A day in the lockdown life of Retroviral founder Mike Sharman

“I read this great tweet last week. Everyone is exhausted after all the video calls. It's the plausible deniability of each other's absence. Our minds tricked into the idea of being together when our bodies feel we're not. Dissonance is exhausting.

"It's easier being in each other's absence, than in the constant presence of each other's absence.

"This explains the challenge that we as a creative-dominant business is currently experiencing. We have large personalities; a majority extrovert company. It also feels like there is more pressure than usual to proactively win new business, to solve client briefs. The stakes are higher and this is a hotbed for conflict.

"We were preparing a pitch last week that will be a gamechanger for our business and because of the nature of pure remote working, there are non-verbal nuances you miss by not sharing a space with your colleagues, even when you have a daily, morning catch-up.

"We created our own broken telephone scenario as we are relearning to communicate and this heightened frustration for the design team. We had to stop, take a step back and reconfigure the linear solve to the problem before debriefing the design team for the final direction.” – Founder of Retroviral, Mike Sharman’s account of work-life in the time of Covid-19.

Mike Sharman, founder of Retroviral

What was your initial response to the crisis or lockdown and has your experience of it been different to what you expected?

We acted as swiftly as possible. I had travelled to London and Liverpool at the start of March and when the president made the announcement on 15 March to encourage social distancing, we regrouped first thing Monday morning and were remote working by COB. Fortunately, all of our systems are geared for this as we use G-suite, and Google Drive is our repository for all agency work.

I took a Covid-19 test as a precautionary measure and fortunately tested negative. I reassured our clients that we are no stranger to crisis comms – we worked for Carte Blanche on the Oscar Pistorius trial. We are built for agility and remote working and able to help our clients pivot, communication-wise where need be.

Overall, I miss the presence of people. I love the dissemination of energy in our industry.

Comment on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the agency and creative industry and/or the economy as a whole.

I won't sugarcoat it. The results will be brutal and the economy won't recover from the impact for a long time. I believe we will see job losses upwards of 350,000 and perhaps even surpass the 500,000 mark. Agencies that rely on project work and events are on the brink of closure, if they haven't already closed.

How is the agency responding to the crisis and current lockdown?

In the same way, you eat an elephant – one bite at a time. We are taking it one day at a time, servicing our existing clients to the absolute best of our abilities, reassessing our costs and seeing where we can streamline our spend so we come out of lockdown, guns blazing.

I am grateful for my team and how we are a family during this crazy time.

Fortunately, we are still pitching and receiving new business briefs. The best thing we could have done was dedicate 2015-2017 to converting a project-heavy business to one that is majority retainer-based.

Comment on the challenges and opportunities.

Challenges are always there. Our boutique size and startup approach to a creative agency is synonymous with volatility but on the converse, we are nimble enough to adapt to acts of God.

Retroviral turns 10 this year. We saw an opportunity in the sporting space and launched Retroactive 18 months ago with Bryan Habana and Ben Karpinski – which is already a multinational, award-winning, profitable business.

Meet new creative digital sports marketing agency: Retroactive

4 Oct 2018

From a sports perspective, we were working on a concept for a digital product for athletes, pre-lockdown and as soon as world sport ground to a halt, we decided to use the time to make our MVP (minimum viable product). It'll be ready for real-world testing in a matter of weeks now – a benefit of remote working: developers aren't averse to this way of implementation.

Speaking of opportunities, the world has really turned to creativity during this time. Why do you think this is the case and what does this mean for the industry, agencies and their clients or brands?

All problems can be solved with creativity – even the ones that seem like hieroglyphics on a spreadsheet. Growth-hacking has its origins in analytics and art and our industry is at the intersection of data and human insights – key for local to global, economic pivots.

How has the lockdown affected your staff? What temporary HR policies have you put in place regarding remote working, health & safety, etc.?

From a policy perspective, we respect our people to make responsible choices. There is no policing of time. We meet daily at 8:15am on a Hangout, discuss the key deliverables for the day, reconnect when we need to and we take accountability to deliver on our various actions. We have a standard content plan and reporting deadline and it's working seamlessly. I never like to micromanage.

How are you navigating ‘physical distancing’ while keeping your team close-knit and aligned and your clients happy?

The daily catch-ups and work WhatsApp groups are key, but I enjoy the return to phone-call mentality for so many of my contacts. Whichever the preferred method of comms, we adapt accordingly. Like we've been saying for 10 years: 'the internet never sleeps'.

What are you busy working on? Any initiatives/campaigns relating to the coronavirus?

We do some internal comms for a financial services brand so there's a lot of Covid-19-related comms there – distilling so much data and fake news – and providing resources of key information and facilitating new ways of work for thousands of people who've never even communicated via a video conference (that was two weeks ago, now they're pros).

Analytics indicate the most valuable content and how it is being consumed and this informs our approach to how we communicate.

We had a hugely successful campaign with Ryobi at the start of the year for Retroactive – we are working on the next phase of that, post lockdown.

#OrchidsandOnions: There's no quitting for Ryobi

Brendan Seery  17 Mar 2020

We recently won the Lil-Lets account as lead agency and there are some amazing elements being produced, currently.

I'm also excited about this sporting product I alluded to above - looking forward to sharing the scoop.

Has this global crisis changed your view of the future of advertising/marketing in any way?

Since inception: when others zig, we prefer to zag. We are trend hunters and always looking for new ways to communicate. It's provided me with some additional thoughts for my new book I'm writing, Brandalism, which is due in September.

Any trends you’ve seen emerge as a result of the crisis?

TikTok! The virus and associated lockdowns have allowed it to become the de facto disseminator of the most viral content on the social web. The way in which it infiltrates networks with its ease of shareability is why I'm on the lookout for a professional ‘TikToker’. ;)

Your key message to fellow industry folk?

As always: life's short, play naked!