Maar Qazi

Digital experience expert empowering teams to cultivate strategic brands through data-backed strategies.*

*I make good sh*t for great people. Currently keen on change management, small teams with big impact, and bringing slow-moving institutions into the bleeding edge.

Here's How.

Here's How.

Digital Strategy

Blue-sky strategies, resource-based realities 

Comprehensive strategic communications & marketing plans, from research and competitive analysis, audience identification & development to channel optimization and integration of performance data.

Media

Storytelling driven by data, made with purpose, delivered with impact

Editorial and video content management. Ideation, production, distribution and performance optimization spanning social, search, email, website, paid, owned and earned.

People Management

Brands as constellations, specialists as stars. 

Transforming strategic initiatives into actionable and meaningful work for specialists within and between teams. Empowering management to delegate, and supporting specialists in execution and collaboration.

PROJECTS

Selected

Faculty of Health Sciences at Western University

Western in the World: Breaking into international health care education

On an international scale, Western ranks amongst the top higher education facilities in the world across a wide range of metrics. As Canadians and locals, we know that.

However, in assessing the ways in which Western is perceived on the international stage, the school lags behind in its ability to translate domestic brand reputation into actionable positioning for international audiences. Long story short, they’ve never had to market themselves. But with shifting digital learning landscapes, the need to build an effective digital presence and craft engaging stories about Western’s impact on the world is a necessity.

I was brought onto the Faculty of Health Sciences team to create, implement and manage a holistic marketing strategy, across digital and physical channels, with select programs targeted for international student recruitment.


Deliverables

  • Full-stack marketing strategies for each targeted program

  • Performance insights integration

  • Site redesigns - UX and content (work in progress)

  • Comprehensive and resource-aligned content marketing plan including video, editorial, and audio content production

Diply & Plaid Creations

Virality through authentic communities & manufactured urgency

As an OG from the golden age of social media publishing, Diply, now known as Plaid Creations, is an ever-evolving digital arena. Through editorial, image-based memes, and high impact video production, content production, curation, and distribution was the bread and butter of my various roles in this company.

Most recently, I was tasked to manage the both the people and projects of the Editorial Department during a time when the core editorial product was being phased out of our primary distribution funnel—Meta. This posed many challenges, but even more opportunities to get creative with how I approached the media management funnel here.

The approach I developed always centred our end-consumer and ensured brand guidelines, fan expectations, and audience insights aligned through editorial breaking news coverage, live event coverage, and leveraging a deep understanding of audience values.

Deliverables

  • Strategic planning in collaboration with senior leadership

  • Brand and audience development across 5 core brands

  • Social media management & copywriting

  • Content standards development and implementation

  • Thousands of article ideations, revisions and distribution plans

  • Dozens of video ideation and production collaborations

Key Wins

  • 500 000+ daily website sessions

  • Development of unique content formats and distribution tactics to address algorithmic content suppression

  • Engaged and loyal fan communities across millions

  • Widely leveraged Content Standards Guidelines by internal and freelance teams

  • Brand partnerships with Disney, Amazon, Michaels, Wuffers and more

Symply Syrups

Creating a hub for at-home cocktail culture

In late 2020 the co-owners of Symply Syrups approached me to develop a logo and label designs for their passion project. Launching a small business is tough enough, let alone doing so during the biggest economic and health crisis of our generation.

I worked with Colten and Andrew to develop a strong brand identity, understand their target audiences, and design labels and a logo to reflect all of that groundwork. Later, I developed a social media plan and helped grow their audience engagement significantly.

Deliverables

  • Brand Identity Development

  • Digital Marketing Strategy - Social Media Focus

  • Logo Design & Print Collateral

Key Wins

  • +230% Instagram audience engagement month over month

  • +15% follow growth month over month

  • +22% in digital sales

  • Local and provinical brand recognition improvements

FUN

Forest City Film Festival 48HFF – Best Writing, Best Film, Best Cinematography – Winner 2022 – Rotten

Northeast Film Festival Horror Fest – Best Unproduced Screenplay – Winner 2016 – The Costume

Virtual Reality Film Fest – Best 360-Video Script – Semi-Finalist 2016 – The Costume

Oaxaca FilmFest - Best *Blockbuster* - Finalist 2017 – The Costume

Oaxaca FilmFest - The 2017 Global Script Challenge: Best Overall Script – Finalist – The Costume

Haram Zadi

A zine for the fiend of identity

This is an ongoing collection of creative feats by which the desi diaspora might find their voice. A creative, open space for our art in all of its forms and features might dare to exist.

Issue 1 - Kutti Culture

Issue 2 - Fear & Façades