UM and IPG are all in for small business with a new initiative designed to help U.S. privately owned operations navigate the complexities of the coronavirus pandemic.
The “All In for Small” initiative was developed by UM and innovation lab IPG Medialab in collaboration with IPG agencies Kinesso, Momentum, Octagon, Reprise, R/GA and United Minds.
“Our ‘All In for Small’ platform leverages the collective knowledge of experts across the IPG network and their partners to provide American small businesses with the tools and resources they need to successfully weather this pandemic and come out the other side stronger,” UM global chief client officer Trish Chuipek said in a statement. “At UM and IPG, we are ‘All In for Small’ because we truly believe that small businesses are the backbone of our communities. We hope that small business owners will find our platform to be useful in navigating the ‘new normal,’ leading to better outcomes for their businesses.”
Chuipek explained that the initiative was inspired by client American Express’ Stand for Small coalition of over 60 companies offering support to small businesses.
“We knew we wanted to be part of a solution and started by asking ourselves, ‘What value can we bring to small businesses to help them survive and thrive in the current crisis?'” Chuipek told AgencySpy, explaining that they arrived at the answer of bringing together IPG’s collective marketing expertise and leveraging access to tech partners to provide valuable perspectives for small business owners.
The “All In for Small” initiative provides a resource hub for small businesses to find information on how the pandemic is impacting their industry and includes webinars, playbooks and thought leadership content from UM and other IPG agencies.
“All In for Small” will also feature a summer series of weekly virtual roundtables with small business owners, media and tech partners, and experts from UM and other IPG agencies. The series kicked off with episodes on real estate and restaurants. New episodes will livestream every Tuesday at 1 p.m. Future topics will include beauty, fitness and wellness, entertainment and leisure, home improvement, nightlife, professional service and travel.
Chuipek said that the initiative will continue as long as needed to support small businesses, but may evolve over time along with the situation around the pandemic.
“One idea we’ve been toying around with is providing individual consulting services to small business owners who might require short-term expertise to tackle a specific problem,” she said. “We have more thinking to do around this and want to hear from small business owners on the value our current format is providing to them as well.”