Tourism video shines light on NK

NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. — “North Kingstown: Rhode Island’s Best Kept Secret.”

So goes the tagline for a new promotional video highlighting the town and its businesses unveiled Nov. 18 by the Town of North Kingstown and North Kingstown Chamber of Commerce in a premiere at Anvil International.

The video, which is just over three minutes long and was posted to the town’s YouTube channel the next day, was created by Providence-based PR firm JaiCG and produced by the company’s founder and managing director, Joseph Phommasith. The firm has also produced videos across the state for United Way, CCRI and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

The video highlights many aspects of the town, including its location, businesses, neighborhoods, schools, landmarks, access to a variety of forms of transportation and the Quonset Business Park.

The idea for creating such a promotional video first came about during a discussion last year between members of the Town Council and Town Manager Ralph Mollis, who soon reached out to North Kingstown Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Kristin Urbach.

“The chamber has been a great partner in all of this and so we decided to work together on it because (Urbach) had some of the same goals,” Mollis said.

From there, the two groups began the process of hiring a company to produce the video and decided on JaiCG, which both Mollis and Urbach praised. From there, the next step was figuring out not only what they wanted the message to be, but the best way to present it.

“What we wanted to convey was that it’s a great place to work, live, visit and play,” Urbach said. “A lot of videos that are out there are cookie-cutter videos and they say a lot of statistics and we wanted a video that draws you in and really captures the heart and feel and the true essence of our community.”

“When we looked internally, we realized that we are just very unique,” Mollis said, praising the town’s access to land, air, rail and sea as a coastal community while also having town beaches and its own municipal golf course in addition to the Quonset Business Park and school system with some of the top-rated public schools in the state according to the most recent RIDE study. 

“When we start talking about that, we realized that this is something a lot of Rhode Islanders and people outside of Rhode Island aren’t aware of, that’s why we came up with ‘Rhode Island’s Best Kept Secret,’” Mollis said. “We thought it’d be a great idea to put something together that highlights those assets, promotes our quality of life and is something to send with a fact sheet to hopefully promote business around Post Road and elsewhere in North Kingstown.”

For Urbach, deciding on what exactly to highlight was the hardest part, but she wanted to portray an overall view on the assets of the community. 

“We would’ve loved to include everybody, all of the businesses and all of the attractions and all of the people but you can’t in three minutes, so it was more to get an understanding and a feel for what we do have to offer,” Urbach said.

While Mollis was involved in the whole production process of the video, he said seeing the finished product left him feeling “extremely pleased.”

“It got our message across in a very unique way and it really promoted North Kingstown’s terrific quality of life and its people, its businesses, its assets and so I think it covered everything we were looking to cover and I was extremely impressed by the quality of work from the company we brought on, also with the internal staff… a lot of individuals contributed to making that video what it was,” Mollis said.

Reactions from residents have also been positive, both Mollis and Urbach said.

“We got a number of calls, messages, a post just being very impressed with the video. If you’re a North Kingstown resident, a lot of people really took pride in the video, a lot of positive feedback,” Mollis said.

“I think what we’ve already seen it accomplish is people are really proud to live and work here and lots of people are sharing the video and lots of people are calling or sharing notes saying it makes them proud to be a resident here or to work for a company here,” Urbach said.

Mollis says the video was viewed over 4,000 times within 72 hours of its release on YouTube, and that while views on the video are currently reactive, he plans on using it as a proactive tool in the near future to encourage both businesses and people to move into town through sharing on social media and sending to prospective developers.

“North Kingstown is a very unique community in all that we have to offer,” Mollis said. “Not many cities or towns can brag about all of the assets we have and it’s great to be able to tell our story and I think it should make North Kingstown residents proud, but hopefully will also provide us with an effective marketing tool to promote development, especially along Post Road.”

The video can be found on YouTube under the name “North Kingstown RI’s Best Kept Secret.”