Client-led (add)ventures

VENTURING OUT: Steve Rosa, right, president and CEO of (add)ventures in Providence, speaks with clients remotely with Dayna Bianco, left, vice president, digital/strategy, and Wayne Vieira, senior vice president, design/branding. Rosa founded the company in 1989 when he was 25. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
VENTURING OUT: Steve Rosa, right, president and CEO of (add)ventures in Providence, speaks with clients remotely with Dayna Bianco, left, vice president, digital/strategy, and Wayne Vieira, senior vice president, design/branding. Rosa founded the company in 1989 when he was 25. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

They used to call him crazy, now they give him awards.

That’s how Stephen Rosa, president and CEO of the marketing firm (add)ventures, jokingly describes how the marketing and communication industry has evolved during his 26 years in the field.

At the age of 25, with a credit card and a typewriter, Rosa founded (add)ventures under the belief that advertising could be done differently from what he saw then as a greed-driven industry.

Today, with a couple Emmy awards, 42 employees and offices in Providence, New York and Miami, (add)ventures creates advertisements, develops brands and runs marketing for big-name companies, including CVS Health, Timberland, Citi Group and GTECH.

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“We’ve always been a little counter-culture, so we decided to stop looking in on what the competition was doing and keep a laser-like focus on our client-partner needs,” Rosa said.

Rosa, who grew up on Wickenden Street in Providence, decided after two years of running his business in Boston to take a gamble and move his company home to Rhode Island.

“Despite everyone telling me I was crazy to go to the smaller market, I was rewarded,” Rosa said.

Indeed, (add)ventures was No. 14 among fastest-growing private companies in the state with revenue between $5 million and $25 million in 2014, recording three-year revenue growth of 22 percent between 2011-2013, according to Providence Business News research.

Rosa has expanded his business to cities outside Providence, but even the hometown market has proven lucrative.

Last year, the company then known as CVS Caremark tapped (add)ventures to develop a campaign for its health initiative “CVS quits for good.” CVS announced it would no longer sell cigarettes and tobacco products at its more than 7,600 retail stores nationwide.

The initiative included the corporate name change to CVS Health.

For Rosa, the opportunity gave validation to everything he’s worked toward since starting the business.

“Loving your customers, doing the right thing,” Rosa said, listing his values. “[CVS] took a $2 billion risk and has been rewarded with all-time high stock prices. They showed the world that nice organizations can finish first.”

Rosa says he doesn’t know where the industry will take him or (add)ventures, but attributes much of the firm’s success to not fighting change. He says those in the field who fear change quickly became antiquated.

“The one constant [in 26 years], other than our approach, has been change – and we’re not fearful of it. A large part of what we do is work with organizations to show them how to overcome their own fear of change,” Rosa said.

The company recently bolstered its in-house video-production studio. When asked whether he’d expand into other states or cities, Rosa said it would depend on his clients.

“It’s not based on us, it’s based on what our clients need and what’s smart for them,” Rosa said. “We build brands from the inside out and we work within an organization to make sure the employees on the inside are as inspired with a brand as the customers on the outside.” •

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