Giving Back with Givewrap: How to Give Twice This Christmas

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! 

Town Hall station has donned its roof with Christmas lights, shopping centres have started to blast Mariah Carey, and every day more and more letters are being sent to the North Pole. Advent calendars will be opened one by one each morning and tinsel has started to appear like ivy snaking up the side of an old brick building. 

It is easy to get caught up in the glittery lights, the christmas lunches, and the secret santa presents. It is afterall, an incredibly joyful time of year full of family, friends, and delicious ham. 

Hans, founder of creative agency Orphan, saw an opportunity to use his skills as a creative to give back during the festive season. Together with Ant Hatton and Michelle Tirtabudi they figured out a way to ‘give twice.’ Wrapping paper is one of the biggest components of Christmas time, so together they designed wrapping paper that when bought all profits go straight to charity. 

Hans sat with LBB’s Casey Martin and spoke on how this wonderfully simple idea can make a huge impact. 

LBB> First and foremost, where did this come from? How did the idea come about? Did you see a particular need and decided to do something about it? Why wrapping paper? 

Hans> Up until now gift wrapping paper has only ever done one thing… wrap gifts. And with every Aussie buying an average of eight metres of wrapping paper every Christmas, we saw this as not only a wasted opportunity, but a potentially huge market both nationally and globally. We did a ton of research, so we knew that people loved giving to charity as a gift option… in fact one in four Australians will give a donation to charity in place of a gift on December 25. But we also knew (because we all did it) that a donation on someone else’s behalf was never enough and you have to buy them a gift as well. 

But when you wrap a gift in Givewrap, you give twice. To a loved one, and to charity too. It is the perfect way of making every gift mean more as proceeds from every sale go to helping cure cancer, bringing fun to kids in hospital, ending animal cruelty and helping those in dark places get mentally fit. 

LBB> Coming from agency backgrounds, how has that helped in the development of Givewrap? 

Hans> Collectively we have spent more than 50 years building other people’s brands. It was time for us to build our own distinct brand, one that aligned with our purposes and got us launching outta bed every morning and skipping to work. 

Creatively, Ant and I had the art and copy side of Givewrap covered, and our world beating contacts within the design and stills industry have been very helpful… and Michelle is a genius with numbers and the abacus, so finances were sorted. But everything else was a case of starting from the bottom and learn real bloody fast. 

LBB> What advice would you give to others who want to give back but aren’t sure how to start? 

Hans> It’s hard to answer, as people have either got it in them, or don’t… volunteer your time, your skills, donate… buy Givewrap even. Nah, I mean, ads are really about selling something… and a lot of the things we sell, people don’t really need, which is why so many people get a kick outta working on charities within agencies. We get to offset our evil and use our skills and brains and creativity for good. We are really good as an industry at getting people to part with their hard-earned cash, and that is particularly helpful when you are trying to fundraise for charity or starting a business or both. 

LBB> Do you believe as an industry that there should be a responsibility to give back when they can? 

Hans> All three of us definitely believe we should give back more as an industry. And the tide is starting to turn. I know there would be certain departments that would not like to hear that, but it is so good for morale, for employees’ souls, and for the world as a whole. It should be hygiene, not an award opportunity or KPI. We should be doing it because we want to, not because it is opportunistic or applauded. 

LBB> Talk us through the design process of the gift wrap, how did you go about choosing designs that resonate with a huge range of customers?

Hans> This, my friends, is always the hardest part But wrapping paper designs are not ads, and retailers don’t buy creative designs, they buy what people buy, and people tend to buy some iteration of what they have seen before. 

So, we tested and tested and tested and worked with incredible talent to develop our designs, polled on social media, and researched everything. We must listen to our consumers and the buyers because, as sad a realisation as it was, people won’t buy our paper because it does a world of good and gives to charity - it has to look good out in the world and under a tree too. 

LBB> Getting to be the gift wrap of choice at the QVB is an enormous opportunity and achievement. How did that come about? 

Hans> This is one of those moments you pinch yourself and then your fellow co-founders. Michelle got a phone call one day then just squealed with glee, then I squealed with glee, then Ant cheered. When such an iconic retailer calls and offers you an opportunity like this. You take it and you hustle and fake it till you make it. It was such a huge vote of confidence in our product and idea. Finally, we have a storefront, a place for people to meet us and get to know us in the real world. A huge shout out to Michelle for all her hard work on this and to Ant for making a display and experience that rivals the windows of the big Sydney and Melbourne department stores. Geez, if you are from a big department store in Melbourne or Sydney and reading this… we’d love to chat. Ha. 

LBB> What has been the response like for the first year of Givewrap? How do you see the organisation progressing?

Hans> This has been such a wild ride. From customs seizures, printing mishaps and lost orders, to appearances on Sunrise, Today, and Sky News, editorial in countless broadsheets and taking out grants with TikTok, Amazon and Australia Post. We have ridden the highs, really felt the lows, but always kept our eyes on the prize. We dreamed of 10 thousand followers on instagram by Christmas… that just ticked over to 153K, we are almost at a million likes on TikTok and are sending orders to the US, England, France, Denmark and NZ from an Aussie website. We are so proud of what we have achieved as both a business and for helping our incredible charity partners continue their vital work. 

Progress lies in retail, retail retail. Both nationally, and internationally. People buy their gift wrap where they generally buy their prezzies. It is not something you normally plan for and order before you have bought a gift. So we are laser-focused on getting into bricks and mortar. We are already in Harry Hartog, Freedom and ALM merchants. We have teamed up with the good folks at Big W for a trail mid-year next year, but we need more to grow. Because the more we grow, the more we give. 

Oh yeah, and we are also about to dance the dance in boardrooms for investment… Something that is both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Something all our years in pitches will hopefully have taught us a thing or two about. 

LBB> What have you learnt during the first year of Givewrap? 

Hans> To be kind to yourself and those around you. To go into business with people who can do what you can’t. People who you cherish and can have both hard conversations as well as silly ones over a schooie. That's the dream.

So please for those in Sydney, we’d love to see you at the QVB where we can wrap your gifts in Givewrap or you can buy Givewrap to wrap them yourself.

We are on level 2, right next to the top of the Christmas Tree.

For those who can’t get there, you can make every gift you give mean more by visiting our e-commerce store www.givewrap.org