2024 Business Women Awards
INDUSTRY LEADER | CREATIVE SERVICES: Megan McGuinness
McGuinness Media & Marketing owner and chief marketing officer
MEGAN MCGUINNESS DESCRIBES her business as a “teaching agency.” No matter what level an employee is at within the company, from internship to ownership, they can always level up and learn more.
It’s a philosophy that aligns with the most impactful lesson Phil Juliano, McGuiness’ mentor, taught her long ago: “Always surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. And don’t be afraid of that.”
Juliano died last August. But his coaching, the notion that smart and creative individuals can learn from each other and elevate the entire team, have taken McGuinness far in business.
As owner and chief marketing officer of McGuinness Media & Marketing in Warwick, her 20 employees assist companies in marketing their brands. They cover all the bases, from ad, brand, graphic and logo design to videography, advertising, brand marketing (digital and social media) and project management.
In the process, McGuinness’ team is always learning from each other and building lasting relationships with clients, who have become like family and are invited to weddings, baby showers and other major life celebrations, McGuinness says.
“The key to our success is building relationships with clients,” McGuinness said. “Ninety-five percent of our business is based on referrals.”
The award-winning agency has been providing marketing solutions to regional and national brands, from Bally’s Corp. to HarborOne Bank, for the past 12 years.
The team manages the marketing budgets of clients like their own bank accounts, McGuinness says. They devise thoughtful strategies, targeted tactics and customized ideas.
“We heavily negotiate and monitor media buys, create beautiful designs, whatever the need is,” she said. “Nothing is cookie-cutter and never will be.”
Susan Gernt, senior account executive with Lamar Advertising Co. who has worked with McGuinness for more than a decade, says McGuinness brought a lot of business to Rhode Island with the growth of her agency. And McGuinness, Gernt says, knows how to keep her employees motivated and happy.
McGuinness has more than two decades of experience working in marketing and media strategy development on both the agency and client sides. She described her entrepreneurial journey as serendipitous.
She graduated from the University of Connecticut in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in communications and began work for an agency in Boston. McGuinness loved working on multiple brands and wearing different hats each day. But she left about seven years later when her family relocated to Rhode Island.
“I took a client-side job,” she said. “It was different and only focused on one brand and one thing at a time.”
She liked it but missed the creativity involved in working on different brands throughout each day. After four years in that role, she started consulting with a variety of businesses. McGuinness comes from a media background; building media strategy, targeting digital campaign and media solutions for companies to market their brands. But McGuinness says she had no intention of running a company.
“I loved consulting and having my own schedule. But the more media I bought, clients would say, ‘That’s great you bought this print ad and TV ad, but who’s going to make it?’ Can you make it now?’ I said, ‘Well, I cannot, but let me hire someone who can.’ ”
McGuinness subsequently hired one designer. Over time, her company organically grew to having multiple designers, creative directors, web developers and photographers.
In 2023, her agency became a certified woman-owned business and certified women-owned small business by the U.S. Small Business Administration – designations she hopes will open doors for growth. That same year, she started the agency’s charitable division, McGiveness Media, which donates to causes that are meaningful to the team.
McGuinness joked with her creative directors about “building the plane as we fly it.
“We didn’t have it all figured out,” she said. “It’s reacting to client needs and not based on any mission we have in life. We’re driven by meaning and not by money – bringing brands to life and keeping clients long term.”
