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Thought Leadership
  • Content marketing

A team that plays together stays together

Emma Braham
28th April 2021

  • 2020 taught us that we need to help each other as well as the environment

  • Plogging is the new best thing

  • Health is wealth but so is laughing and partying as a team

As a digital agency we are not only accustomed to change but we embrace it and learn from it. After the year that shall not be named (it rhymes with shwenty-shwenty), Mediablaze wanted to go into 2021 having really learned from remote working last year. How do we stay together and keep employee morale up while still working from home? Last year we had to think on our feet but this year we knew what we were in for. There were two main thoughts we had going into this year and that was; 1. People are so done with these lockdowns and it’s up to us to make sure people’s mental states stay positive and 2. We spent a year reading, watching, listening and learning that we all need to be better and help in any way we can when it comes to the environment as well as social issues that are amping up all around the world.

Strava Challenge: Healthy body, healthy mind

We are an agency of active and enthusiastic people. A digital agency that works with Gyms and health & fitness brands because it is one of our personal passions. So in line with that we kicked off the Strava Challenge! As we entered Lockdown 3.0. we got the team together and using one of our favourite design tools, Figma, introduced an online portal to the team. Which included 3 challenges; Desk to 5km, Desk to Zen and a Walking plan. We determined a prize and created a Mediablaze group on Strava to help motivate each other and keep up with each other's progress. The portal also included a link to all our Rona Playlists (curated by me, Emma Braham) and full timetables and training programmes created by our fitness guru Holly Clemens. We even added a Zapier plugin to our Strava Slack Channel which alerted us whenever someone was on the go getting their exercise on. It was a great way to keep everyone connected especially seeing everyone’s pictures from their adventures outdoors!

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Did you say Plogging?

Coming off the back of our successful Strava Challenge we wanted to keep momentum going but this time instead of looking inward to help ourselves we also wanted to do something to help our environment. We launched Mindful March, a social team initiative to get people talking and active around important days in March such as International Day of Action for Rivers, Global Recycling Day and International Day of Forests. We introduced something called Plogging, an activity that started in Sweden where people go jogging with rubbish bags and gloves and pick up litter on their run, essentially killing two birds with one stone; getting fit and saving the environment. We managed to pick up over 619 pieces of litter as a team and our Co-Founder Roger Barr even managed to get his whole village of Horsely onboard with a self declared plogging week! With the help of our environmental warrior Vic Rojas we designed a Sustainable Home Office Guide with links, tips and ‘how to’s’ on all things sustainability in the home including buying local, are you really recycling correctly? and energy saving tips. Being a digital agency that is constantly online this guide really helped us think about how to better our household setup now that we all are working from home.

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A toast to Toast!

March was not only the one year anniversary month of the UK going into lockdown it is also the month that holds one of our favourite days of drinking, St. Paddy’s day! Last year we were all so excited to hit one of our local spots in Southwark for a pint and some obnoxious pub singing… alas, Corona had other plans. So this year we wanted to make sure we pulled out all the stops and celebrated together regardless of where we all were in the world! Toast Ale answered our call for a party and delivered six cans of their delicious craft beers as well as a beer glass each to our employees all over the country, including Wales! For our non-drinkers we got in touch with the Donegal Bogcotton Company who sent beautiful handmade organic Irish candles to our employees. Both small local businesses were so accommodating and reminded us why we should always support ‘local’. But we didn’t stop there… The social team designed the Paddy’s Portal; a Figma site filled with fun activities for everyone to get involved with throughout the day. It included a massive collaborative playlist that everyone got to listen to and add to, a Rugby Sweepstake, a word-search, Irish stew recipes and the links and information for our evening festivities. Rob Wilson of Toast Ale also threw in a free beer masterclass for us in the evening which was a roaring success followed by an Irish and Corona themed Kahoots Quiz. The virtual social has gone down as one of Mediablazes best socials even though we weren’t in the same room. The laughs and memories from the night will stay with us for years to come not to mention the beer was outstanding!

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Our mums also got treated on mothers day to a private virtual facial session with Laura from Be Pretty Like You. The products were sent to them and they were shown how to give themselves a relaxing facial and have some ‘me time’. Two of our mums are both expecting their second child and we couldn’t be more excited to see the Mediablaze family grow.

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There’s more to come…

It was an eventful first few months and with pubs opening up and people being able to see each other again we are really looking forward to more events and seeing each other in person soon. The weather is warming up (finally!) so we are starting to plan our summer social… have a look on our social channels for updates on what we are cooking up for that!

Talk to the digital marketing specialists

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