website, they naturally gravitate toward the video elements and often view them first, bypassing photos and text. By syndicating those videos to websites like YouTube, businesses create additional portals beyond their own website to draw in customers. Besides delivering an advertising message, creative videos can bring attention to businesses in unexpected ways. Jenkins points to his own company’s “Save the Elves” campaign, which received media coverage worldwide.
“You get all these spinoffs you never saw coming,” Jenkins said. “Not only has video been successful in selling homes and rooms, it has been successful in generating great public relations for companies.”
A service line of Circumerro Media, Circumerro Video can provide all the services a business needs to produce a short-form video—from planning dialogue and action to shooting and editing video, adding sound and syndicating the video to outlets throughout the web.
“We believe every business has a great story to tell,” Jenkins said. “We help you to tell that story through putting your two to three main talking points into the video.”
Latham Jenkins is taking his assignment personally.
“I think Tarboro has a lot to offer,” Jenkins said. “I don’t want anyone to consider living here and not know its story.”
Jenkins, a Tarboro native, has the contract to redesign the Town of Tarboro’s Web site. The current site was developed about five years ago.
Jenkins has hired Tarboro’s Dee Harper to write copy and Bill Goode to take photographs. Jenkins is shooting video himself, and interviewing people around town.
“I’ve had great progress working with the community at large,” Jenkins said. “This is a project built for Tarboro by the people of Tarboro. I’m using the local talent to tell the story of Tarboro.”
Jenkins, 38, left town 15 years ago for a summer job out west and “really haven’t gotten back yet,” he said.
He founded Circumerro Media in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where he worked as a river guide during the summer while attending Appalachian State University in Boone. Circumerro has been successful and has offices in South Carolina, as well.
Town Councilman Steve Hoard recommended Circumerro because of the outstanding job Jenkins and his crew did for Kanban, the Tarboro logistic outfit Hoard helped found.
Circumerro specializes in web design, publishing, branding and working with real estate firms to help realtors tell the story of their communities.
The Town Council selected Circumerro at the April 14 meeting. Jenkins, the son of Councilman John Jenkins, has a contract not to exceed $44,800.
“This came at a perfect time for us,” said Latham Jenkins, “and it’s a great way to reconnect. In fact, it’s been challenging because I see so many people on the street, and I have to stop what I’m doing.”
The 15 hours of tape will be sent back to Jackson Hole for an early review while Jenkins takes some time off this week to visit the beach. He plans to return next week and continue filming.
“Video is essential,” he said. “The average attention span is about two and a half minutes. We’ve got to boil the message down.”
Jenkins plans to make a presentation to the Town Council at its Aug. 18 meeting.
“We will make adjustments based of their feedback,” he said. “The site should be up by the end of that month if not sooner.”
Our Chelsea Robinson, after taking second place in Jackson Hole Mountain Resorts Dick’s Ditch ski race, posted a strong third in the women’s Pro division of the Town Downhill in Jackson Hole. With top speeds of 60+ mph and flying down Snow King in 64 seconds, we’ll just call her our Superstar.
Jackson Hole’s Town Downhill is not for the timid or weak at heart, generally in the field are past Olympic and World Cup downhillers. We are proud to have her on our team.
—Latham
[Photo by Neil Henderson/ReactionPhoto.com]
Alden Wood and Latham Jenkins presented today to the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce members how to use short-form Web Video successfully in your online promotions and website.
We received great feedback on the value of the presentation from those in attendance.
“Hi, Latham, Alden, and Kim,
Just reflecting on your seminar and wanted to share my appreciation. Thank you for creating a local opportunity to educate ourselves on current web technology and presenting us with the tools to keep up with those big city fish!
Your hard video samples (both proprietary and non), the stats, and discussion of videos and various applications left me impressed that Yes! everyone should use web video. In fact, I so wish I could abracadabra video into the websites of the hotels I’m researching for an upcoming vacation.
I look forward to sharing the points with my colleagues via e-mail this morning and encouraging our clients (many of which are in the hospitality industry) to integrate video into their websites. And sharing with them of course ;), that there is a fabulous Jackson resource for production!
Cheers,
Tracy
Tracy Hiatt
WordenGroup Strategic Public Relations”
Great news: my breaking news story on the Jackson Hole elf problem was an immense success!
Viewed over 6,300 times in 53 countries and in all 50 states (including the District of Columbia, they say, but I don’t know why Canada should count), over 850 kindhearted people worldwide signed Latham Jenkins Save-The-Elves-And-Cut-The-Costs-And-Do-Good-All-At-Once Christmas petition, helping to donate over $1,000 to needy families in Jackson Hole and clean up the streets of its former wayward elves. The hard work, simple determination and the inability to show fear in front of one’s adversaries helped me and my dedicated two-man crew make “The Godfather” of all Rocky Mountain West Freelance Video Newscasts. And do some good, too.
Great things have also happened for me personally. EFIN finally agreed to meet with me to discuss possibly being rehired. They say budget constraints are tight this year, but they were able to offer me the next best thing: an unpaid internship! I’ll be helping Darrel with the lights and Laquesha with her errands. A radio station at Central South Dakota Community College has even approached me in hopes of airing a weekly show on smooth jazz and soft beats. 2008 is certainly a year of positive change!
To all of my friends that I made and that I have yet to make in Jackson Hole, I thank you for your kind hospitality. Perhaps in 2008 you will encounter another problem. Perhaps in 2008 you will have a need for LJ Logger-Foot.
Jackson Hole, know that I’ll be there (should my now-busy schedule permit).
—LJ Logger-Foot
In response to Jackson Hole’s ever-increasing elf problem, local business owner Latham Jenkins has created the nonprofit SaveTheElves.org. Fed up with the current elf situation, Jenkins has written a petition pleading that Santa Claus himself bring an extra large sleigh down to Jackson Hole before Christmas so he can gather up the elves and take them back to the North Pole so that they might be reintroduced into elf society and lead productive elf lives.
Elves have traditionally gathered on the National Elf Refuge in Jackson Hole as a resting place along their journey back to the North Pole from warmer climates during their off-season break. Today, however, a large quantity of elves has straggled behind. Unfortunately for Jackson Hole locals, the wayward elves are often the mischievous and delinquent members of elf society. From harassing tourists and sleeping on park benches, to pan-handling, illegally washing windshields, dangerously playing in traffic and other acts of debauchery, the elves have outstayed their welcome.
Not being residents, financially addressing the issue requires donations from private individuals and corporations. Forever kind at heart, Jenkins took the high road and created the nonprofit SaveTheElves.org in order to relocate the elves to the North Pole and reintroduce them into elf society where they can once again lead productive lives. In addition, SaveTheElves.org hopes to cut costs from the failed Elf Work Relief Program that forced many Jackson Hole business owners to absorb exorbitant costs from unemployment.
In a bid to obtain the quota of 1000 signatures needed to relocate the elves and send them on the righteous path, Jenkins’ company Circumerro will donate one dollar to the Children’s Learning Center’s “Adopt-A-Family” program for every electronic signature received, which will ultimately help local families in need this holiday season.
Central South Dakota renowned former EFIN freelance correspondent LJ Logger-Foot has also created an informative video that provides high-profile video capturings of prominent Jackson Hole locals and never-before-seen footage of the elves in action. The video is featured exclusively on SaveTheElves.org, and, quoting Stacey Logger (Logger-Foot’s ex-wife), “wonderfully captures the misguided and mediocre nature of LJ.”
About SaveTheElves.org
Initiated during the 2007 holiday season, the nonprofit SaveTheElves.org was created by business owner Latham Jenkins in order to rid the Jackson Hole community of its wayward elf problem. SaveTheElves.org hopes its Christmas petition will obtain enough signatures to allow Santa Claus to relocate the wayward elves and rehabilitate them into being the meaningful and productive members of the North Pole elf community they once were. SaveTheElves.org also hopes to cut unemployment costs.
About Circumerro
Founded in 1995 and based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Circumerro is a creative media agency with four divisions: Creative, Publishing, Web Video and Stock Photography. Circumerro builds products and provides services that create relationships between buyers and sellers through delivering best-in-class service and communication tools.
Traditionally, elves have gathered on the National Elf Refuge in Jackson Hole as a resting place on their journey from warmer climes during their off-season back to the North Pole to help Santa make and deliver toys to all the girls and boys of the world. The gathering of the elves was a pleasant time for them to relax and for Jackson Hole locals and visitors to watch the elves, observing them in the wild before they began the final leg of their journey to the North Pole.
But times have changed. Today, some elves have straggled behind the rest of the pack. These are the more mischievious and delinquent elves of elf society, and they are beginning to take a toll on the Jackson Hole community. Some of these particularly troubling elves can, from time to time, be seen loitering outside the National Elf Refuge, no longer allowed onto their previous resting grounds for concern by local officials and refuge managers that they are depleting the natural resources and harassing other wildlife on the refuge. In addition, elves have been spotted around the Town of Jackson, harrassing tourists and others in the Town Square, sleeping on park benches and in bus stop shelters, pan-handling, illegally attempting to wash car windows of passers-by, playing in traffic, throwing snowballs at vehicles, and generally wreaking havoc and causing a nuisance throughout Jackson Hole.
When this problem first came to light, Town of Jackson officials created a local worker elf program to get delinquint elves off the street and help make them productive members of our human society. Local businesses have employed elves in various capacities. Mayor Mark Barron himself has employed elves in the town offices and at his own business. Unfortunately, the effort has been almost entirely unsuccessful. Again, this year the elves are, more often than not, creating trouble in the workplace or simply not showing up for their jobs, and are back to causing a nuisance around the valley.
So this year, fed up with the current elf situation, local businessman and owner of Circumerro, Latham Jenkins, has begun the Save The Elves campaign, starting a petition pleading to Santa Claus himself to bring an extra large sleigh down here to Jackson Hole before Christmas, gather up the elves, and take them back to the North Pole, to their natural habitat, where they can be reintroduced into elf society and lead productive lives.
So, as part of Circumerro’s message of good will and peace on earth this holiday season, we are asking everyone around the world to support the Save The Elves campaign, letting Santa know how important it is for him to retrieve these wayward elves and take them back to the North Pole in time to help make toys for this year’s Christmas. Please visit SaveTheElves.org to watch our informative video and sign the petition to Save the Elves.
For every person who signs our online petition, giving their name and email address, Circumerro will donate one dollar to Jackson Hole’s Children’s Learning Center (CLC) supporting families in need this holiday season. Remember, all you need to do to save the elves and help a family in need this holiday season is sign the petition. Circumerro will take care of coordinating with Santa and making the donation to the Children’s Learning Center.
Thank you for your help in this worthy cause. Please be sure to tell your friends and family about SaveTheElves.org, and have a happy holiday season.
Seasons greetings and peace on earth,
Your friends at Circumerro
Quoting from Animal House’s Dean Wormer, “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son!,” is the thought that comes to mind with our delinquent Elf situation in Jackson Hole. As a local employer, it is a social and economic burden to our community and it is impacting our businesses.
I am trying to take the high road (and save money while doing so) by starting the campaign, SaveTheElves.org, to petition Santa to come get his elves and take them back to the North Pole and set them on a Righteous Path of excellent work ethic and conservative nog-drinking habits.
Please join me and our community in helping these wayward elves get back to the North Pole. Go to SaveTheElves.org and sign our petition today.
Sincerely,
Latham Jenkins
President and Founder of Save the Elves
P.S. For every signature received, I’ll donate monetary funds to a needy family in order to make their Christmas truly special this year.
Locale Charleston (Charleston.Locale.com) is helping local Charleston realtors reach out-of-area real estate buyers interested in the Lowcountry lifestyle. Locale Charleston is a top ranking real estate web site that gives perspective buyers the local insight to make informed real estate decisions.
“Charleston, South Carolina is a top destination in the South for lifestyle real estate buyers,” says Latham Jenkins, founder and president of Locale. “We established ourselves in Charleston in 2003 to help local Charleston realtors reach the national and international audience interested in the waterfront, oceanfront and coastal setting that Charleston offers.”
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About Locale
Locale offers Lifestyle Real Estate in Exceptional Places to Live. Through our network of “blue-chip” locales, we give consumers the local insight on what is like to be a local, helping them make informed real estate decisions as they consider which lifestyle community best fits them. For Realtors, Locale delivers the most targeted, qualified audience of online real estate buyers through our top-ranking Web sites that have a national scope. For more information, visit: www.locale.com.
About Circumerro
Circumerro is a creative media agency with four divisions: creative, publishing, web video and stock photography. Together they provide clients with best in class service and communication tools. Circumerro was founded in 1995 and is based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
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Locale is the network of Lifestyle Real Estate in Exceptional Places to Live. We provide you with powerful search tools to find the right real estate in an exceptional place, the kind of place you have always wanted to live. Then we give you perspective on what it’s like to be a local. For realtors, Locale delivers the most targeted, qualified audience of online real estate buyers through our top-ranking Web sites with local focus and national scope. Locale is published by Circumerro in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Circumerro’s divisions include Creative, Publishing, Stock and Video. Together they provide best-in-class communications tools and services.