How has your company been impacted by concerns over the coronavirus–or the virus itself if a worker or client has been stricken–in terms of business, your staff, client relationships?
Our entire industry has obviously been majorly impacted by this crisis and our companies have been no exception. Fortunately, at this time our staff have been minimally impacted by the disease, and the clients that we have been in contact with, are similarly fortunate, to my knowledge. However, by the end of this crisis, I am sure we will be, and we will all know someone who has been directly impacted by the virus. In terms of business, our experience is the same as others in the industry. A sharp fall off of jobs and inquiries for future work. Our staff and our clients are being incredibly understanding and supportive, and we are all looking after each other through this difficult time.
The well-being, health and safety of people is clearly top priority. What measures have you taken to protect your staff and collaborators during this challenging time?
Like most businesses, we reacted very quickly to ensure the health and wellbeing of our staff and clients. All of our offices closed between the 13th – 17th of March. Our amazing tech team got everyone prepared to work from home and we got staff out of our offices as quickly and as safely as possible. We are now set up across all of our offices to support our clients and to continue an uninterrupted remote workflow. We can provide edit, color, flame, animation, CGI, design, and even a small amount of user-generated content, all from our homes. We’ve already put this to the test with a number of entirely remote jobs.
How have you adapted your behavior, practices, policies, approaches, ways of thinking and doing business in response to the pandemic?
Well, obviously, we are now working from home instead of our offices, so that is very different. But in a lot of respects business continues as normal. Our sales group lets our clients know of our remote capabilities and how we can continue to work effectively with agencies and brands directly. Our creative talent continues to work on projects and pitch for new work. Our accounting group has worked harder to collect our receivables. Like many others in our industry, we are owed money for work that we have already completed and that money will be needed to sustain many small businesses during this time. The AICP published a strong statement about this on behalf of all production and postproduction companies. However, we are also being friendly with cancellation and postponement policies at this time, as we know that agencies and brands are in the same boat.
Were you in the midst of a particular project when the coronavirus outbreak hit and how did you manage to deal with that situation?
We were in the middle of multiple projects when the closure occurred, and we needed to quickly move to remote working. We did so seamlessly with minimal impact on our jobs. We also remained open a few days later to accommodate clients that wanted to come into our offices to work in person. But to be honest, most clients were as eager as we were to start with social distancing and to work remotely.
What’s your biggest takeaway or lessons learned from your experience dealing with coronavirus concerns thus far?
I’ve been constantly reminded that we are fortunate to have such amazing staff and clients. Everyone came together without any moans or gripes and mobilized to work from home and to support each other as we all embraced the “new normal.” We are blessed that we are all safe, can adopt new working practices like Zoom conferences, and can continue working. And yes, Zoom virtual cocktail parties in our company have also become a thing!
What advice, if any, would you offer to your counterparts at other companies/agencies, your clients and collaborators?
You have to take a deep breath and embrace this. It’s going to be a long road with many challenges. But with ingenuity and some resourcefulness, we will all get through this. I am also impressed by the power of community within our industry, even our competitors are all reaching out to each other to share ideas and offer support.
Contingency plans have been prepared by many in light of the situation. Please share any aspects of those plans or tell us how your short and long-term business plans have been affected.
Indeed, we started working on contingency plans prior to the crisis becoming critical. We are operating business as normal for now, but we watched the new stimulus package as it emerged from the government and are now busy interpreting it. We intend to support our amazing and talented staff through this crisis and take advantage of governmental support where it is available. We hope to emerge from this with renewed creativity and vitality. Long term plans have been curtailed (but not abandoned), to focus on getting through the crisis with our staff intact, and to offer help and support to our extended community where possible.
It’s said that strength emerges from adversity. Do you see any silver lining or positive dynamic emerging for our industry/marketplace from this global health crisis?
The main thing that I am impressed by, is that during adversity you often see the best of humanity. I hope to see that perpetuate. I think it’s way too early to see into the future, but I suspect that if this emergency lasts a good number of months, then we all may get used to working from home. Maybe we don’t have large offices in expensive major cities? Perhaps smaller offices in those cities and more folks working remotely would become a new model. But I do worry about our company culture being diluted without a hub. Zoom is great but not as great as in-person human interaction.
Have you deployed your company’s creative and communication skills to address the pandemic (PSAs, educational videos, other initiatives)? Please tell us about these efforts.
We have worked with a number of our major clients to refocus their messaging to address this crisis in a compassionate and meaningful way. We have also reached out to brands and clients to offer our services. One of our clients has switched its production line to make ventilators. We’ve offered to help them make a how-to instructional video for medical staff to understand how to use this new type of machine. We are more than willing to help wherever we can during this crisis.
