• by Larissa Faw , December 18, 2020

The holidays are here and agencies are letting loosed with related initiatives to raise spirits and elicit cheer from their teams.

R/GA Austin is introducing a timely project that recognizes many people will not be traveling to visit loved ones during the holidays due to COVID cases spiking across the U.S.
The “Skipping the Holiday Cards” campaign invites people to print or post on social media several cards with cheeky messages meant to convey that they are staying away because they care deeply about the recipients.  

With the inability to gather the team for the annual holiday picture, London-based Isabel went with option B to instead “shrink” their staff, creating 7-inch high bobblehead models of the entire agency, to develop an alternative miniature world designed to mimick the real one. Designers also built an exact scale model of the agency’s reception complete with sofa, lighting and framed pictures of the previous year’s agency Xmas cards.

“Our Xmas card is massively important to the agency and we didn’t want to lose the group spirit” said Rob Fletcher, executive creative director and co-founder, isobel. “Next year we’ll all be back in person but it’s a salient reminder of a year that has challenged every creative business to think and behave differently.”

AKQA is igniting the seasonal spirit with The Bondfire, an app transforming phones into a 3D yule log, and when stacked together, creates a fire that grows bigger and brighter as each new person joins the bonfire. The project also includes voice capabilities to enable remote users to participate in the fire exercise.

Conceptualized by AKQA copywriter and Future Lions 2019 winner Arendse Rohland, Bondfire is available to download for free on iOS and Android.

This year, instead of hosting a company holiday party, Canvas Worldwide will be sending donations to three charities: Feeding America, The Memorial Sloan Kettering Pediatric Cancer Unit and Adopt-a-Family Efforts via the St. Joseph Center in LA. “Never before have we understood the gift of giving as we do now in 2020,” the agency stated. Canvas also created holiday-themed virtual backgrounds to entertain their friends and colleagues while working remotely.

Tierney is seemingly starting an annual tradition after last year’s successful cookbook that featured recipes submitted by their team members. This year’s volume two highlights another batch of favored holiday-inspired dishes, including vice president Kaitlyn Tivenan’s chocolate chip banana bread and junior copywriter Cheridan Arthur’s holiday haystacks (an intriguing dish combing chow mein noodles, butterscotch chips and chocolate chips.

“We hope some of our favorite recipes provide you with a little bit of comfort this holiday season,” says associate creative director Justin Biddle.

Night After Night is reimagining "Twas The Night Before Christmas" as a tribute to nightlife, comprised primarily of the agency’s nightlife-centric client work.

Night After Night is encouraging recipients to “Save Our Stages” by donating to the National Independent Venue Associations (NIVA)’s Emergency Relief Fund.

Similarly Solve is celebrating the music community by donating to the Twin Cities Music Community Trust, an organization that supports all the out-of-work artists, technicians, and venue staff. The agency’s holiday card plays off the cancelation of professional live performances to showcase the attempts by the Solve Holiday Singers (agency team members) as they bravely attempt to harmonize while providing some holiday cheer.