New Zealand owned advertising firm Stanley St is celebrating its success at the Designers Institute Best Design Awards 2022 earlier this month.
Stanley Street received a prestigious Gold Pin in the highly contested Public Good category for their beautiful ‘Support local, Shop local’ work.
The Public Good Award celebrates activity executed without financial gain to the recipient and recognises work that has been undertaken for the welfare of communities and for public interest. It demonstrates the important contribution design can make to social, cultural and community wellbeing, quality of life and identity.
‘Support local, Shop local’ was more than a piece of work for Stanley St. It was a passion project grounded in a love and drive for communities.
2020 was a year that changed all Kiwi lives. As Covid-19 hit and Aotearoa was thrown into lockdown, the daily number of cases, weeks locked in our bubbles, mounting redundancies and the unknown number of families that would lose their livelihoods weighed heavily. Stanley St decided together that their team of 130 was in a unique position to help the team of 5 million.
As an independent local business, Stanley St stepped up to do the right thing and offer assistance.
“We knew we had to do something. Despite being under level 4 lockdown restrictions ourselves, we took the initiative to combine our minds, developed a brief, and crafted a campaign aimed at giving back to the community that had given us all so much over the years,” Stanley Street CEO Siobhan Burke said.
Working with local businesses, Stanley St identified their key needs and established how they could help. With a sense of urgency and mission, a national campaign and usable resources were designed and distributed - all in under two weeks.
The campaign consisted of two parts:
1. A national, public facing mass-media campaign to persuade Kiwis that if they were going to shop anywhere, they should shop local.
2. Free resources for businesses, to help them through the hard times
‘Support Local, Shop Local’ became the national rallying call around which Stanley St built their messaging.
“We crafted a visually simple campaign, executed in stark black and white which we knew would save small businesses on printing costs and we brought the work to life with friendly, charming illustrations and writing. We’re really pleased with how it came together,” Stanley St’s Head of Design, Sam Cox said.
Media partners also heard the call with over $1million of television, newspapers, video on demand, out of home, social media, and digital space being provided for free.
Teams were mobilised around the country to create a suite of tools for SMEs to access and use. This evolved into a central website that hosted interviews and advice with key business leaders, information and downloadable toolkits – all free of charge.
Kiwis heard the call and rallied around their local businesses. 38,500 businesses accessed the website, 69% reported an earnings increase averaging over $5,000 each. 97% of businesses reported the toolkits to be useful to them, And whilst these numbers were important, Stanley St’s priority remained with the people of Aotearoa and the protection of their livelihoods.
The awards judges agreed: “A grass roots approach that embedded itself at the right time harnessing a movement of nationwide support. Highly versatile with its low key approach and not precious in its ownership, it’s designed for the people that worked in the areas most affected”
“Whilst we’re delighted to have been acknowledged for our work on Shop Local, we’re just so happy to see local businesses starting to thrive again now that lhe lockdowns are behind us,” Siobhan Burke said.
Prominent Business leaders such as Rod Duke, Rosanne Meo, Michael Barnett, David Bell and Jemma Whiten got behind the effort and gave of their time to offer advice.
“We couldn’t be prouder of the work the team all pulled together to give back to our communities across Aotearoa,” Burke said.
For further information please contact siobhan.burke@stanleyst.nz