Each year, JSA account teams make it a priority to celebrate International Women’s Day, #IWD2020. This year, the holiday fell on March 8, 2020, featuring a theme of #EachforEqual – “An equal world is an enabled world.”

One particular JSA account team found this to be a unique opportunity and perfect time to shine a spotlight on one remarkable client female-led team, a team that played a pivotal role in their firm’s recent multi-million dollar acquisition, finalized in January of this year.

The campaign was entitled, “International Women’s Day 2020: The Builders Behind the Brand – How an all-female marketing team positioned the Maven Wave brand to be a buyable asset.”

The Acquisition 

The news broke during last year’s holiday season that Maven Wave, a Chicago-based technology consulting firm and Google Partner, would be acquired by Atos, a global leader in digital transformation with more than 110,000 employees across 73 countries, and an annual revenue of over €11 billion. The acquisition positions Maven Wave & Atos to be the top Google Cloud partner worldwide.

Being that Atos is one of the largest digital services providers in the world, we couldn’t help but take a deeper look at some of the instrumental drivers within Maven Wave that helped the brand reach global recognition and attract such a prominent buyer. Maven Wave’s female-led marketing team certainly falls under that category. Alongside other woman-led teams such as recruiting & human resources, the marketing group positioned the Maven Wave brand to be a buyable asset.

The Story Behind the Award-Winning Marketing Campaign 

The campaign began by taking a walk down memory lane, when Maven Wave was just an idea written on a piece of paper. When founders Brian Farrar, Jeff Lee, and Jason Lee started Maven Wave in 2008, they knew they had something special – an idea that was capable of exponential growth. But they also knew they needed the right team to get it off the ground, the right group of Mavens who all possess that magnetic “X-Factor” that draws people in. 

A few years after its founding, Maven Wave recognized the need to dedicate resources toward officially establishing the brand. That’s why in 2013, when Maven Wave was really beginning to hit its stride, they welcomed Jessica Wesley (now Senior Director of Marketing) as the sole member of the company’s marketing team.

“Building a brand was something I always wanted to do and having the opportunity to get in at the ground level and really influence the brand direction was particularly appealing,” said Jessica Wesley.

Crediting the founders, Wesley believes the brand was positioned much like a springboard for her to step in. The team had already seen great success with only a few basic branding elements in place, which instilled confidence in her that there was something great here to work with. It was clear that the company had significant potential, but a full rebrand, messaging overhaul, and marketing strategy boost was essential to unleash the potential simmering underneath the surface.

“We needed a brand that reflected our capabilities, enterprise expertise, talents, and partnership with Google Cloud,” notes Wesley.

Like every great rebrand, she started with the logo, which provided a strong foundation for the rest of the brand execution. It took hundreds of sketches and revisions before she finally settled on the brand mark that they still use today. The full rebrand, which included a limited budget, input and agreement from all three founding partners, and a little help from a small in-house design team, was completed in just seven months.

Once the team had their new look, they were ready to take off. And the new Maven Wave brand certainly delivered. Over the next seven years, Wesley’s marketing efforts were backed by some monumental accomplishments secured by the firm:

• 2012: Google Regional Partner of the Year for North Central
• 2013: Google Innovation Partner of the Year
• 2014: Nominated for Google Global Partner of the Year
• 2015: Google Global Rising Star Partner of the Year
• 2016: Top Selling Google Cloud Partner
• 2018: Google Cloud North America Services Partner of the Year 
• 2019: Google Cloud North America Services Partner of the Year
• 2020: Acquired by Atos, a global leader in digital transformation and 2019 Google Cloud Breakthrough Partner of the Year  

These accomplishments allowed Maven Wave to stand alongside some of the largest consulting brands in the world while they were on the way to becoming one themselves. 

Wesley knew that keeping up with these shifts required support from marketing in the form of brand awareness, lead generation, and thought leadership. As a result, she knew their marketing strategies needed to expand, and that she needed to build her own team to help get her there. 

Over the next couple of years, Jessica made four hires, all of whom remain on her go-to team today.

• 2018: Kelly Coughlin, to expand their event reach, both vertically and within the industry
• 2018: Paige Krzysko, to build out their content and digital marketing strategies 
• 2019: Kaira Teschke, who takes on a project management and brand strategy role within the marketing team
• 2019: Mary Kellogg, who has executed many exclusive executive events that have resulted in positive ROI over the past year

Wesley truly believes she has the best team – a group of strong, smart, motivated, and fun women that each bring unique skill sets and strengths. Together, they created an unstoppable marketing force that boosted Maven Wave’s brand equity and ultimately helped the company become a buyable brand in 2020.

Joining this remarkable group of women within Maven Wave are four noteworthy women from the JSA side. Rounding out the JSA-Maven Wave team is Account Director Candace Sipos, Media Guru Sheetal Werneke, Content Creator Buffy Harakidas, and Digital Marketer (and sister of Jessica) Megan Wesley. Together, this group likes to call themselves a “well-oiled machine,” accomplishing several media, award, and digital marketing wins together in their 2.5 year partnership.

The Campaign Itself 

JSA is proud to be a frequent participant in Capacity Media’s Global Women in Telco & Tech event each year. And this year, when the award categories came across our desk, we knew we had the perfect story to tell for the award of Social Media or Marketing Campaign of the Year.

The nomination included a well-written overview of how the campaign was executed, the quantitative evidence of how well the campaign was received, as well as any challenges that we came across when creating the campaign.

 

When the shortlist was released, our team was honored to be nominated alongside two incredible brands: Verizon and Digital Realty. In addition, we were excited to see Maven Wave’s new parent company, Atos, nominated in several other categories.

Without further ado, we’re thrilled to share the official announcement where Maven Wave was named Best Social Media or Marketing Campaign of the Year. Check out the bubbly acceptance video by our favorite Mavens!

 

 

Overall, this remarkable campaign highlighted the strength, talent, and expertise of the women who are creating real value at a major tech brand. It’s stories like theirs that we hope empower other companies to be #EachforEqual.