Totally Tubular

The Goal: Follow the lead of “YouTube’s” popularity and devise ways to communicate with members of the Capital City Club that are more in step with today’s interactive, online environment.

by C&RB Staff (editor@clubandresortbusiness.com)
April 2008
 

Totally Tubular The Goal: Follow the lead of “YouTube’s” popularity and devise ways to communicate with members of the Capital City Club that are more in step with today’s interactive, online environment. The Plan: Produce “VueTube” videos featuring the Club Manager and Executive Chef that promote upcoming club events, dining room specials, and other activities, and place them on the club’s Web site for member viewing. Use “virtual tour” techniques to help viewers “enter” and see the kitchen, dining rooms and event rooms. The Payoff: Member reaction has been overwhelmingly positive to a new and extremely effective communications technique that cost only $530 for required equipment.

Connections between private clubs and the “YouTube” generation usually aren’t drawn too readily. And the Capital City Club, founded in Atlanta in 1883, is a venerable institution that might be one of the last places you would expect to take its cue from the popularity of “YouTube” videos to help improve the impact, and immediacy, of its member communications.

But while the Capital City Club is indeed one of the oldest and most prestigious social clubs in America, it has not only survived, but prospered for 125 years largely because of its ability to keep up with changing times. While maintaining its impressive original facility in downtown Atlanta, near the Georgia state capitol building, the club has also extended its reach and reputation for top quality and service to two other locations as the region has grown, and now also operates the Country Club in Brookhaven, and the Crabapple Golf Club in Cherokee and Fulton counties.

“The best aspects of the American Dream have been realized by all who have been part of the growth and success of the Capital City Club,” the club’s Web site proclaims. “As long as new generations of members and staff remain true to the principles and purposes that have characterized the club for 125 years, Capital City will continue to survive and prosper with confidence for many years to come.”

With Assistant Club Manager Hector Batista behind the camera, Club Manager, Hugo Welch (below) and Executive Chef Brant Good now welcome members into the kitchen, and other Capital City Club venues, for regular online “VueTube” video updates on upcoming events and specials.

Foremost among those “principles and purposes” is doing whatever it takes to get the information that members need about club activities to them in a timely and effective fashion. And even at such an established club like Capital City, reports Assistant Club Manager Hector Batista, “With the recent popularity of YouTube, members are being exposed to a much more interactive, online environment.”

So Batista decided to learn to record, edit and post “YouTube”-style videos—renamed “VueTube”—on the members-only portion of the Capital City Club Web site. Using in-house equipment (camcorder, tripod, lighting, and microphone) and editing software acquired at a total cost of less than $530, Batista now regularly films Club Manager Hugo Welch and Executive Chef Brant Good in venues around the club, to make mini-videos (normally one to two minutes) that promote upcoming club event or dining room specials. All of the videos try to use a “virtual tour” technique, with Welch doing the introductions and then either he or Good “taking” viewers around the kitchen, dining rooms or event rooms, as they discuss the pertinent topic of the moment.

The footage is then edited and post-produced by Batista, with some videos even being set to background music when appropriate. “Member reaction has been overwhelmingly positive,” Batista says. “Once we make the videos available on the Web site, the members can not only see, but hear, what promotions and events are upcoming. And we can easily change the videos daily, if needed. Overall, [the videos] definitely provide a more current and savvy promotional tool than what can be accomplished through the traditional printed, one-dimensional [newsletter] medium.”

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