Bronson Ma Creative

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of corporate communications at NuStar Energy, a national leader in oil and petroleum pipelines and storage terminals.

What challenge were you trying to address with Bronson Ma Creative?

We had an outdated website and not a lot of in-house expertise to get a new one up and running. We had struggled with it ourselves but weren’t getting very far, so we brought Bronson to help us with that.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Bronson provided web development services. They guided us from the initial concept to launching. They came in with a simple presentation, which made it more intuitive for us to see what the deliverables were going to be. From there, they interviewed various of our stakeholders to get information about our mission and goals and came back with concepts that were exactly what we needed. They had a simple but very impactful style.

They developed the website’s wireframes, pages, and navigation. We’re a complex organization, but they made a great job at narrowing it down and developing a simple and intuitive navigation system for us.

What is the team composition?

Bronson (Chief Creative Officer) was my only point of contact.

How did you come to work with Bronson Ma Creative?

We worked from November 2011–March 2012.

How much have you invested with them?

Their work came at about $50,000–$100,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

A member of our team had heard good things about them. They came in and gave us a presentation on their expertise. We had several presentations from other vendors, but they left us more confused, so we decided to go with Bronson.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They made an easy and intuitive process to get the website up and running. Their exceptional work helped us illustrate our leadership in the pipeline industry but also our commitment to our social efforts. In today’s world, this is very important as investors look at how companies perform both financially and socially. We appreciated the work they did to help us distinguish ourselves in the industry. We still use the website, and we’re not in any hurry to change it.

How did Bronson Ma Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

They performed exceptionally well. We communicated through email and phone whenever we had a question. Bronson understood our struggle to get our message across, and he was on top of everything. His project management was outstanding. We had no experience in developing a website, but he guided us through the process.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to gather information and process it to develop a concise product was most impressive. They managed to come up with something that helped the average person understand who NuStar was.

Additionally, their pricing was beyond belief. The deliverables we got for the money we paid were infinitely better than any other proposals we had.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Sit down with them and tell them about your organization. They always bring the most of them to the engagement, so you don’t have to worry about that.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a retained executive search company, and we’ve been in business for almost 20 years. We work on behalf of companies to find executives that they need to fill key roles. I’m a senior partner at the company, which is made up of partners that have their own businesses within the company. I have my own practice, but we work as a team. 

What challenge were you trying to address with Bronson Ma Creative?

We had a collective need for marketing, so we sought out firms to help us with website redesign and brand refresh. The last time we had a brand refresh was around eight years ago. At that time, we found someone who could do our brand messaging well. However, in hindsight, they weren’t good at turning that into an appealing website. 

This time, we looked for a company that could understand our needs and had the resources to turn those needs into a modern-looking brand. While we wanted a refreshed logo, we didn’t want to change our name, so it wasn’t a total redo. Moreover, we wanted a clean-looking website as opposed to having too much information on it.

That being said, the site also needed to be comprehensive because our industry wasn’t well-understood by many people; while we gave professional services, we were different from a consulting business. Due to that, it was hard to capture and display our business on a few web pages, but Bronson worked on it.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Bronson Ma Creative did a fair amount of work. Our domain name was the same, but the whole website, content, pictures, colors, layout, and everything else were all new down to the wireframes. 

Initially, we spent much time looking at our brand architecture and messaging — we didn’t want to run before we walked. We wrote down our true value proposition on paper, and we referenced that as a bible. We documented our pillars of success and key messages to see how they fit with the website as we created multiple pages, layers, and levels of content. Then, Bronson used WordPress to develop the website, making it easier to update. They also took us through a tutorial on how to make our own updates. 

The project stretched over a full year. We had delays because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and we put some things on pause to focus on other priorities. On top of that, we needed to make marketing announcements prior to the website’s launch. Our company wanted to have a soft launch and a formal launch, and we had to orchestrate everything. By November 2020, we were 95% done; we were only polishing words and content on the website. Meanwhile, we also needed to provide more content than we expected. Only our team had some specific information, so it wouldn’t have helped to put that task on Bronson's shoulders. As a result, the last 5% of the project was pure muscle work for both our teams. 

What is the team composition?

We worked primarily with Bronson (CEO) and Mark (Chief Content Architect). Both of them worked on the creative side of things while diving into branding strategy. Bronson led some parts of the project, then Mark led other parts of it. 

How did you come to work with Bronson Ma Creative?

We went through an RFP-based process, seeking out half a dozen firms of various experiences that could do the job. We interviewed and screened everybody, made a shortlist, and went through a firm-fixed contract process. Bronson was competitive, and they were more local than other firms, though the location didn’t really matter because we ended up working remotely. As a result, the search was more about finding the right company that could understand the complexities of our services. They should also be able to deal with us; we had type-A personalities, so it wasn’t easy working with us. 

Certain firms had stronger experience in branding. Others were focused on the services they could do for us after they finished this project. Then, there were others who wouldn’t do anything for less than $200,000 — they did beautiful work, but that wasn’t in our budget. While we had good business, we didn’t have that much budget for the website, so this eliminated a couple of firms right away. Eventually, we chose Bronson, which was also able to work within our budget.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent somewhere between $25,000–$50,000.  

What is the status of this engagement?

This project lasted from January 2020–March 2021. We paused in April 2020 and delayed things for about three months. We started picking up speed around August–September 2020 to accomplish tasks before the holidays.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We were very happy with the look and feel of the website. The color schemes had changed from red and white to more purple, lavender, and blue colors. We had strong images and content, so the soft colors were a nice addition to the mix. Moreover, we wanted to soften our image because people wouldn’t associate positively with our name, which we didn't want to change. The way Bronson laid out our logo and selected the fonts was thoughtful. As a result, we received many positive comments about the website, and users told us that it had a massive improvement. Everybody was happy with our renewed site. 

In this project, we learned that we’d end up doing more of the work ourselves when we took Bronson's bid. However, that was how our team was wired; we wanted to control a lot of the content rather than have somebody else create it for us. Overall, we received what we paid for and what we wanted, so it was a win for everybody. 

How did Bronson Ma Creative perform from a project management standpoint?

A managing partner and I had weekly updates and scheduled calls for progress reports where the Bronson team would preview everything with us. Once we made comments, they'd make adjustments. Then, we’d then take the entire team through the next wave of updates. Meanwhile, we weren’t the best at using Microsoft applications, so our side could have done better at utilizing the tools that Bronson was using. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were flexible in working with small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), and their approach was good. They had a process that worked well as they took us through the branding architecture discussion, which was truly useful. In the end, that saved all of us from going crazy because we had everything documented. Their process was repeatable, and it led to success.

Overall, the project was a lot of work, but Bronson was very patient with us. We were exacting, and that could be difficult for them when creating a proposal. We were probably one of their more demanding clients, but they did well. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

Bronson and Mark were nice and gentle people. However, I had to tell them they couldn’t be nice to us. They must tell us what to do and not simply suggest things. We were confident and dominant people, so if Bronson wavered, we’d lose confidence. They were the designers and branding experts, so they shouldn’t let us take over the project. Bronson would rather have harmony than conflict, but conflict could sometimes be healthy. After all, conflicts would definitely happen whenever we did these types of projects. 

Moreover, we needed a strong hand, and we were a bit frustrated when we thought they didn’t understand our business after all. However, not everybody could truly understand what we did, so we had to see the project through and help Bronson understand it. That being said, this was a fine line, and they learned things along the way, too. They did the best they could do, and we sometimes had to lead instead of following, which was okay. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Be clear about what you’re expecting. Go a bit more granular, and be ready to explore what the project will take. Other people simply walk into these types of projects and hire a firm. However, this is an investment that you’re making on your own, so you need to be involved. If you’re going to delegate it to somebody that can’t make decisions on behalf of the organization, you’ll be in trouble. In other words, you need to be truly engaged throughout the project, so results will be better.