Maria Montanez

Here's a sample of work I’ve managed over the years, and the stories behind it!

3+ Box Launch, a 360 campaign for gaynor minden

Gaynor Minden’s pointe shoes are the first to utilize modern materials and a revolutionary fitting system, allowing dancers to get a more customized fit without needing to custom order a shoe. Because of the nature of the materials used, fitting needs to be extremely precise, and the introduction of a new box size — the part of the shoe around the toes — meant we had a lot of education to do. This education had to be available for our end consumers, as well as for our business partners. A product launch of this magnitude required me to take on a highly cross-functional role, working closely with our product and sales departments, as well as managing my own department to ensure all filming/shooting/editing/creating projects were staying on track.

Before launch, we focused on our business partners:

• We held fitting seminars held all over the world for our retail and company partners, focused on the 3+ box size and when to use it and taking pre-orders at a promotional rate

• We ensured product was shipping a month prior to launch so that our retailers had physical product for their customers when we announced it

At the time of launch, we focused on education for our end consumers and support for our business partners:

• We created educational content to be used across our website, email, social, and YouTube. In addition to the video I’ve placed above, content included FAQs, visual comparisons of the 3+ with our other boxes, “How to know if you need the 3+”, user-generated content from dancers who had been testing the 3+, and a live Fitting Friday — a monthly educational series we hosted on IG stories — focused on the 3+ box.

• We attended numerous trade shows, competitions, and conventions with new signage and extensive fitting samples of the 3+ box

• We set up fitting days at multiple retailers around the country to support them in getting this new shoe on feet.

youtube channel development, gaynor minden

One of the challenges we faced as a company was education, and making sure not only our resellers but also our end consumers had the information they needed to feel fully confident investing in a pair of Gaynor Minden pointe shoes.

A focus for us in 2018 was capitalizing on all the knowledge of our staff — fully made up of current and former dancers, which is surprisingly unique for the industry — and building out a more robust YouTube channel.

I was responsible for maintaining the list of video ideas, building out production schedules, writing content and scheduling shooting, and often being the on-camera talent. Post-filming, my responsibility lied in making sure editing and post-production stayed on schedule, that the final video was clear and easy to understand for our viewers, getting videos approved by our founder, and planning the announcement of each new video (often by email and social media).

Web sales increased exponentially in 2018, and while more than YouTube videos certainly went into that success I have no doubt that the increase of educational content our customers were seeing had a lot to do with it.

Influencer strategy + partnerships, gaynor minden

Gaynor Minden’s ambassador program got its original start long before my tenure there. Over time, the program changed in many ways, including the addition of a group of young influencers, Gaynor Girls. I wanted to highlight young, budding ballerinas who were choosing to wear our pointe shoes, and with whom our audience could more easily connect. Until then, Gaynor Minden only showcased world-famous professionals in their advertising, which is certainly inspirational but not necessarily representative of the majority of its customers.

In 2018, we shifted the entire program to require social media posting not only from our young Gaynor Girls, but from all levels of ambassadors, and I was responsible for handling outreach and product seeding for all our ambassadors. We gave dancers the option to continue being paid as they had been, or to choose to donate their payment to a deserving dancer, school, or company — giving them the chance to give back and support others through their partnership with Gaynor Minden.

By the time I left Gaynor Minden in early 2019, the program consisted of over 85 students, dancers, teacher, and directors from all over the world.

Website upgrade, gaynor minden

Dancer.com was an ongoing project for much of my time at Gaynor Minden. One of my favorite projects on the website was a significant upgrade to the pointe shoe ordering page. This update made it easier for customers to navigate a very detailed ordering process, provided educational content through the process, and made it possible for our team to be able to edit the back end of the site — not previously possible — to update size-availability.

I worked closely with our [external] web developers on the design and execution, ensuring they had the visuals, content, and approvals needed from us to be able to complete their portions on time. Once the page went live, we thoroughly enjoyed watching the upward trend in pointe shoe sales!

consulting on a more diverse spring campaign, cloud & victory

My friend Min runs a rad dancewear business based in Singapore, and is essentially a one-woman show. When she called to ask if I would be interested in consulting for her, I jumped at the opportunity.

Something that had been on both our minds for some time was this question of how we change dance advertising and campaigns to be more inclusive, and more representative of the majority of people buying dancewear. How do we make it enough to study ballet because you love it, and not because you want to make it your career? The ballet world is…traditional, often rigid, and it can be tricky (as I well learned at Gaynor Minden) to try to change that and still be taken seriously.

Min found ballet as an adult, and the adult ballet community is one that is largely overlooked and underserved by dancewear companies in their products and in their marketing. She mentioned one call that she was contemplating shooting her next campaign on women from her adult ballet class, and it felt like a wonderful answer to the question.

As a consultant, my role was not so much in the planning or execution of the shoot or the graphics as it was to gauge where the industry was, how something like this would fit in, and how it resonated with her brand. We, of course, spent quite some time discussing how to best present the materials once the shoot was done, making sure the women in the shoot were able to tell their stories about themselves and what brought them to study ballet, and going through the images to select the best ones. My job also involved reassuring Min that this would be awesome, impactful, and powerful when doubts arose — as they are known to do when trying something different.

The campaign launched, and Min and I were both in tears reading the responses from dancers. So many who had felt overlooked and undervalued suddenly felt seen and appreciated by something as simple as a brand’s photograph (and extended sizing!).

I can happily say that 2019 was a banner year for C&V, no doubt because of the level of inclusiveness Min is able to cultivate in her community through campaigns like this one!