Interview: Josh Maiolo

Advertising in Small Town America

A dear friend once told me that their cousin made advertorial videos for small towns. This was clearly something that me and an elite few would be interested in. That cousin is Josh Maiolo, Account Executive at CGI Digital. We talked about his work and how small cities and towns get the word out about the hot new dentist and all the other goings-on.

David Banks: Thanks for doing this. First, my question is; CGI is a huge company that does a lot of different things. What specifically do you focus on? What's your job title, and what sort of stuff do you do?

Josh Maiolo: I'm in a division within CGI Digital called ElocalLink. We partner with municipalities all across the country in every single state besides Hawaii. We'll partner with municipalities and city officials to create a cost-free video program for their official website. So we'll be spotlighting things like economic development, healthcare, real estate. If anything exciting is happening within the community, my production team will create videos for them.

What I will do is create a business list —we call them “community leaders”— long standing family owned and operated businesses that have been around forever, or large employers, large manufacturers, and I'll meet with them to present them the opportunity to essentially sponsor the video tour.

And there's a variety of ways to get businesses involved from all sizes but the most popular is they would get a video created by my team about their business that would be featured on the city's website around the video tour. And then they essentially get to keep the video to use for their other platforms. Social media, company website, TV commercial, and so on.

David Banks: How do you find the the companies or “community leaders” that sponsor these videos?

Josh Maiolo: So that's my specialty. It's what I love. I'll be going to Oregon in about a month, so right now I'm in the beginning stages of my research. I usually start with the Chamber [of Commerce]. So I'll find people who are Chamber members, and then I usually find myself going down a rabbit hole. So I'll find festivals in each community. And of course, if a business sponsors a festival, or if someone within their organization is a board of director at, let's say the United Way, I try to find as much community support as I can, and then I'll prioritize meeting with these businesses. When I'm in town I'll focus on reaching out to them and getting something set up, and then I'll continue meeting with people when I'm back in house via zoom or telephone conference.

David Banks: I was wondering if I could get a a glimpse into who makes the initial call to your company to get the ball rolling on this? Is it the the mayor's office with his sash calling you, or is it a business improvement district? Is it the Chamber itself that you start with the research? Who has the idea to reach out to you folks to to start this sort of work?

Josh Maiolo: So we're partnered with the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and we're endorsed by the National Association of Counties. So we'll have our marketing / grassroots team at all those conferences surrounded by the the city officials, and we have the the booth set up. And honestly, at this point word of mouth is, I'd say, our best form of forming these partnerships because we've been doing it for so long. And there's been cities we've been doing videos for for well over a decade, so they just keep coming back to us.

At this point in my career I kind of like to pick and choose where I travel. I like to go as far west as I possibly can and then I'll start my research. I have an associate or a business development specialist who will set up my appointments for me, so they'll take my research and call the business and say, “We know you do this, this and this. Josh wants to find 10 to 15 min to to meet with you and show you how you can get involved.” And we work very well together. We've been working together for 5 years, so we can kind of read each other's minds at that point, but that's kind of the the process from start to finish in a nutshell.

David Banks: You said you you like to work out West. But can you give me some examples of cities you work in?

Josh Maiolo: So I'm going to be going out to Scappoose, Oregon. It's about 10,000 people. I like the smaller communities because I feel like I I get to know more people than a larger city. I was just in Roy, Utah. So the Salt Lake area. Before that Cedar City, Utah next to Saint George. I love the mountains. Before that Erie County, Pennsylvania, which was just two and a half hours from me. Not a big fan of being too close to home like that. Not as excited as when I’m out West.

David Banks: Give me a range of the size and character of cities that you like to work with and why. Is it just the mountains? What is it about the places that you choose that you like?