Owned by Dax Menday, The Green Craft Bar has a reputation for the numerous craft beers, ciders and gins that it lists alongside the known alcohol brands on its menu.

It also runs The Rolling Green, a little caravan with craft beers that is used for birthdays, weddings and craft markets.

"Menday's first priority when the lockdown forced him to cease trading was to be able to keep paying his staff until he'd be allowed to reopen. So, we immediately launched the 'Dop voucher' campaign with him on the Green Craft Bar's Facebook page," says McCann's chief creative officer Stuart Stobbs.

"We really focussed on making the user experience as simple as possible but enabling people to order through FB Messenger," Stobbs adds.

"Next, we encouraged Menday to let loose his gregarious personality and host a virtual sundowner session each evening at 17:00 on Facebook Live, giving him and Facebook another opportunity to punt his 'Dop' vouchers. It was a great hit, simply because Dax embraced the task at hand with great alacrity and humour," Stobbs says.

"My personal favourite is the baking class he filmed using the key ingredients in one of the weirdest craft beers I've ever come across: its the Devil's Peak peanut butter, choc-chip, marshmallow and doughssant1," Stobbs adds.

"To give people a virtual taste of these delicious beers, we launched 'Libation Meditations' with the hashtag '#namastayathome'. We teamed up with the incredible voice actor and musician Bryan van Niekerk, who led Green patrons in hilarious meditation sessions into the 'doposphere'," says Stobbs.

Menday additionally took the pub quiz online, organised live interviews with brewers and engaged with local musicians to perform online.

"As a result of all the activity, much of which was entertainment, we sold enough 'Dop' vouchers to cover salaries and wages until alcohol sales resumed. That was a huge win. Of course, we had to regroup when sales of alcoholic beverages were again stopped, but now we're in Level 2; let's hope everything gets back up to steam quickly," says Menday.

The team at McCann1886 says that as South African society and businesses reeled when the country went into lockdown, they realised that the worst hit would be the really small businesses, as well as those who are owner run and employ just a handful of people.

As a team, they say that they decided to reach out and see if they could help those who they knew in the communities in which staff lived.

"Really small businesses seldom have much in the way of 'fat' to pad out those lean months or, in the case of lockdown, those months which are downright sinewy," says Stobbs.

"We knew we could use our knowledge of social media, and our industry contacts if necessary, to help them utilise social media in a more curated and engaging way, rather than functionally," Stobbs adds.

"The Green Craft Bar was one. [So was the] Art of Movement dance, a yoga studio in Emmerentia, and Afrika Tikkun. And we worked on a few more; these may be small businesses but they mean the world to their owners and staff," concludes Stobbs.



For more information, visit www.mccann.co.za. You can also follow McCann1886 on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.