7 Creative Ways Agencies Are Supporting Local Businesses

There are many ways to help individuals and small businesses struggling right now because of the global shutdown caused by Covid-19. A simple cash donation is perhaps easiest, but ad agencies—always on the lookout for ways to prove their creative chops—have come up with some lighthearted and, dare we say, fun ways to drum up money and support for the communities they work in. If your agency is looking for inspiration, check out the seven we’ve rounded up below. Some are more elaborate than others, but each manages to help out those in need, whether it's out-of-work bartenders or food banks experiencing skyrocketing demand. Merch Aid [kickout id="2"] Many small businesses are hurting right now due to lack of foot traffic. Restaurants have offered up gift cards, and some have continued serving guests via delivery and takeout, but that only provides so much. Nail salons, laundromats, tailors and the like are struggling to find ways to stay afloat. To help these less marketing-savvy businesses, a group of creatives at R/GA recently came up with Merch Aid, a nonprofit that creates merchandise—think T-shirts and tote bags—for small companies that are in desperate need of cash right now. The creatives have been pairing participating businesses with artists and designers, giving each collaboration its own unique look and feel. All merch sales go directly to the businesses themselves. More than $45,000 has been raised to date for 12 companies in New York City, and the plan is to bring the nonprofit to Austin and Los Angeles as well. “A lot of places that we love don’t have a way of generating alternative revenue,” said Zack Roif, associate creative director at R/GA. “This was born out of, ‘How do we give back to the types of businesses that make our community special to us?’” Roif said the initiative has been a success so far, noting that many of the businesses have worked out separate contracts with the artists to continue selling the merch even once the shutdown ends. The Community Bar [kickout id="8"] Most agencies have a local watering hole where employees regularly go to celebrate a win, welcome a new hire or, let’s be honest, vent and blow off steam. Bartenders are often privy to these conversations, finding themselves plugged into the ups and downs of agency life. With many bartenders now temporarily out of work, global agency The Community has come up with a way to help out the ones it knows best. The agency is inviting local bartenders to join happy hours via Zoom, encouraging employees to send them a tip via Venmo each time a fresh drink is poured. The first one raised roughly $1,000 for a bartender at the New Yorker Bar in Miami. Subsequent happy hours, all of which have been open to the agency’s staffers across its five offices, have raised money for bartenders in Buenos Aires, New York and San Francisco. The Community has created a microsite for the initiative and is encouraging other agencies to follow suit. Frank Cartagena, chief creative officer of The Community’s New York office, said interested agencies are welcome to use the “blueprint” it has created. “The idea is really simple: If we can’t go to the bars, then we’re going to bring the bars to us,” he said. “It’s not solving their problems, but the bartenders really appreciate it. It puts them back to work for a night.” Expense for Good [kickout id="4"] Team One, the Publicis shop that serves as agency of record for Lexus, recently came up with a simple way to support both local businesses and food banks across the U.S. Agency employees were asked to “expense” a meal of $20 or less from one of their favorite local restaurants. But instead of reimbursing staffers who participated, the agency matched the amount of each meal and turned it into a donation that went to a food bank in one of the agency’s five locations: Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, New York and Chicago. According to Ryan Durr, associate creative director at Team One, roughly 120 agency employees took part, raising $2,500. “It was pretty incredible that Team One was not just open to doing this idea, but jumped on it and committed to donating a real chunk of money,” Durr said. Wine Tasting [kickout id="1"] The employees of Blast PR each purchased two bottles of wine from Deep Sea, a local winery near its Santa Barbara, Calif., headquarters that’s struggling right now, since its tasting room has temporarily closed. Once their shipments arrived, the employees hosted a virtual wine tasting with one of Deep Sea’s winemakers to learn more about the bottles they’d purchased. Each employee was also offered a 20% discount code for future purchases. “As a team, we decided this is something that we wanted to do to support the local wine industry here,” said Alexis Roberts, account supervisor at Blast PR. “Wineries are really suffering right now.” New York-based Digital agency Barbarian is doing something similar. The agency recently instituted weekly online sessions called Wine 101s for its employees. Each week, a sommelier from a local restaurant that’s closed due to the pandemic joins the agency via Zoom for a wine tasting, and employees are encouraged to tip her via Venmo. According to Courtney Berry, managing director at Barbarian, the agency had partnered with the sommelier before quarantine, so it wanted to find a way to continue to support her. “We’ve been advising our clients to respond as genuinely as possible,” she said. “We felt that this was one of the ways that we could also respond in a genuine way.” This Month in Boston [kickout id="5"] Over the past few years, Arnold has created Boston-centric guides that highlight the city’s food, drink, art and culture scenes. Laura Voigt Hendrickx, Arnold’s svp and chief of staff, called the guides a “cheat sheet to all of the amazing stuff in our city.” According to Hendrickx, the guides have always been print-only “very purposefully,” as they were typically shared with coffee shops and other businesses featured throughout the issue. But this month's “at home” edition looks a little different, as it’s the first one being released digitally. Hendrickx said Arnold “resisted the temptation to take it digital for a really long time,” but stay-at-home orders forced it to reconsider. Now, the agency is using the opportunity to highlight local businesses in Boston that are pivoting and going virtual. For instance, one section details which restaurants are open for pick-up and delivery in addition to ways customers can donate or help. Another section features an interview with the owner of Bow Market, a business that provides space for entrepreneurs to sell their products. In the interview, he discusses how Bow Market is continuing to help and support local vendors throughout the current crisis. “As things change and evolve, having it be digital allows us a little bit of flexibility to add new things or additional companies that we can feature,” Hendrickx said. “Our goal is to share it with a lot of the local businesses that are featured as well as through Boston press. It’s a small thing, but we hope it has an impact [on] some of the local businesses we know and love.” ZoomAdoptions [kickout id="7"] By now, most people using Zoom have discovered the virtual background function, which lets users upload an image to serve as their backdrop. Some see it as a fun way to spice up otherwise boring video conferences; others use it to cover up the fact that they’re still in bed during the workday. RPA found another use case. The independent agency has created Zoom backgrounds that feature dogs from three pet rescue organizations in Los Angeles. The hope is that anyone who comes across these backgrounds, whether during a meeting or happy hour with friends, will be inspired to adopt. All backgrounds can be downloaded here. The initiative aligns with National Adopt a Shelter Pet Day on April 30. “The idea leverages behavior that is already happening within the Zoom app and uses it for good,” said Matthew Pullen, associate creative director at RPA. “Instead of using a background for just a fun expression, we turned this feature into cute ads that show off real shelter animals up for adoption. We love it when we can use creativity for good, and in this case help shelter animals get seen in their best light and hopefully adopted.” Save Cincy Small [kickout id="6"] Curiosity, an agency based in Cincinnati, Ohio, recently took to social media to spread the word about small businesses throughout the city in need of help. Using the hashtag #SaveCincySmall, the agency spotlighted 10 different small businesses in Cincinnati on its Instagram. But it didn’t stop there: Curiosity made sure to financially support each business in some way, whether through a donation or via purchases. For example, it bought gift cards from a local hair salon for future haircuts and made a donation to an art supply store. Curiosity tagged a different Cincinnati-based agency in each post, encouraging them to take part and help grow the initiative. According to the agency, VMLY&R, Barefoot Proximity, Empower and Hinge Global participated. Two of Curiosity's creative directors, Lee Taylor and Katie Gerdes, came up with the idea after seeing the challenges some of their favorite small businesses were facing. “What started as a companywide email quickly became a Slack channel, and then a social media campaign to rally the local advertising and design industry for support,” the agency said. “When things return to 'normal,' we plan to bring the owners of each establishment we supported into our office to share their stories and learn more about how they survived this challenging time.”