Amid the COVID-19 crisis, Affinity Creative Group immediately felt the need to support an industry that’s been severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. While the creative marketing agency adjusted to a distributed work environment and continued operations, they wanted to make a difference by supporting friends and clients in the wine industry who were not so fortunate. Tasting room shutdowns and shelter-in-place orders meant independent, local, and smaller producers would be even more reliant on DTC transactions and e-Commerce sales for their survival. This led founders and principals of the Mare Island CA-based creative marketing agency, Dave Miller and John Swain, to a simple idea. Why not help out by doing the obvious — buy some wine.
It started with the two partners making direct purchases from a range of different wineries, particularly from those producers hardest hit by the lack of visitors to their tasting rooms and on premise sales. Next, they sent those cases — one each to all 36 Affinity employees on staff, to thank them for pulling together to keep the creative agency functioning and productive, while navigating through these unprecedented times. Affinity’s digitally savvy team members then created social media postings with the hashtag #ACaseForACause, spreading love, support, and participation by communicating the joy of giving and receiving wine.
To magnify this initial gesture, Affinity’s founders have challenged vendor-partners, industry collaborators, and other members of the wine community to join in support of #ACaseForACause. For those who accept the challenge, additional sent cases from a winery in need of support will not only delight the recipient but will also generate more social media buzz for the program. If all goes as envisioned, the challenges will continue exponentially.
Affinity Creative Group encourages all those who can, to participate in #ACaseForACause or visit ACaseForTheCause.com. Or, if you’d rather make a direct monetary contribution, please consider one of these worthy organizations: The Sonoma County Resilience Fund and the Napa Valley Community Foundation’s COVID-19 Response Fund.
