In February, Hartford-based GO-Agency had recently won some new business, giving the company plenty of work in its pipeline. In fact, the 16-year-old marketing and communications firm was expecting its best year yet.
Then March and the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Connecticut, and things changed quickly.
“Dozens of campaigns we were working on were affected,” said Chad Turner, CEO of the 19-employee agency, normally headquartered at 2074 Park St.
Like many office-based companies, GO’s employees today are working at home. Some may return to the office by late June, but GO is in no rush to bring staff back to headquarters, Turner said.
“We want to do it right,” he said, adding that some employees have their kids at home during work hours because they don’t have child care for now.
Teleworking hasn’t been much of a change, since it was already welcome and common at the firm.
“They bring their laptops home every day, everything is in the cloud,” said Turner, who has communicated daily via Zoom with the firm’s Atlanta office since it was established more than two years ago.
Though remote communication is old hat for Turner, he misses some aspects of in-person work.
“It’s that random walk-by where you just pop in and start having a conversation where some creative idea comes out,” he said. “We’re trying to force that [through remote interaction] but it’s not as natural.”
The COVID-19 turbulence has cost GO some revenue, as campaigns have been canceled or stalled.
To ensure it could hang on, GO was one of the more than 56,000 Connecticut companies that successfully applied to the U.S. Small Business Administration for Paycheck Protection Program stimulus funds.
“There is still a lot of uncertainty,” Turner said. “When will the businesses get back? When will ‘normal’ return?”
Things are going well so far. It won’t be a record year, but it will be a good year for GO, Turner predicts.
“Work’s coming in, we’re feeling pretty good, we’re actually hiring right now,” he said. “A good year in 2020 is a great year.”
“I am so grateful for that,” he added.
While the situation has caused plenty of unexpected scrambling, it’s also created opportunities, as clients felt an urgency to push out new messaging, whether through billboards, websites or other channels managed by GO, due to the sudden and unprecedented health crisis.
For many, there seemed to be no other choice. Imagine seeing an ad now with people gathered in a group without masks on, failing to acknowledge the emotionally taxing need for social distancing to be safe?
Viewers’ immediate reaction, Turner said, would be “that doesn’t look right.”
“Never before has it been that obvious for marketers who don’t update their stuff,” he said. “Everyone had to address this in some way, shape or form.”
The company has continued its work pro bono for a handful of clients facing financial troubles, Turner said, and it’s also picked up some unexpected work from PepsiCo. GO had done video work in the past for the company, which meant it had access to valuable footage that could be reworked into new advertising.
Its latest PepsiCo spot makes use of voicemail messages left for the company by consumers grateful for access to food and beverages during uncertain times.
GO also pivoted its ongoing work for the Hospital for Special Care in New Britain, shifting to a theme of thanking healthcare workers. GO’s video team was on-site at the hospital in early June for its first shoot in months. There were new precautions: temperature checks, people appearing on screen attached their own microphones, and everyone wore masks, Turner said.
He expects video production to become an even bigger piece of GO’s business in the months ahead. The agency recently launched a new sub-brand, Greenlight Productions, for some of its video work, including projects with American Ninja Warrior and the U.S. Open Tennis Championship.
“Video will come back stronger than ever before because people are consuming media at a higher rate, and we can’t be there, but you still want to see it,” Turner said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story released in HBJ’s Friday digital edition misidentified the U.S. Open GO-Agency is working with as a golf tournament and gave an incorrect number of years that GO-Agency has been in business.
