MERRILLVILLE – VIA Marketing began in 1987 over a cup of coffee when Julie Olthoff and her business partner set out to form their own advertising agency. With a little capital and a lot of faith, they opened Accent on Advertising-renamed VIA Marketing in 1997. At the helm of this ship was an Itek typesetting machine-now an antique by today’s standards, a copy machine and a typewriter. The first assignment was a printed newsletter for Admiral’s Health Club.

Now today in 2017, we are proud to say that VIA Marketing has been serving Northwest Indiana with award-winning work for 30 years. We've shaped cutting-edge strategies, messages and visuals for startups and Fortune 500 companies spanning tech, e-commerce, hospitality, healthcare and beyond. To celebrate this milestone, VIA Marketing has launched “Pirates and Pearls,” a fun-filled digital campaign celebrating the agency’s vast accomplishments, along with the expertise and marketing insights it has acquired over the many years of service to clients in Northwest Indiana and Chicagoland.

“We wanted to have fun celebrating 30 years of service,” says Julie Olthoff, president, “so we’ve essentially placed ‘30 Pearls of Marketing Wisdom’ on a treasure map that will be shared with area businesses looking to enhance their marketing efforts. Our entire staff brainstormed and enjoyed putting the theme together. With everything from a timeline of memories on social media, producing a video, styling the staff photo shoot, and developing an interactive landing page where users will find ‘30 Pearls of Marketing Wisdom’ and can enter to win pirate treasure. We’re really proud of everything the agency has accomplished and it’s exciting to present it in a clever concept.”