Well, blow me down with a feather! I couldn't believe my luck when I was emailed by Saatchi & Saatchi asking little old me to be part of the Visa Christmas campaign supporting small business in the local high streets of the UK!
At first, I looked for the scam, I mean, this looked too good to be true, a picture of me outside the shop on a billboard.... no way....but yes way....it was real, so I jumped on the opportunity of course.
A couple of weeks later a professional photographer and his crew turned up to take the picture, with big lights and top of the range Hasselblad camera. The shoot took a couple of hours as they worked on removing reflections from the window and getting me to pose. It was a great experience.
Now the billboard is up and I was so excited to see it, and the whole campaign is amazing, maybe you've seen the TV ad already of shop owners singing 'All I want for Christmas is you'? Well, it's true that's all we independents want...YOU!
We need everyone to shop local this year more than ever, as high streets suffer too big faceless internet giants who don't pay tax!!!
So please get involved with this campaign and vote with your cash, even if it's just one card, just one pair of earrings, it really makes a difference to a real person like me!
We've got an amazing high street full of personalities who run unique businesses, who really care about their customers. Come and get to know us, we're really rather friendly.
If you want to find the billboard it's located on the corner of Southbourne Road and Christchurch Road. The second location from December 3rd will be in Southbourne Grove.
Big thanks to Visa Uk for supporting small businesses this Christmas.
If you want to find out ways to support local businesses check out Just A Card blog and Instagram.
#KeepItLocalThisChristmas #JustOneCard