‘Up and Running’ an overwhelming success story

As we begin to enjoy life at Covid Level 1, we can reflect upon the success of the Up and Running campaign that helped hundreds of local small businesses re-open upon the move from Covid-Level 4 Lockdown to Level 3.

The initiative, established by two locally owned companies LUMO Digital Outdoor and Pitchblack Partners, offered much-needed free publicity to small and medium-sized enterprises across New Zealand. The team at Pitchblack looked after the creative design, while the LUMO team offered media placements across its network of 23 digital billboards in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton and Tauranga.

“The lockdown period was a very tough time for most businesses so we felt it was important to use our media network for good by encouraging local people to support local businesses” says Phil Clemas, LUMO’s co-Founder and CEO.

Clemas adds, “The team at Pitchblack Partners gave the campaign their all with ad design services and were supported by their friends at Assembly and Aux Digital, who built a new website and logo animation, within just a couple of days. This really showed their enthusiasm for the initiative and their desire to be involved.”

The campaign opened on Tuesday April 28th and was so compelling that just 48 hours after its launch, over 500 submissions from small businesses had been made.

“Receiving all the positive feedback from small business owners was genuinely heart-warming. I’m just glad we could pitch in and help out so many small businesses around the country,” says Tom Paine, Creative Partner at Pitchblack.

Many of the businesses who took advantage of Up and Running offered click & collect or delivery services, enough to get them started under the restrictions of Level 3. The feedback from many summed up the positive impact across the board. Here are a few examples:

Sam Hickey, co-founder of men’s clothing subscription company Asuwere, which recently opened its flagship store in Commercial Bay, says, “It was great to be involved in the Up and Running campaign, at a time where everyone was trying to figure out the next steps, the initiative gave us all some much-needed optimism and it’s helped us with the successful launch of our new store.”

Kendal McSorley from KM Makeup says, “This brought me to tears. Thank you so much for your generous act of kindness throughout this time. What an exciting experience seeing my business on a large digital billboard. I can’t thank you enough.”

Diana Christian from Ecology & Co said, “That’s awesome! Thank you so much. I’ve never seen us so big before. And it’s a really great and kind initiative to help us all out.”

Brett Langendan from License To Wire said, “Wow! That is awesome! Thank you guys so much for helping out in these times! My appreciation knows no bounds.”

Peter Lorimer from Deep Down Wines said, “Thanks so much for supporting our little business. To be honest it’s surreal seeing our brand in lights on Ponsonby Rd. This is an awesome initiative and spreads really positive energy amongst the gloom. We really appreciate the support during these challenging times.”

The campaign ran for five weeks, displayed over 1,500 advertisements to help hundreds of businesses and was a very rewarding experience for all involved. https://upandrunning.org.nz/

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