Hundreds Use $100 bills to Spread Joy across North America in Klick Holiday Video

Hundreds Use $100 bills to Spread Joy across North America in Klick Holiday Video

If you were given a $100 bill to make a difference in someone’s life, what would you do?

That’s the question at the core of “#SpreadJoy,” the holiday video filmed by and starring hundreds of Klick Health employees bringing joy (and often tears) to unsuspecting people across the U.S. and Canada. After volunteering for the feel-good project, each received a $100 bill with a simple direction: use it to spread joy.

In all, 284 acts of kindness by 630 Klick Health employees were filmed across 15 states and six provinces (Some acts were not filmed at the request of recipients.) Some pooled their dollars together, others went solo, self-filming a wide range of kind gestures, which left many recipients speechless and teary-eyed, and even prompted some to ask for a hug.

Med Ad News talked to Klick Chief Creative Officer Rich Levy and Chief People Officer Glenn Zujew about the 2021 holiday video.

Med Ad News: Who came up with this year’s idea for Klick’s annual holiday video?

Rich Levy: This is a project that almost everyone volunteers to work on, but at the end of the day, the idea for this year’s video came out of a brainstorming session attended by our Chief People Officer Glenn Zujew, Executive Creative Director Mike Bonilla, Executive Producer Laura Denham, and myself.  Once we settled on the idea – making it happen involved a small army. First, we had to figure out a way to get $100 bills to Klicksters in both Canada and the U.S. They had to receive their packages, decide on their act of kindness and self-film it in about a week. Once we got their 1,704 clips of footage – we spent 38 hours reviewing it and another 270 hours in post-production to get to the three-minute piece that is on YouTube. It was quite a workout, but worth every minute.

Med Ad News: The video covered a few of the ways employees donated their $100. What were some ways that did not make the highlights that you particularly liked?

Rich Levy: Some people did not want to be recorded on video – but that does not make their stories any less special. We saw people helping first responders, healthcare workers, caregivers, friends, and strangers. My personal favorite is the scene of the crossing guard dancing in the rain – making everyone’s day special. We were glad to make her day special.

Med Ad News: How did you spend your $100? How did your recipients react?

Rich Levy: I bought groceries for an unsuspecting family in New York. They let me cut in line because I only had one item. They were so happy when I paid for their entire cart of food. It made me feel like a million dollars, and I can’t recommend the experience to others enough.

Glenn Zujew: My two children, aged 6 and 9, actually wanted to add to the $100 I received so they emptied their piggy banks and they added another $100 to the big tip we gave an Uber delivery person. It brought him to tears and now my children ask all the time if we can do it again.

Med Ad News: How much has Klick budgeted for this effort? With all of the excitement, have ideas already been discussed for next year’s holiday video?

Rich Levy: This year’s production was self-filmed and then edited by our in-house Klick Productions team. The only real out-of-pocket costs were the $100 bills we gave away to spread joy and some slight postage and music fees.

Glenn Zujew: We’re thrilled to also be donating one dollar for each of the first 10,000 YouTube views of #SpreadJoy to Make-A-Wish Canada. We’ve added them to our internal Klick it Forward giving platform for the month of December, so Klicksters can direct the corporate donation dollars they receive to the charity, too.

Rich Levy: Every year, we find a new way to bring smiles and festive cheer to people in a way that brings Klick culture to life and spreads our values, such as kindness, inclusiveness and empathy. We’ve been creating our holiday videos for years and they’ve become a hallmark at Klick, to the point we hear people wonder what we’re going to do next.