PIERCETON – Jas. Townsend and Son Inc., Pierceton, focuses on the 18th century, using 21st century technology to communicate about its products, and that’s partially what caught the attention of ABC’s “Nightline.”
“We’re using YouTube to heighten people’s awareness and interest in history,” said Kevin Carter, Townsend and Son director of marketing and producer/director of the business’s YouTube channel.
“Nightline” visited Townsend and Son Tuesday to film a segment for an episode of the news show. Carter said the show producer couldn’t provide him with an air date, but it could be anytime from now to some time after the new year.
What made “Nightline” aware of Townsend and Son was its YouTube cooking video about 18th century fried chicken.
“We have been providing clothing and accessories for the living history market for over 40 years. We sell to re-enactors, museums, historical sites, the theater market, Broadway and Hollywood,” Carter said.
More recently, he said they supplied their goods for the miniseries on John Adams, the Leonardo DiCaprio film “The Revenant” and the television show “The Turn.” “Those are the three recent ones, but it goes way back,” Carter said, mentioning “The Patriot” starring Mel Gibson and “The Last of the Mohicans” starring Daniel Day-Lewis.
Eight years ago, Townsend and Son decided to experiment with YouTube as part of its marketing strategy, but at that time no one understood the potential of YouTube, Carter said. They started making videos that marketed specific products. Those videos had minimal response, so they tried making their own full-length film and then humor videos. Still not a lot of response.
Then they began making 18th century cooking videos and the response was “much greater,” Carter said. “We started producing a weekly cooking series. That snowballed. We started adding different genres, but we stuck with the cooking series,” he said. Last summer they began using recipes they found in 17th, 18th and 19th century cookbooks, which they researched.
For one video, they tried a recipe titled “Marinade Chicken.” Townsend and Son President Jon Townsend, who also is the host of the YouTube cooking channel, realized it was a different way of making fried chicken. “We think of fried chicken being a southern dish, but here was an 18th century English recipe for fried chicken,” Carter stated.
The video went viral. It was posted on Reddit, and “overnight it had 1 million views.” The channel’s subscribers went from 75,000 to 150,000 overnight and continues to grow.
David Wright, the “Nightline” correspondent who visited Townsend this week, saw the fried chicken video and took it to his producer. She watched it, and several hours later after watching more of the channel’s videos, she realized she was hooked.
The videos also have been drawing many comments, Carter said. “This video and the comments became news items the same week,”?he said, with newspapers on he East and West coasts not only publishing stories about the 18th century recipes but also taking a look at the comments people left.
“People tell us routinely our channel is one of the last safe places on YouTube,” Carter said. “We have filters for things like profanity, but overall there’s very little policing we have to do. Out of 100 comments, we only have to delete one or two comments. It’s a very unique community of people.”
Carter continued, “It was all of that that captured the attention of ABC’s ‘Nightline.’ They wanted to know what this little business in Pierceton is.” Wright spent the majority of Tuesday in the shop interviewing Townsend. He also interviewed people about the core of the business. At the end of the day, Carter said they shot a YouTube video for the Townsend channel with Wright as a guest.
In his questions, Wright asked Townsend why there was a focus on the 18th century. “While there’s obviously a difference between the 17th century and the present, when you begin to look at the economical and political landscapes of the (18th and 21st centuries), you can draw correlations,” Carter recalled Townsend explaining.
In the 18th century, America was transitioning from an agricultural base to an industrial one. In today’s times, it’s transitioning from industrial to technological. “And if we choose to ignore history, we risk making the same mistakes,” he said. “The 18th century also is interesting in that what we do today can be traced back to the 18th century, and we don’t realize that.”
For more information on Jas. Townsend and Son Inc., 133 N. First St., Pierceton, visit its website at https://jas-townsend.com or its YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/jastownsendandson.
