Andertons Music Co. Donates £15,000 to Emergency Services in the UK
Andertons Music Co. began shipping out 173 guitars and an additional £2,000 worth of related materials this week to emergency services workers from their store in Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom. The initiative, led by Lee Anderton, managing director, worked in partnership with some of the industry’s top manufacturers to bring the joy of music to the area's National Health Services (NHS), police, and fire brigade employees.
A staple in Guildford, Andertons Music Co. was opened in 1964 by Anderton’s father and grandfather. In the 2000s, Anderton was able to develop a booming ecommerce business and invested in developing an engaging website and social media presence. As a result of their digital presence, despite the physical store being closed in the time of COVID-19, the company has seen steady, if not increased growth. Feeling the calling to give back in the time of crisis, Anderton and his team devised a promotional giveaway for first-line responders.
The concept for the guitar giveaway was a result of an ever-evolving series of relief efforts by Andertons. Anderton shared, “We are very fortunate that throughout the lockdown we have not had to make any cuts to the business and our employees have remained working. From the beginning, I felt a responsibility to do something, so we started by supporting the last surviving small music venue, The Boileroom, in Guildford by making a cash donation. From there we embraced the concept of live broadcasting from our homes and we noticed our audience started to donate money to us, perhaps assuming that Andertons was struggling with the brick and mortar store being forced to close. We decided it wouldn’t be the right thing to do to keep any of this money, so we began donating to the NHS. From there, we launched a series of free videos called ‘Lockdown Licks’ which would encourage people to join in learning and playing new guitar licks alongside our presenters. The ad revenue generated from ‘Lockdown Licks’ was donated to the UK’s Musicians Benevolent Society.”
After seeing a broadcast from a London intensive care unit, Anderton was moved to step up the efforts of his team even further, and the concept for the promotional giveaway was born. Aiming to provide a small bit of joy in the lives of emergency services workers, Anderton called for employees of the NHS, police, and fire brigades to enter his giveaway by sending a direct message to Andertons Instagram account that included a photo of them in uniform with their identification cards. From there the qualified entries were plugged into a spreadsheet, and a random number generator was used to select the winners.
Initially set to giveaway 50 guitars, Andertons was excited to have many of their suppliers offer to donate additional guitars and materials. The additional contributions from Fender, Gibson, Sigma, Yamaha, Gretsch, Ibanez, Martin, prominent online guitar teacher Justin Sandercoe, and even Andertons IT company, Deeper Than Blue, allowed Andertons to award 173 guitars and over 100 music books to participants.
While Anderton and his team have been honored to bring the joys of music to those serving to fight COVID-19, they aim to inspire more companies in the music products industry, who are capable, to follow suit and initiate their promotions or charity events. Anderton encourages any company looking for inspiration or advice in starting their charitable initiative to reach out to him or his team.
Visit Andertons Music Co. at https://www.andertons.co.uk/. To join in on some of their amazing programs head to Facebook @andertons, Instagram @andertonsmusicco, and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/AndertonsMusic.