Small businesses are the beating heart of communities across America. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and a severe economic downturn, nearly 45% of those businesses might not survive the next 3 months. Our brief was to galvanize the American public to support them and show how Facebook makes it easy to help.

We set out to remind people that everyone has a part to play in the survival of the community businesses they love. Our campaign aimed to encourage people to take action by visiting the Support Small Business Hub - a Facebook resource to help small businesses and the public show or garner support.

In the midst of the global pandemic, many small businesses needed urgent support to make it through the year ahead. So to illustrate the need for action, we launched “Survive,” a film that spotlighted the unfortunate closing of Coogan’s, a restaurant and bar that was legendary to the people of Washington Heights. A cherished institution in the community, “I Will Survive” was a song often sung at Coogan’s. So we specially commissioned Lykke Li to rerecord the bar’s most iconic karaoke song, interpreting it not as an end of the night sing-along but as a torch song for loss and defiant anthem of hope in troubled times. Her haunting voice reimagining these poignant lyrics and giving them new purpose alongside the plight many small businesses were facing. The response to the track was so overwhelming, the full version was released on digital streaming platforms, rocketing to +600k streams in months.

We discovered that although people wanted to help small businesses in the face of a global pandemic and a severe economic downturn, many people felt their actions were insignificant. They didn’t see how small actions might help overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds. This insight inspired our brief and our song choice. We needed a defiant anthem to remind Americans in communities across the country that we all have a part to play, no matter how seemingly small. So we set out to galvanize the American public to support their local small businesses and show how Facebook makes it easy to help.

The campaign launched on August 24 through national broadcast TV and on platform channels. The launch was supported by multiple :15s films that lived in OLV/FEP and social. A week later on August 31, the :60s film “Coogan’s” was released nationally through TV and social media. The long-form 3:36s film went live September 10, 2020, on owned channels, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram platforms, in addition to PR channels. Film and social comms were supported with a national OOH and audio buy.

Over 2,000 small businesses across 10 cities were featured as either the subject matter or as a media channel within the campaign. With many small businesses needing to get the word out that they were open again, we used targeted digital OOH to dynamically drive foot traffic to local businesses directly nearby. The adapted song was released on digital streaming placements worldwide.

As we drove a sense of urgency to support small businesses at a time they needed it, people listened. There were 23M video completions with over 15% video completion rates. Furthermore, we garnered over 2M clicks to the Small Business Support Hub, where people could take action and help the small businesses they love, and small businesses could request help. Additionally, the Coogan's Pay It Forward Community Fund raised a significant amount of money to help other small businesses, including non-profit organizations, in the Washington Heights and surrounding communities.