This month, I want to tell you about one of the most inspiring people that I’m lucky enough to call my friend. I don’t remember how I met Keith Sarasin, but I’m sure it had something to do with a dating company he was running at the time. I wasn’t a client, but I was a photographer at a newspaper covering a story. Geez, that must have been back in like…I don’t know…2009? Keith will remind me later, I guess.
The Farmers Dinner | Embracing the Farmer from New Sky Productions on Vimeo.
Anyway, Keith jumped around from one job to the next, always with his head held high looking to make the greatest impact that he possibly could. It’s fitting that this was the case with Keith, because he’s gone on to create one of the coolest organizations that I can think of off of the top of my head, The Farmers Dinner. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a series of events where some of the best chefs in the Greater Boston Area gets to go crazy with some of the freshest, most delicious local foods from farmers just down the street. After the first year of The Farmers Dinners, Keith knew that this was something he wanted to do full time. We had a lot of conversations at this time. We even brought in Aaron Doherty, who at the time, was leasing a corner of our, at the time, totally oversized office for one (me). Today, Aaron works in marketing strategy in Boston for a company called Salsify, who I’m desperately trying to bring on as a client right now, so be sure to click that link a couple of times, yeah? They’re a super cool company that is only steps away from our office in Boston’s Downtown Crossing. But I digress as usual.
So after the first year of The Farmers Dinner, Keith approached me to help produce the above video. He has some really unrepentant views on food, which I love, because I also happen to share those feelings. Local farmers are the bomb.com, y’all. Have a strawberry and let’s be friends, k?
Since then, Keith has used this video a hundred and one different ways. He’s shown it at his dinners, obviously, he’s used it in social media marketing, email marketing, inbound marketing, peer to peer marketing, a brief stint in theaters running before movies, and probably a bazillion other ways that I don’t think about. Keith is a marketing wiz who is always willing to listen to your ideas and give you some more.
I love this video, because it reminds me of how it feels to be on a farm. It makes me think of the dirt that lives beneath farmer’s fingernails and how that affects their passionate approach to life’s most simple tasks. I think about how an heirloom tomatoe goes from being green to orange to red without the use of gases or rapid ripening. But most of all, it makes me think about Keith and the passion that he has for farmers and the care that they put in to our food.
There are a hundred and one ways to use videos like this and I hope to goodness that Keith is still using this in as many video marketing campaigns as he can. If he isn’t, it’s never to late to post a #tbt post about it and bring it back for a bit. We would love to help you make your passion your reality and help you tell others about it, unrepentant or not.
I hope this video inspires you to check out one of Keith’s events, and, if you like the video, give us a shout and let us know, ok?
