Amazon To Birmingham? It's A Long Shot, But Birmingham Has 'Big' Hopes

BIRMINGHAM, AL - When Amazon announced in September it was soliciting bids from cities across North America for a place to build its second headquarters — its first outside of the Seattle area - the thought that Birmingham would even attempt to land the online retail giant seemed far-fetched. But Birmingham has tossed its hat into the ring, and although the city remains a long shot to land the new headquarters, its ad campaign to attract Amazon is turning heads nationally.

Recently, the Washingtonian ranked Birmingham's campaign No. 1 on a list of nine of the public campaigns cities have put together to woo Amazon. Birmingham advertising firm Big Communications launched the "Bring A to B" campaign, which first involved the construction of three giant replicas of an Amazon box placed around town for residents to take photos with.

The second part of the campaign was praised by the Seattle Times, which featured Big's replica Amazon Dash buttons, resembling the company's one-click ordering devices, that when pushed send one of 600 different prepared tweets touring some of the best features of Birmingham.

"The BringAtoB campaign was the brainchild of Big Communication's Chief Creative Officer, Ford Wiles," said Ashley Fulmer-Foster of Big Communication. "Knowing that Birmingham wanted to respond to Amazon’s RFP, he envisioned a campaign that would not only work to attract Amazon with its creativity, but one that would mobilize our entire city behind it, both on and offline. He and the Big team developed the BringAtoB campaign concept and presented it to public and private members of the Birmingham economic development community. Once they saw the uniqueness of the campaign itself, these entities collectively agreed to support the campaign’s development and production."

Fulmer-Foster said the campaign took shape quickly, in that the time elapsed from concept to group presentation and approval to installation of the giant Amazon boxes took "a week or less." The giant buttons are located at the Pizitz Food Hall and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hill Student Center.

The headquarters project would create up to 50,000 direct jobs, boost indirect employment by 53,000 and create $38 billion in economic activity. (For more updates on this story and free news alerts for your neighborhood, sign up for your local Birmingham Patch morning newsletter.)

Birmingham is among the smaller of the cities bidding for the headquarters, and Huntsville announced this week it would also bid on the project. Proposals to Amazon are due by Oct. 19.

Photo courtesy of Big Communications