A response to the COVID-19 pandemic from Mirrored Media CEO, Justin Lefkovitch.

This is truly an unprecedented time for our industry and the world as a whole. The coronavirus has affected so many people throughout the world, and we are very mindful of how this pandemic has turned peoples’ lives upside-down, whether physically, financially, professionally, or even mentally. We are eternally grateful to the health care providers and first responders who are working tirelessly through this unfolding crisis.

We are closely monitoring the needs of our community and helping in every way we can. We strongly believe in supporting our clients, colleagues, family, and friends.

Mirrored Media is still very much open for business. Our strong digital, social, influencer, and consulting capabilities mean that we can continue to serve our clients even without in-person gatherings. This is a very unique time with sensitive needs, but consumers are eager for open dialogue, meaningful conversations, entertainment, and positive stimulus. In addition to digital opportunities, there will eventually come a time when we are able to all gather again and regain a sense of familiarity. We would love to take this opportunity and jumpstart those conversations and planning.

We are helping our clients turn to digital wherever possible while remaining mindful of the environment in which we are now operating. While COVID-19 and the quarantine measures put in place may be an extreme inconvenience and source of boredom for some, others have to deal with lost wages and jobs in addition to serious life-threatening health concerns. We must acknowledge the current climate and do our best to consider the context while transitioning activations to the virtual sphere. 

We are in the process of creating a few different virtual experiences for people to interact with some of their favorite musicians and for brands to engage in an entertaining and meaningful way during this time. We are doing our best to integrate a charity component into any work happening now to ensure we are all contributing to the global efforts to control the spread of COVID-19. Additionally, we are working alongside our clients to be the best partners as possible as we all work through this together. We have been collaborating with brands and their various other agencies to pool resources and share creative concepts in order to benefit consumers as much as possible.

In this unprecedented time, we are working quickly to find ways in which we can repurpose work that has already been done on any given project. Ideas here have included positioning assets into a completely new activation, integrating into a rollout scheduled later in the year, or repurposing elements into a new standalone activation. As our team continues to innovate and ideate on some of these concepts, we are simultaneously doing our best to work with clients on fast-tracking other elements of future campaigns that can be done now to spread out the workload and better prepare ourselves when we hit the ground running again sometime this year.

During uncertain times it is easy to get scared and panic, so the biggest resource publications like Bizbash, EventMarketer, Inc, AdAge, and others can offer to combat those sentiments is information. One really important thing is to continue connecting members of the events industry with each other, as well as groups in the communities where we work, who could really use the support at this time. We saw an excellent example where Adobe had a ticketed convention canceled, but instead chose to pivot and open their virtual doors for anyone to stream the content they presented. We have seen this with our clients as well, where rather than fighting over contracts and payment terms at a time where everyone is feeling financial stress, we are choosing to work collaboratively as a team, supporting each other in order to get through this in a healthy way. This is a huge testament to the industry as a whole - vendors, clients, and colleagues - and the support from media publications will only help to further share resources and build community during shared hardship. I have witnessed the experiential industry at large come together to help support each other - vendors, employees, and clients. I think this is a really incredible testament to our community.