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Wiley Partner Solutions, a new division of the academic publisher, Wiley, teamed up with woman-led production company Specular to create an inaugural marketing video,“Partnering for Success,” to debut the brand-new division to the global academic community that the division serves.
The academic publisher John Wiley & Sons, Inc., originally founded as a small print shop in Manhattan in 1807, became known in the 19th century as the publishing house for literary American works by acclaimed authors such as Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, and Washington Irving. In the 20th century, Wiley became the go-to publisher for academic texts worldwide, printing books, journals, and encyclopedias for researchers around the world.
In the 21st century, Wiley is continuing to grow and expand. As a premier publisher of academic texts with a current market cap of $2.48 billion, Wiley has chosen to position itself as a global pioneer in the open-source data-sharing landscape. Wiley Partners Solutions was formed in 2022 as a key part of Wiley’s open-source initiative as an international division made up of technology companies, editorial service companies, and consulting companies that all service researchers and academic publishing with the goal of advancing the academic publishing ecosystem. Headquartered in Berlin, Wiley Partner Solutions supports academic publishers and researchers around the world by providing tools, services, and resources that foster deeper partnerships, promote career advancement, and facilitate greater openness between researchers.
As the chief communications strategist for this newly formed division, VP of Strategic Communications and Transformation Karen Proff’s first task was to get the word out into the world to make the publishing community aware of the existence of Wiley Partner Solutions. Her main goal was to let Wiley’s global community of researchers, funders, and corporate clients know that Wiley Partner Solutions was ready to put their engine of partnerships to work to help them succeed in the publishing ecosystem.
When searching for a production company to partner with on the brand’s inaugural marketing video, it was really important to Proff that the story of Wiley Partners Solutions was being told directly from the perspective of Wiley’s partners themselves in an engaging and authentic way. She needed to find a production partner who would understand how to capture the unique voices of the researchers that Wiley serves. She also needed a partner that would be able to deliver on a timeline for the official unveiling of Wiley Partner Solutions at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt, Germany in October of 2022.
Karen was in search of an engaged and authentic production partner that could work thoughtfully and efficiently to deliver a high-impact product centering the voices of her stake holders on a strict timeline.
Specular came highly recommended to Proff by a colleague who had worked with the production company on a prior project. Proff was delighted to find the Specular team, led by founder and executive producer Rachel Nussbaum, to be professional, empathetic, and detail-oriented. Specular was exactly the kind of partner her team needed in order to amplify the voices of the researchers Wiley Partner Solutions serves. In a corporate world that is often dry and uninspired, Specular’s superpower as a production company is creating impactful, empathetic stories for businesses with a focus on creating greater diversity and inclusion.
Working closely with Karen’s team at Wiley on branding and vision, Specular scripted and produced a 3-minute marketing video titled “Partnering for Success,” using the voices of Wiley’s partners to tell the story of how Wiley Partner Solutions supports the academic publishing community. Specular spent time interviewing partners of WPS in New York, New Jersey, Washington D.C, and Beijing, China in the German, Mandarin Chinese, and English languages for the video.
“Partnering for Success” highlights the collaborative nature of the Wiley Partner Solutions brand and the wide swath of support that WPS provides to a diverse ecosystem of partners in the publishing world. The visual style of the video is natural and compelling, the interview questions thoughtfully crafted and edited, and the production quality expertly executed.
“Partnering for Success” highlights the collaborative nature of the Wiley Partner Solutions brand and the wide swath of support that WPS provides to a diverse ecosystem of partners in the publishing world. The visual style of the video is natural and compelling, the interview questions thoughtfully crafted and edited, and the production quality expertly executed.
“Partnering for Success” premiered at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2022 and was released online to the public that same month. After the launch, the views, likes, and customer feedback began to roll in for Wiley Partner Solutions. Proff’s team overachieved on every KPI benchmark set by WPS for the video’s online viewership. In the first five months on YouTube, “Partnering for Success” achieved 130% of projected views, achieved 160% of projected impressions, and outperformed similar videos on the Wiley YouTube channel. Proff’s team also received direct positive feedback from customers who were impressed by the voices of the interviewees who had participated in the video. The “Partnering for Success” video not only successfully reached the Wiley community at large, but the voices of the partners in the video also established brand trust for the newly formed division.
After the initial success of the video launch, Proff sees the “Partnering for Success” video as an evergreen resource for engaging with potential clients, an aid to get Wiley Partner Solutions a foot in the door with new partners, as well as a tool for engaging in conversations with existing partners regarding the suite of services that WPS offers.
With a successful project behind them, Wiley Partners Solutions is continuing to partner with Specular. Proff and Nussbaum are working together to create a second, company- facing video for Wiley Partner Solutions, with the goal of promoting bonding among teammates and creating a sense of unity within the division itself.
Wiley Partners Solutions supports an estimated 900 partners worldwide and is made up of various external acquisitions made by Wiley over the last 6 years, including technology publishing platform Atypon, Knowledge Unlatched, Inera, J&J Editorial, as well as internal Wiley teams. As a new division with many moving parts and services offered, Wiley Partner Solutions is still in the process of finding its core identity and corporate culture internally.
Luckily, Wiley Partner Solutions has found the right production partner to tell the story of that journey, with empathy and inclusion, in Rachel Nussbaum and her team at Specular.
