Many companies throw lavish parties, update their logo or even do a big advertising campaign to celebrate reaching their 25-year business milestone. Seattle-based advertising agency Copacino Fujikado has taken a different approach: doing its part to help reframe the image of downtown Seattle and bolster the collective Seattle economy.

“We’ve been downtown for our full 25 years, and downtown has always been a huge part of our story and our agency’s ethos,” said Chris Copacino, Executive Director of Business Development at the agency—known nationwide for its creative campaigns and recently named Top Small Agency (Northwest) by Ad Age, but known best locally for its long-running and humorous advertising campaigns for the Seattle Mariners.

With downtown still limping back from the pandemic (more than 500 businesses have closed, retail and restaurants have struggled, and crime, homelessness, and drug use continue to be issues that drive safety concerns), Copacino Fujikado chose to celebrate with a campaign that—rather than promoting their own agency—promotes downtown business.

The campaign (Stand Proud Downtown) provides a platform for like-minded Seattle-committed businesses to show their pride online and through social channels and show the world their commitment by displaying a sign in their window that expresses their pride in the city. In addition to a bit of visibility, Copacino Fujikado picked two businesses from those submitting photos of themselves with their sign to win $25,000 in creative services.  Specifically, one of the winning slots will be committed to a BIPOC- (black, indigenous, or persons of color) owned business. The contest portion of the campaign just closed and the agency selected their two lucky winners this week, however they still hope business will proudly display their signs, and that more businesses will request signs to show their support.

Though the agency is heavily focused on video (across social, web, and TV), AlphaGraphics has worked with Copacino Fujikado on several print and graphics projects through the past six years—including some for several community-partnership clients. We’ve been downtown since we launched in 1989, and have been active downtown supporters (and, as the largest commercial printer downtown, we’ve benefitted from our location as well). So we were excited when Copacino Fujikado approached us about this campaign. We worked with them to test a couple of different ideas for in-store sign options, and we seeded the initial adopters with signs to give the campaign some early momentum.

Drawing on data from fellow AG clients Downtown Seattle Association, Friends of the Waterfront, and Visit Seattle, the site provides more than great photos and ra-ra for downtown; it educates about some of the positive “downtown is coming back” statistics that are easy to overlook among the challenges garnering most of the news coverage.

“We know better things are yet to come,” Copacino told us. “There has been a groundswell of support among city businesses for what we’re trying to do. It’s been fun to watch it happen. Every day we’re getting 5-7 people saying ‘I want a sign.’”

Do you have a downtown shop or business and want to show your support with a window sign? Fill out the form on the site (then send your photo with it to enter into the drawing for free ad services). This campaign is a great reminder to me that while many of the print projects we work on are small, many (like these signs) play a crucial role in something much, much bigger.

Kudos to Copacino Fujikado, and to all the businesses that are standing proud in downtown Seattle.