Baton Rouge Promotional Video Obviously Produced by Someone Who’s Never Been to Baton Rouge

Have you ever seen a presentation about a place by someone who not only has obviously never been to that place, but probably doesn’t even know anyone who’s ever visited there?

If not, then you owe it to yourself to check out this promotional video of Baton Rouge by CityOf.com, an online marketing company based in Corpus Christi, TX, whose tagline is “More Local… Faster.”

In addition to hundreds of videos promoting small businesses around the country, CityOf.com’s YouTube page also features a video titled “Visit City of Baton Rouge Louisiana | ‘Big Raggedy.'”

That’s right, they included the capital city’s illustrious nickname “The Big Raggedy” in the title of their video expounding all the awesome reasons one should spend a significant amount of time in Baton Rouge. I can’t believe the mayor didn’t personally show this to Jeff Bezos to convince him to build that Amazon distribution center here.

For starters, it opens on a still photo of downtown Baton Rouge. Fittingly, as the narrator describes the city as “an amazing collection of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes,” the video pans left to reveal the myriad chemical plant smokestacks climbing into the hazy Big Raggedy sky. Makes you want to inhale deeply and smell the sweet, sweet aroma of ozone nonattainment.

The rest of the video pans in/out/left/right on a series of still photos, three of which were definitely shot in Baton Rouge: the Old Governor’s Mansion, BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo, and “Bayou Blue (sic) Water Park.”

The other dozen pics are generic stock photos, most of which attest to the fact that whoever put this thing together has no clue about Baton Rouge.

Yes, Baton Rouge is best known for embracing change and forward thinking. That’s why we’ve spent nearly as much time thinking about building a loop around the city as we did embracing being the home to the longest-running school desegregation case in the country.

The accompanying narration only reinforces that fact.

“The people of Baton Rouge are resilient and embrace change and forward thinking.”

Yes, Baton Rouge is best known for embracing change and forward thinking. That’s why we’ve spent nearly as much time thinking about building a loop around the city as we did embracing being the home to the longest-running school desegregation case in the country.

“Baton Rouge has plenty of swamps within the city limits,” the narrator explains over a stock photo of a lake framed by a ridge of cloud-kissed hills towering hundreds of feet above the waterline. You know, the ones that people in Baton Rouge hike and climb all the time, right?

As the video transitions from a photo of a green at a golf course that is definitely not Webb Park to a stock photo of a woman holding shopping bags, the narrator goes for the comedic jugular.

“Whether you are golfing at Webb Park golf course, or shopping at Cortana Mall, you will find yourself having a blast in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.”

Fun fact: Anyone who ever had a blast at Cortana Mall is as dead as Cortana Mall. Sure, this video was published in 2015, but Cortana had long been in need of hospice care by that point.

“From the heritage anchor stores like JCPenney, Macy’s and Sears, to over 100 additional specialty stores and an impressive selection of restaurants, Cortana Mall is setting the stage to be around another thirty years, and beyond.”

The video closes by telling viewers they can find on the CityOf.com website more insightful information about the Big Raggedy, including “102 Things to do” in Baton Rouge, like:

• Bayou Country Superfest, which moved to New Orleans a couple years ago



• Marcello’s Wine Market, which no longer has a Baton Rouge location



• Casino Rouge (aka Hollywood Casino), which hasn’t been called Casino Rouge since early 2007



and, of course…

• Cortana Mall.



Imagine being so blatantly ignorant about the subject you’ve been paid to promote that you would write this about an anchor-store-free mall that some city leaders are seriously considering turning into a soccer facility because the owners are asking for 1/3 less than what they paid for it four years earlier:

At Cortana Mall, they must be doing something right. After all, the mall has been a Baton Rouge favorite for over 30 years. With that kind of longevity, you have to always deliver the best shopping experience possible to everyone who walks through the front door. And that is precisely what the staff and merchants of Cortana Mall do each and every day. From the heritage anchor stores like JCPenney, Macy’s and Sears, to over 100 additional specialty stores and an impressive selection of restaurants, Cortana Mall is setting the stage to be around another thirty years, and beyond.

Yes, when it comes to keeping a finger off the pulse of a major American city, nobody does it quite like CityOf.com.