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Hudson Square Gets a Benefits Hotline
Six+One built a working phone line, a fictional HR boss and a deliberately dated onboarding video to sell a neighborhood's perks
Most employees get a benefits packet on day one. People who work in Manhattan’s Hudson Square now get a phone number.
Six+One has launched 1-607-HSQ-PERK (1-607-477-7375), a working hotline for the Hudson Square Business Improvement District (BID). It treats the neighborhood’s public spaces, art and local businesses as a perks package, with a menu that includes public art therapy, lunch support and something called “emergency SoHo correction.”
- Client
- Hudson Square BIDSamara Karasyk, president and CEO
- Agency
- Six+OneHudson Street, Manhattan
- Made
- In-houseShot on location in the neighborhood
- Running
- Now, all yearHotline content changes each season
Meet your Chief Neighborhood Benefits Officer
Running the line is Grant King, Hudson Square’s fictional, self-appointed Chief Neighborhood Benefits Officer. He brings HR-speak, New York attitude and a level of enthusiasm no real benefits meeting has ever produced.
King first turned up in a deliberately dated employee onboarding video and a run of social teasers built around the BID’s annual report and shareholder meeting. The hotline takes that campaign off the screen and puts it on the phone.
Press 4 for emergencies
The line runs on a series of prompts. Press 4 and you reach Emergency SoHo Corrections, which opens by asking you to remain calm.
Then comes the geography lesson. Hudson Square sits west of Sixth Avenue, between Canal and Clarkson Streets, and callers are cleared to switch off tourist mode and resume a normal New York walking pace.
“Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk to discuss where you’re going? Not covered.”The hotline, option 4
Every New Yorker has wanted to say that out loud. Now a recording says it for them.
The benefits package
What a neighborhood can offer
33
Blocks of Hudson Square, NYC’s creative and tech hub on the Lower West Side.
4
The button for Emergency SoHo Corrections. Remain calm.
1-607
HSQ-PERK. A real number. It picks up.
On the menu
- Public art therapyThe neighborhood’s art, filed as a benefit
- Lunch supportLocal businesses, filed as a benefit
- Emergency SoHo correctionClearance to walk like a New Yorker again
Why a neighborhood needs onboarding
“When you join a company, someone walks you through your benefits. We wondered, why shouldn’t a neighborhood do the same?”Eric Rojas, founder and chief creative officer, Six+One
“Hudson Square already has all these perks, so we created an overly enthusiastic benefits officer and a phone number to help people discover them,” says Eric Rojas.
The premise lands because of who’s listening. The neighborhood is full of people who have sat through plenty of onboarding and can spot a parody of one in seconds.
It’s also home turf. Six+One’s office is on Hudson Street, and the agency developed and produced the work in-house.
An annual report people might remember
BIDs have to tell members what they’ve accomplished. Most do it with a PDF.
“In a neighborhood filled with creative thinkers and innovators, we wanted to share our accomplishments in a way that feels just as imaginative as the community itself,” says Samara Karasyk, president and CEO of the Hudson Square BID. “It resonates with the people here and touts our many projects in a format that makes people laugh and remember our work.”
Open enrollment, every season
The hotline isn’t a one-off. Its content is designed to change seasonally, giving people new reasons to call back.
That’s the part most stunt numbers miss. A line that keeps updating becomes a habit, and a neighborhood that keeps adding perks starts to sound like a pretty good employer.
Call it yourself: 1-607-HSQ-PERK (1-607-477-7375).
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