Anthem gives free support to independent businesses

Throughout 2020, Anthem has used its media power for good by supporting small artisan vegan businesses to attract new audiences – without charging a penny.

Wind back the clock 18 years or so and Anthem was like any start-up. Just a couple of founding members of staff, big dreams and ambitions, yet little idea of how the next set of bills were going to be paid.

We still remember those days and we definitely still remember the people who helped us out during them.

So when we get the chance to pay it forward a little, we grasp it with both hands.

2020 has been a difficult year for all businesses, but especially for small, independent makers and producers.

To help in a small way, we decided to offer artisan vegan makers the chance to have a virtual ‘stall’ in one of our Virtual Vegan Markets on our Vegan Food & Living Instagram grid.

How the Virtual Vegan Markets work

The premise is simple – every hour on the day of the market, we upload a new ‘stall’ to the grid (allowing for a maximum of 10 companies per day). Each company can promote up to five different photos of their products and these are accompanied by a brief introduction to the company as well as the Instagram handle, so our audience can find out more on their page. These ‘stalls’ are always offered free of charge.

The vegan audience is passionate about finding new products they can incorporate into their everyday lives, so it serves to introduce them to small makers who they may never have heard of before, who don’t have any kind of marketing spend, but who share the same values as our audience. So it’s definitely a win-win situation!

Emilie from EmilieDrawsThings commented, “The market was great thank you! The past week has been my most successful week for my business, so I’m sure the market played some part in that.”

Taking the idea a step further

As a follow-up to the Virtual Vegan Christmas Market, the Vegan Food & Living team contacting some of its favourite stall holders to give them a chance to take part in a slightly different version of the market – the Email Christmas Market! Again, there was no cost to the company but they were all asked to offer a discount to customers, however big or small they could afford.

This Email Christmas Market got some great interest and really generous discounts, so the team decided to send it out as a Vegan Food & Living subscriber exclusive in order to thank loyal subscribers for their support over our own tough year.

So the subscribers got to save some money and shop for ethical presents from the comfort of their own homes, while the artisan makers got a little more support and their Christmas orders boosted.

Staying true to our values

At Anthem, we really do believe in our mission to ‘help people lead happier, healthier lives’ and we’re pleased that this year we could help put a smile on the faces of some small business owners out there and make a little difference to their year.

Who knows what ideas we’ll come up with to take this further next year?