“We had a very clear challenge in front of us: help small local restaurants in Miami by generating sales, after a tough year like 2020,” recalls Gustavo Lauria, Co-Founder and CCO of WeBelievers, the Brooklyn-based agency behind a DoorDash campaign that helped close out a trying year on an inspiring note. “Because the campaign had to be launched in December, we decided to connect the message with the cancelation of (Miami Art Week staple) Art Basel. Everyone was talking about it, so it would be easier to grab people’s attention.” Lauria was right: the resulting campaign, “Art for Foodies,” an activation/art auction hybrid, saw droves of art and food lovers bidding on art, with payment made via food orders. As the “bids” increased, orders evolved into meal donations to fire stations, churches, shelters and hospitals. Meanwhile, restaurants – badly strained during COVID – earned more business. To execute the activation, comprising various elements (billboard productions, multiple video deliverables and more) during a COVID19 surge, and do so safely, Lauria brought in the team at Easy Mondays, the NY production company headed by Founder/Executive Producer Asori Soto.
“Although this is the first project we’ve produced for WeBelievers under the Easy Mondays banner, my relationship with the agency dates back many years,” Soto reflects. “Together we have worked on campaigns large and small, for multiple clients. So we were very excited to collaborate on such a creative and impactful concept. We know the WB team and they have a passion for making every campaign special for clients and consumers.”
From the creation of billboards, print materials, and video "teasers" to promote the activation, to shooting the activation itself, including its impact and after, the project ensured Easy Mondays had a very busy December. “At certain points, we were shooting with multiple units at the same time to be able to capture everything that was happening.” Of the benefit to frontliner and community organizations, Lauria observes, “During tough times, people tend to think more and more about the common good. That’s human nature at its best. So, we knew donations would happen, but we were surprised by the rich number of them. It was also great to know food wouldn’t be wasted.”
Always top of mind was a pandemic surge that was worsening by the day. “Ensuring crew safety, with travel and multiple camera units, was paramount,” Soto says. “Fortunately, having stayed busy during COVID19, we’ve established very strict pandemic safety guidelines that have helped us to accomplish every shoot safely. Additionally, we have a very solid and resourceful crew that shines working remotely and making things happen in an elegant and nimble fashion.”
Ultimately, in the spirit of Art Basel, art connoisseurs connected with local artists including De Yavorsky, Oyhanarte, Uribe and Yanes – in a context that helped restaurants and artists, while generating a record number of orders for DoorDash. “Everything came from a very simple mindset,” Lauria concludes: “If the restaurants do well, numbers will be good for the client as well.”
About Easy Mondays
Easy Mondays is a bespoke production company established by a bunch of creative gourmands, voyagers, and trendsetters. We circled the world more than a couple of times in the past couple of years. We produced moving pictures about cars, food, beverages, health, rock and roll, fashion, social issues, we published trendsetting magazines on travel and the pleasures of life, we wrote and photographed books. In short, we spent countless hours devoted to finding the most cinematic experiences around the globe, and we brought our babies and dogs as witnesses!
Our pursuit in the never-ending circle of life is to create the most engaging content for our clients. We are known for our high-quality productions and our taste at selecting excellent restaurants in the most remote regions. And we do all of this because we love it, because it is in our ethos, and because we shine the most when we are crafting astonishing stories together.
