Photo Courtesy of Madeline Michalowski
Lily Smokler, Madeline Michalowski, and Mia Anderson, founders of Boston University’s student-run content studio. The team creates content for small businesses for free to gain experience and add to their professional portfolios.
Sam Lejfer runs the day-to-day operations of his plant-based ice cream company Lucky Day entirely on his own. When he isn’t selling his frozen treats at one of the many Greater Boston’s farmers markets, he’s in the kitchen hand-crafting and packaging each individual pint of ice cream.
Lejfer said he wants a social media presence to grow his business, but he doesn’t have the time.
“I’m a one-man team. Day to day, it’s just myself,” he said. “I don’t have the bandwidth to do everything.”
But this fall, Boston University seniors Madeline Michalowski, Lily Smokler and Mia Anderson reached out to him with a proposal — to make him promotional content for free.
Last year, the three worked together on the production team of “The BU Buzz,” a student-run lifestyle magazine.
However, as they all approached their senior year, the team wanted to put their creative energy into something new, Smokler said.
Michalowski said an opportunity arose when she realized there was a mutually beneficial relationship between their work and local businesses.
When interacting with small business owners in the area, she noticed many of them were passionate but lacked the resources to expand their brand. Meanwhile, young creatives like her, Smokler and Anderson were eager for professional experience, she said.
“There’s so much young talent across the city,” Smokler said. “And there are so many under-resourced small businesses that don’t necessarily have the budgets to be doing big marketing productions or really manage their social media.”
Over the summer, the team formed Flik, a content studio aimed at bridging this gap by “representing these small brands in a creative way,” said Anderson, Flik’s director of photography.
Currently in its early stages, the startup is focused on initial outreach. The team has been pitching their services to local businesses, including Lucky Day, explaining how Flik can meet their needs.
Not wanting to turn down the opportunity, Lejfer became their first client.
After meeting with him, the team decided there were two pieces of content Lejfer could benefit from.
The first was a product photoshoot, which would showcase what Lucky Day ice cream looks like in a pint or on a cone. The other was a lifestyle photoshoot, which Lejfer said could help the company establish the image consumers will associate with the brand.
“Flik really has an eye for producing a shoot that is going to effectively communicate our values and reach the people we want to reach,” he said.
Lejfer said his goal in collaborating with Flik is to find widespread commercial success while inspiring change.
He said the process of making dairy products is extremely resource-intensive, which is why his products are dairy free. To minimize environmental harm, he said the packaging is also plastic free.
Although this is not cost-effective, Lejfer said, he wants to be a part of the solution to the environmental crisis the world is facing.
His brand’s message is targeted toward young people, Lejfer said, because they eventually are going to be the ones with power — whether it be as an influencer, corporate leader or politician.
“Not everyone’s gonna be able to study nutrition or environmental sciences,” he said. “Our way of trying to inspire change and give people hope is through our products, through our brand. Working with Flik and having this content, I think that we’re going to be able to reach more people.”
Michalowski, Flik’s client and brand manager, said as the team continues to do “heavy research and outreach,” they aim to work with a variety of BU student-owned businesses — those they have seen at local markets, such as florists, candy stores and thrift stores.
Smokler, Flik’s creative director, said as time goes on, they also plan to expand the team. Flik has already posted about openings for model and production assistant positions.
Like other startups, Flik is still working to build itself up. Smokler said the team wants to help other small businesses gain recognition within a media landscape dominated by large corporations.
“There are so many brands and businesses that are so oversaturated … but, there are so many equally interesting and successful brands that aren’t getting that same level of respect,” Smokler said. “Us being students and understanding that it’s hard at the beginning to work yourself up, [we] just really wanna help bring that alive.”
Lily Smokler wrote for The Daily Free Press from the Fall 2023 to Spring 2024 semester. She was not involved in the reporting, writing or editing of this article.