1) At Fancy, we’ve always been remote-optional, so working from home has not been a huge transition for us. What has been a surprise is the whole bunch of other people at home (including, but not limited to, kids that need to be homeschooled, partners that are also trying to work, grandparents and muddy dogs. etc.)! Needless to say, juggling it all has been a challenge and has required some creative workarounds. Production restrictions have meant we’ve used animation where we may have produced live-action in the past and done some work in hyper-speed, only to redo it based on shifting needs within the ever-changing COVID times. The good news is, though, that sometimes, like a tight brief, restrictions result in surprisingly interesting work.
2) We are viewing every piece of work as an opportunity to push the message farther. As advertisers and marketers, we can sit back and reflect the world we are in, or we can create work that strives to change it. We embrace the latter.
3) We are an agency focused on elevating what’s important to women. You can see it in our client work, or pro bono work, and in the way we work. The clients that are attracted to us have a similar mission. Though our clients have always been concerned about addressing inequality regarding gender, sexual orientation, race, and age, with the recent and needed focus on intrinsic racism in this country, there is a more concerted focus on creating work that is actively anti-racist.
4) Apple’s “The-whole-working-from-home-thing” video was incredibly insightful. They did a great job covering so many aspects of the work from home reality. The truth is, emergency project or not, in the WFH world, there is somehow less time for everything. It also helps remind us why we started our own agency. Mean bosses should never be OK.
5) In March we created a social campaign for Mask Match, an organization formed by Liz Klinger, to address the lack of N95 masks for healthcare workers. It was all done instantaneously. Liz, came up with the idea of pairing unneeded masks with those in need and instantly mobilized a bunch of eager volunteers, Fancy created the campaign in a week and the cause was incredibly successful (almost a million masks were matched). A valuable lesson in how much good can be done in a very small amount of time when people pour their hearts into it.
6) I am very hopeful that content and agencies will continue to become more inclusive. It’s just plain good for the world, good for business and the right thing to do. I’m dreaming of the day when diversity and equality are the norms. And, I think there will still be a lot of empty office space as WFH becomes the default and more small, 100% remote agencies are born.
7) As a 100% women-owned, operated, and focused agency, we know the challenges and barriers women face to get ahead despite their talent. We have an opportunity to help lift women and minority filmmakers, and so we do. One of the beautiful things about our (mostly) project-based agency is that we are able to build teams of people who are especially relevant for and passionate about the assignment. It also means we know a lot of people, who know a lot of people. We’re always looking for (and appreciative of) introductions to more diverse talent and partners.
