Building a Successful Career, One Story at a Time

You won’t find “storyteller” among the job titles on Eva Wasko’s resume. But Wasko, a 2011 graduate of Kutztown University and senior vice president of public relations at Allen & Gerritsen (A&G), a Boston- and Philadelphia-based advertising and public relations firm, says storytelling is integral to her success. In more than a decade in the public relations field, Wasko has successfully used stories to build awareness of clients as diverse as Dunkin’, 3M, Pillsbury, and the Legal Defense Fund.

“It is really essential, in order to promote your brand, your organization, or your initiative, that you have to tell a story,” says Wasko, who works on integrated teams that include marketers, designers, and other creatives. “At the end of the day, we all want to be persuaded and entertained and inspired by stories.”

Laying the groundwork

The A&G team’s ability to tell a compelling story was showcased in the award-winning campaign “The Sounds of Tinnitus.” Developed in 2019 for supplement maker Lipo-Flavonoid, it told the stories of people who have tinnitus, a condition in which individuals hear sounds when no external noise is present. The sounds might include ringing, swooshing, buzzing, whistling and more. Veteran Foley artist Marko Costanzo – who produces sound effects for film and television – was hired to replicate the sounds that tinnitus patients hear.

The campaign included a video about tinnitus patients. Wasko and her team lever[1]aged it to land a five-minute segment on “The Today Show.” The campaign earned a platinum MarCom Award for a public relations campaign and three Pepperpot Awards, the top prize from the Philadelphia Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

A native of Northampton, Pa., Wasko majored in theatre at KU with minors in public relations and speech communications. She was active on campus, appearing in main[1]stage theater productions, giving admissions tours to prospective students, anchoring Newsbreak, and serving as a student trustee on the university’s Council of Trustees.

Two experiences shifted her career focus from the stage to public relations: serving as public relations chair of the Sunshine Players, KU’s touring children’s theater troupe, and an internship in the University Relations office. After graduating summa cum laude, she moved to New York City and took an unpaid public relations internship with Parasol Marketing Group while working a second, paying job at Chelsea Market. Within three months, she was promoted to a paid position.

In 2012, she joined Cohn & Wolfe (now Burson Cohn & Wolfe), working with clients that included 3M, Microsoft, Lowes, and the J.M. Smucker Co., parent company of iconic brands such as Pillsbury and Folgers. One of her successful media placements found her on the national TV show “Fox & Friends,” standing next to an 8-foot inflatable Pillsbury Doughboy.

She spent three years in the firm’s Los Angeles office. On the West Coast, she reconnected with fellow KU alumni David Krater ’12. The couple married in 2018. The wedding, held in Bethlehem, was attended by many KU alumni, including Wasko’s mother, who earned a graduate degree there, and Krater’s brother and sister-in-law.

Leading a team

Wasko was hired by Allen & Gerritsen when she moved back to the East Coast to be closer to her family. After six years, she was named senior vice president, leading a 10-member team. A&G CEO Andrew Graff emphasizes that her success has as much to do with her interpersonal skills and ability to cultivate relationships as it does her public relations acumen. He notes she’s frequently the person to propose new approaches.

“What I love about her is that she is a champion of breaking down silos and bringing together different cohorts of people,” Graff says. “When you’re pushing the boundaries, you are sometimes met with skepticism. Eva is the kind of person who pushes hard but brings people together. She is someone who is kind and human – all the qualities you look for in leadership.”

Such qualities earned Wasko the agency’s first Founder’s Award, presented to an employee exhibiting an entrepreneurial spirit, who is always looking for ways to push beyond the status quo.

“The recipient is someone who is the champion of ’what next’ and ’what if,’” Graff says. “It’s the way we talk about the ampersand in our name: We say that a great idea should not stop short, that we should always be asking ’and what if…’”

In recent years, Wasko has focused on ways to leverage attention beyond traditional media, such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Instead, social media influencers, content creators and niche publications are increasingly important.

“PR ultimately is a long game, building brand awareness,” Wasko says. “It is about building a relationship with your customers.”

She emphasizes that clients still expect results and want to see a return on their investment. Analyzing data to quantify the effectiveness of her public relations efforts is important.

“A big conversation in the PR industry over the past few years has been about measurement and how do we measure success? One of the things that has been really cool at A&G has been working with our performance marketing team, and being able to build a structure where we are able to measure the impact of our earned results,” Wasko says.

Some of the biggest successes still come from a good story. Wasko recalls leveraging a real-life human-interest story to build brand awareness for Dunkin’. Her team arranged for a daughter to fly into Boston’s Logan Airport to surprise her mother, who she had not seen in several years. The story received a lot of attention, including shares on social media.

“It’s just a great example … that people want a feel-good story. They want to see the impossible becoming possible,” Wasko says.

This article originally appeared in the 2024 Tower Magazine.