Atlanta-based We Are Rosie is a network of 800 marketing experts who desire flexible work schedules and thereby complete freelance assignments within brands or agencies. Over the last nine months, We Are Rosie has worked with 48 clients (three out of the six big agency holding companies) and launched about 650 media campaigns. The team has also helped with marketing strategy, brand building and communications work, said We Are Rosie founder and CEO Stephanie Olson.
The idea is to offer flexible schedules to people who want to work in marketing, and also let brands and agencies have a network they can tap into on a project basis. For brands, it’s a good way to not have to pay for a full-time agency or build an internal team, as well as have a way to fill in for workers on leave.
The brand Phobio has been working with We Are Rosie to help with creative and communications. The company began as a device trade-in service but then expanded to offering workforce communication tools and hadn’t really holistically looked at its branding. Stephen Wakeling, Phobio’s founder and CEO, said he had hired creative agencies for small assignments before but hadn’t been impressed by their ability to deliver.
“We had this mix of internal and external, and they all were fine, but they weren’t everything. We didn’t think we were getting everything we could get out of it,” Wakeling said. Instead, We Are Rosie worker Holly Wasson is “effectively our CMO,” who works with her team, remotely, to create and help execute a marketing strategy.
Olson was inspired to launch We Are Rosie based on conversations with her peers in the industry. Some agency workers, especially older women, wanted the ability to work from home and not necessarily between the hours of 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Others were just frustrated with the current agency model. Olson had experienced burnout herself when she worked at AOL from 2007 to 2011 and had to travel six days a week.