• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, November 23, 2012

The holiday season is often a time of reflection. For many, it’s also a time of excessive eating and drinking, which can lead to weight gain and other deleterious effects to a person’s general health.

Couple that with the stressful and sedentary working regimen of many agency staffers. With that in mind, planning and buying agency Media Storm recently completed a series of programs and activities designed to get staffers to focus more on personal health and wellness efforts.

As an incentive to participate, the shop created teams within the agency that competed for a trip to Niketown USA in New York, where the winning team members received a free pair of sneakers of their own design. Teams earned points by brainstorming and coming up with ideas to remind employees companywide how to stay in better health.

The agency also put together a cookbook to promote healthy eating. Those contributing recipes earned 25 points for their team. Other point-earning activities included participating in charity walks and getting flu shots.

Commenting on the effort via email, Media Storm managing partner and cofounder Tim Williams wrote: “We believe in investing in our agency’s greatest asset -- our talent.  Encouraging their health and wellness, both in and out of the office, is important to us."

The shop challenged other agencies to get with the program. Corrine Andrade, Media Storm’s HR director, stated that it “would be nice to see others get involved further. We will take on any other media agency interested in participating in this challenge."

Media Storm is based in Brooklyn, New York. An earlier version of the story incorrectly counted MSNBC.com, Starbucks and Discovery Communications among its clients.

This version has been updated.