The story of Catsnake during the first lockdown. 5 years ago today.
Five years ago today, the UK went into its first lockdown. I remember where I was. I remember what we were doing. And I remember not believing Stephen. Stephen is my business partner. At the start of 2020, when most people were still treating Covid like the next bird flu, serious, but distant - Stephen was paying closer attention. At the start of January, he mentioned it to me. Said he was keeping an eye on things. I shrugged and said “OK” in that vague, non-committal way that means “this probably won’t come up again.” But a few weeks later, he said something different. He’d been tracking the data, reading the science, and listening to the people who usually get it right. And he said: “I think we should prepare for the country to lock down.” I laughed. Told him not to be ridiculous. And asked him what "a lockdown" was. But he looked at me seriously and said: “If we prepare and nothing happens, we lose nothing. If we don’t prepare and something does happen…” So we started preparing. 1. We made sure our systems could run fully online. 2. We created backup plans for all our upcoming shoots that might get cancelled. 3. We ran working-from-home test days, just in case. Including a fun themed roulette wheel every morning where we played a game and told each other what our plans were for the day. And in the process, we built new ways to stay connected. With our team. With our clients. With each other. On 23rd March 2020, when lockdown was announced, we were mid-way through our second WFH test day. Everything was already running remotely. We were ready. Stephen was right. This isn’t a story about me being a good CEO. Actually, quite the opposite - left to me we would have been scurrying around like everyone else of March 23rd. It’s a story about how grateful I am to have Stephen as my business partner. We’ve worked together for over a decade. And in that time, I’ve come to trust him completely. Not just because he’s often right. But because he cares. And he always sees the bigger picture and is always calm. I couldn’t ask for a better person to be doing this with. The video below is one of the things we prepared the creative for just in case this "lockdown" thing happened. A lockdown-ready TV ad for UNICEF UK, built from a Legacy Proposition "United by One Belief" we developed with them. It used already existing Unicef footage, some stock library footage (for the start) and bespoke animation to tell the story of how a Legacy to Unicef can empower children all over the world. It’s called "Connections". Which feels fitting. Because that’s what got us through those early days. Connection. To each other, to our work, and to the causes we care about. https://lnkd.in/emWPANki