In the black days immediately following the onslaught of Covid-19, Phoenix Cabaret was sliding dangerously into the red – and co-owner Anita Wigl'it knew she had to give the green light to Yellow.
That's Yellow, as in the former directory services company now transformed into a multi-channel marketing agency. Anita knows all about transforming; after all, alter-ego Nick Kennedy-Hall regularly transforms into Anita Wigl'it as part of the much-loved drag queen acts that headline the show at Phoenix and sister business Caluzzi in Auckland's Karangahape Road.
Anita's fame has spread far and wide; she was one of the first contestants on the popular Ru Paul's Drag Race Down Under and was nominated for New Zealand TV Personality of the Year in 2021.
But try as they might to – ahem – wiggle it, Anita and co-owners Kita Mean and Zarlene Morgan saw business ebbing away at Phoenix.
"Caluzzi is a cabaret, more of a restaurant really," says Anita," and it was holding its own. Phoenix is a drag queen dinner theatre with a buffet dinner and, after Covid hit, we had real trouble as it was a buffet prepared by caterers, so of course there was all sorts of difficulty.
"It was really tough. It wasn't just that the show couldn't go on – Phoenix is also hired out as an events venue and that wasn't happening either. We had to look at whittling down staff but that wasn't the answer, either – people are what Phoenix is.
"We just didn't know if we were going to get through this one."
Luckily, Anita knew the folk at Yellow stretching back about three years. They'd become involved during Pride Week, Anita had been a star of the company's Christmas do and they'd sponsored a cash prize for the winner of Drag Wars, a contest for amateur or up-and-coming drag queens.
"They basically sat us down and talked to begin with," says Anita. "They were thinking strategy – and they came up with a plan to make Phoenix popular again. Google ads and search engine optimisation was a big part of it.
"I knew it was working when I googled Phoenix and we came up near or at the top of the search results. They also put a tracker on our website and, within two months, visits to the website had gone up 92 per cent.
"I knew what they were doing for us was working because bookings started to go up as well – and a big part of what they do is to provide us with all sorts of regular data to help us run the business."
Anita says Phoenix is not out of the woods yet: "It's a bit of a weird time. Yes, people wanted to go out again after we came out of the Red Covid level but now it's winter and people are unsure about things.
"Covid is still around, there's inflation, the cost of living, all that. But at least we have a good strategy we are employing and will use in the run-up to Christmas. I don't want to think about what might have happened if we hadn't been to Yellow."
Kelly Duncan, Yellow's Chief of Brand & Partnerships, says the Phoenix Cabaret case study demonstrates not only Yellow's new all-singing, all-dancing capability as a marketing agency specialising in digital, print and other forms of innovation – it also speaks to the company's "people first" approach.
Long gone is the old Yellow and the digital uplift given to Phoenix is indeed helping the business to rise from what could have been ashes. Yellow is also focusing on SMEs (small-to-medium enterprises) which are the powerhouses of our economy; 97 per cent of all New Zealand businesses have 20 employees or less and those 480,000 SMEs provide employment for roughly a third of all Kiwis and represent about 29 per cent of our GDP.
They are also some of the hardest hit by the Covid-19 crisis and Duncan says: "We're all about bringing small businesses real results, with the right mix of marketing to meet unique needs, goals, and knowledge.
"It might be a business idea that someone stumbled across in the kitchen or in accidentally solving a problem or found a better way of doing it - when someone has the idea, but no idea where to start. Or, as with Phoenix, it can be helping an existing business to recover and flourish. Kiwi ingenuity is unique, found in every corner of the nation and we want to see every single business idea soar."
Yellow's multi-channel marketing agency employs people across Auckland and Palmerston North and Duncan says the company's "ongoing transformation" means they are constantly trying new things and exploring innovative solutions for customers.
But at the heart of what they do is a people strategy: "We have an extremely diverse team of people, therefore it is more important than ever to ensure we have a connected, inclusive workplace where our people feel a sense of belonging and feel as though they can contribute wholly to the Yellow culture and our transformation.
"That means voicing an opinion or idea, suggesting a new solution or disagreeing with a proposal. We know from our learning about unconscious bias that in order to create an environment where everyone feels psychologically safe to contribute, they must feel a sense of belonging.
"That's why our people strategy, centred around equity, diversity and inclusion, is such an integral part of our wider business strategy – as it was with Anita and Phoenix."
Yellow has undergone a major transformation, significantly stepping up its capability in digital and innovation, and are continually evolving. Alongside search campaigns and Yellow Online listings, Yellow offers websites, online stores, Google products, Facebook campaigns, SEO and Data products, with dashboard reporting of live performance of these digital tools.