One day in August, in between rolling out batches of biscuits for a Friday the 13th bake-off – a teacher’s brainwave to cheer up home learners, if not their parents – a brilliant idea popped into our inbox.
Marketing professional and local mum Jessica Nelson had a plan to support local small businesses struggling through lockdown – ask those doing well to sponsor advertising in 2515 and 2508 magazines.
The #show2515youcare and #show2508youcare idea was an absolute cracker. Bigger businesses helping small businesses – a feel-good initiative to lift our spirits and practical proof of the power of community.
The Greater Sydney lockdown has been an ultramarathon for working parents. And the finish line keeps moving, so some are now at the crawling on hands and knees stage. For most of the ads you see in our magazines, imagine a local family business under pressure.
Some of the things we heard in August:
“We’re absolutely drowning.”
“UGH, I hate this lockdown, make it stop!”
“Our income is down to a trickle since choosing to close our shop.”
“I have adapted to offering online classes but this is a much smaller list of clients.”
“This is much harder than last lockdown.”
“Homeschooling has me on the backfoot.”
“We used to get a lot of government contract work, now it’s all dried up.”
“As you can imagine, no business wants to commit while we are in this horrid continual lockdown. Just taking it one day at a time!”
“People keep coming in, and they get angry when we ask them to put masks on.”
“I’m worried about my husband’s mental health.”
“If you could please pause my advertising for three months.”
“At least we’re not in Afghanistan.”
The Show You Care idea helps 2515 and 2508 too. Your community magazines are entirely funded by advertising and some of their biggest supporters – including Club Thirroul and Tradies Helensburgh – are closed, with no light in sight. It could be thanks to such a campaign that our page count doesn’t plummet.
I threw the biscuits in the oven, forgot to set a timer and rang Jess. We hatched a quick plan and the promo came together shortly before deadline. Please look out for the “Supported By” banners in this and future issues. If you’d like to sponsor a small business or charity ad at discounted rates, simply email us.
And if you need anything this month, be it a new house or a cup of coffee, go local!
By the way: the gingerbread men were badly burnt, but we patched over disaster. Plastered them in white icing, decorated with ghostly faces, they turned out to be a class prize-winner. Spooky.
A metaphor for our pandemic coping strategy?
Happy reading, everyone.
Genevieve and Marcus, the editors