“It’s just about being safe”
Many agencies are finding ways to help both their affected employees and their greater communities.
Zambezi is using its office as a safe zone with wifi and power, but most employees are choosing not to come in.
Ramos noted that the agency has some experience dealing with this type of flexibility due to the pandemic, which saw situations change daily.
Concept Arts, an agency that deals with brand and entertainment storytelling, has offered up its Koreatown office — which isn’t being threatened by the wildfires — to the families of employees if they need a place to go or need power.
“It’s just about being safe and taking care of yourself and your people,” said its president Aaron Michaelson. Michaelson added that while his staffers are safe, he knows at least 10 people who have lost everything.
“There’s a lot of wanting to do something”
Many agencies have also found a way to extend their services to aid the greater community.
Zambezi is trying to help its community as much as possible by organizing donations.
“In these terrible tragedies, you usually see the best of people, and there’s a lot of that right now of wanting to do something,” said Ramos.
ThinkLA, the ad club for the greater Los Angeles area, is providing support through a webpage on its site, listing resources, evacuation maps, and links to what to do if someone lost their home. There is also a separate link to Ad Relief of Greater Los Angeles, a volunteer organization made up of advertising, media and promotion professionals brought together to help their colleagues in times of crisis. It features many resources, as well as an application for financial assistance.
Invisible Dynamics, a brand transformation consultancy in Los Angeles, is turning its studio and gallery space into a distribution center for support items for those displaced by the fires. In partnership with skincare and facial company Formula Fig, numerous brands and partners are donating items for the agency to be able to distribute through partner organizations.
“We’re offering a place where you can send as few or as many products as you want. We will then organize them, sort them, and then figure out how to get them into the hands of the people who need them the most over the next coming days and weeks,” said Oli Walsh, founder and CEO of Invisible Dynamics.
But those who are more directly impacted have more immediate concerns.
Andy Silva, managing partner at the fully-remote indie agency Party Land, was on his way Friday to Pacific Palisades to check on the status of homes belonging to his wife’s family. No word yet if those structures are still standing.
And Bozoma Saint John, former Netflix CMO and chief brand officer at Uber, now creator and CEO of her hair extension company, Eve by Boz, wrote a heartbreaking Instagram post about losing her home in Malibu.
“Even though I’ve found even words to write here, there’s nothing that I could say in this moment to describe this feeling,” wrote Saint John.
