From wearing pyjamas 24/7 to thinking up innovative marketing strategies (possibly also in pyjamas)
How are the members of the Movidiam Network holding up in isolation?
Almost a month ago, we sent out a message to our entire network, outlining our thoughts about the future of the creative industry. Even then we had seen jobs cancelled, and recognised the need for an increased focus on communication and community.
In the spirit of that, and in keeping with the ethos of the Movidiam network in general, over the last few weeks we have been collecting information about how our members are dealing with the effects of the coronavirus outbreak so far. We want to be in a constant dialogue with our members, so that we know how best to support them during this time. We wanted to know how many of our members are being affected, how they’re feeling, and what (if anything) they’ve been able to do to combat the negative effects of global lockdown.
We keep close tabs on everything going on in the creative world, but even so, discovering that every single person that responded to our survey has had work cancelled or postponed was a particular surprise. 80% of our respondents said that between 75 and 100% of their work had been affected so far.
It seems that, in this truly bizarre time, even the 65% of responders who said that they could at least sometimes work from home, haven’t been able to escape the effects of global lockdown.
It’s difficult to avoid the doom-and-gloom tone when talking about this kind of data, but we don’t want to shy away from the very real difficulties that our network members are experiencing. On the plus side, searches on our network for remote workers; editors, VFX artists, etc, have increased. Brands, realising a complete halt in production isn’t ideal, are looking into new ways to create content. To do our part, we’re advertising these creatives as much as possible — using our ‘Community Picks’ blog series to highlight the exceptional talent working in these areas.
With loss of earnings at the forefront of 70% of respondents concerns, we know how vital promotion can be. If you have a project that is going ahead, or something you’ve been making on your own, let us know. Tweet it at us, DM us links, and of course post it on your Movidiam pages. Our team is dedicated to promoting the work of our talented members as much as possible.
Over the next few weeks, and as long as this situation goes on, we’ll continue to share innovative takes on advertising, branded content, and art in general.
We’ve already seen incredible resourcefulness and versatility in your responses, with some taking this time to shift focus from live action to animation, revamping websites, learning new marketing tools, changing up business models, making new content from stock footage, getting involved in digital networking — our members make the possibilities seem endless.
But if all you have the energy to do is spend time with your family in your pyjamas, don’t worry — we’ve been doing that too.
As always, we’re continuing to produce our own content; podcast episodes, blog posts, interviews and more, both to provide fresh perspectives on the state of the world and the creative industries, and some entertainment too.
Stay safe, stay sane.
All the best, from everyone at Movidiam.
