Yesterday a CD at Amazon posted a job ad on LinkedIn. It was for a three-month gig for a creative team. By the time I went to bed, she had around 119 responses. The reason is simple, almost no freelancers are working. Many employed teams are furloughed and this week, the industry has laid off even more.
Someone told me that there are around 19,000 freelancers in advertising whose work dried up after Covid-19 hit, and who are ineligible for government help because they are set up at Ltd companies.
Last week, producer Matt Keen and I reworked the Blackcurrant Tango commercial “St George”. Ray Gardner stepped up to rerecord his voice at home on an iPhone and Simon Capes who created the original sound for us back in 1996 redid his magic.
Today, we received our 19000th view on LinkedIn. We’re still trying to get wider coverage and our friends at ForgottenLtd and ExcludedUK who represent the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of traders yet to receive any government help have been retweeting us like machines.
It feels like being stuck in gridlock. Do you take a detour that you know is much longer, or do you stick around, waiting for the queue to move? We may not be working, but sometimes just doing something feels better than doing nothing.
So thanks to everyone who has shared the film, please keep sharing.
We’re in this together and we’ll get out of this together.
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