When the government officially announced the placement of the whole of Luzon under “enhanced community quarantine” in March of 2020, so began the longest lockdown in the world. Changing the lives of many, it also caused numerous disruptions – in transportation, schooling and learning, and more so in the workplace as offices abruptly had to shift to a work-from-home setup.
One industry that was not spared from this unprecedented disruption was advertising, whose environment, as cheekily described by AdAge, consists of “old style of easy collaboration: sweaty rooms full of crumpled paper and half-empty coffee cups and glass walls covered in Post-Its.”
For award-winning creative house GIGIL, it is almost hard to imagine how such an agency, recipient of the International Small Agency of the Year in the AdAge Small Agency Awards for 2021, was able to not only adapt to the times, but also continuously churn out work that the young firm has built its name on: fun, brave, and all passion. And most of all, Filipino in spirit.
Credit goes to the culture and environment that the agency has set in place even before the pandemic, a safe space that is in equal measure nurturing and creative yet results-driven.
“Firstly, we made sure that employees were all home, safe and healthy,” shares Jake Yrastorza, the firm’s Managing Partner. “We’ve also been frequently checking in on people beyond the usual project meetings. We always want to make sure everyone is healthy, mentally and emotionally,”
Towards this end, the agency introduced 3 key initiatives for the benefit of the whole organization, namely: GIG Morning, a twice-a-week informal session where people get to check on each other while also getting to share award-winning work from around the world; GIG Spot, where the agency comes together to celebrate wins, milestones, birthdays and is done twice a month; and GIG It Easy, a “hump day” that allows employees to destress and participate in games, also done twice a month.
For Account Director Micco Balana, who has always relied on physical interactions to get a good grasp of everything that’s running, participating in GIG Morning has been most helpful during the lockdown.
“It’s very important to me that I get to interact with the people I am working with. With the absence of physical contact, GIG Mornings are a nice way to still keep that relationship with the rest of the agency,” he says.
