“Milwaukee’s a great place. We focus on the things that are not so great all the time, right? But we make Milwaukee what it is. A great place in transition.”
Those are the first words – spoken by Sharlen Moore, founder of Urban Underground – of Imagine MKE’s annual video tribute to the city, a love letter to Milwaukee’s arts, culture and creative industries ahead of Sunday’s 414 Day, also known as Milwaukee Day.
It’s time to pick your Milwaukee favorites for the year!
Directed by Wes Tank and produced by Sara Daleiden, the fifth installment of the annual series features many Milwaukee artists, arts organizations and arts and civic leaders. Set to Vincent Van Great’s “Star Track,” featuring Milwaukee-born duo SistaStrings, the video is a who’s who of Milwaukee culture figures, from Ferne Caulker Bronson to Klassik to the Bel Canto Choir. An array of landmarks grace the screen –Three Bridges Park, America’s Black Holocaust Museum, Cactus Club, the Hoan Bridge.
Rather than a single video release, this year’s Milwaukee Day video functions as a culminating storytelling piece within a 16-week content campaign celebrating Milwaukee’s artistic and cultural vibrancy. The campaign invites viewers to reimagine Milwaukee as a great place to visit, live, work and play, and as a creative community on the rise.
“This year’s Milwaukee Day video has been a remarkable labor of love and is the crown jewel of the Reimagine Milwaukee campaign,” Imagine MKE Executive Director Adam Braatz said, describing it as “a media time capsule of this moment in the life of Milwaukee’s creative community.”
Braatz said he hopes the video “will resonate in an enduring way with all those who call Milwaukee home, and can serve to broadcast the special warmth, creativity and diversity of Milwaukee to the outside world.”
Since the Reimagine Milwaukee media campaign launched in mid-January, Imagine MKE and its partners have produced more than 100 pieces of original content distributed across seven platforms in more than 375 social posts. The content has drawn attention to nearly 100 Milwaukee-based creatives and arts organizations.
So far, the Reimagine Milwaukee campaign has garnered more than 1 million impressions, with videos viewed more than 500,000 times for a total of over 2,300 hours of combined watch time.
The campaign runs through mid-May.
