GCAI News Archives - GCAi | Digital Public Relations and Marketing

GCAi and New England Corporate Videos to Debut 2026 Difference Makers Honoree Films at April 7th BusinessWest Event

SPRINGFIELD, MA — Garvey Communication Associates Inc. (GCAi), through its video production subsidiary New England Corporate Videos (NECV), will debut its 2026 Difference Makers honoree video series at the annual BusinessWest Difference Makers Event on April 7th. This marks the fourth consecutive year GCAi and NECV have served as the official video production team for the prestigious regional recognition program.

Now in its fourth year of partnership, GCAi once again collaborated with BusinessWest Editor Joe Bednar, who served as interviewer across eight on-camera sessions. The production team created 16 individual edits from those interviews — half to be screened in long form at the April 7th event, and the remaining half to be used for ongoing promotional purposes.

This year, GCAi broke from tradition by expanding beyond its downtown Springfield studio on the 24th floor of Tower Square. In collaboration with honoree Darby O’Brien, the team arranged to film a portion of the interviews on-location at Food 101 in South Hadley.

“Darby and I came up with the idea to shoot at Food 101,” said John Garvey, President of GCAi. “We felt it would add a whole new element to the interviews — and it did. Nobody puts Darby into a studio, so we knew we had to find a setting that would suit his personality and creativity. We are very appreciative of Alan Anischik and his crew at Food 101 for accommodating us and our idea.”

The Difference Makers program, launched by BusinessWest, recognizes individuals, organizations, businesses, and institutions making a meaningful impact across the communities of Western Massachusetts. This year’s honorees represent a diverse cross-section of the region’s most dedicated civic and business leaders:

✦ Ryan Alekman & Robert DiTusa — Alekman DiTusa, LLC

✦ Rachelle Hannoush — YWCA of Western Massachusetts

✦ Jess Miller — The Kind Squad

✦ Darby O’Brien — Darby O’Brien Advertising

✦ Julie Quink — Burkhart Pizzanelli, P.C.

✦ Edward Sokolowski — Pioneer Valley Financial Group

✦ Margaret Tantillo — O’Dell Women’s Center

✦ Zeno Temple — Just Us Movement

“These are incredible individuals and we are thrilled to help tell their story,” said Garvey. “We are happy to be a part of Difference Makers every year and are proud to help amplify the contributions of honorees who serve as an inspiration to us all.”

The 2026 BusinessWest Difference Makers Event takes place on April 7th. For more information, visit businesswest.com.

GCAi Launches “Tower Square Times” A Newsletter Focusing on 1500 Main Street and Downtown

GCAi has officially launched Tower Square Times, a brand-new monthly digital publication created in collaboration with Tower Square management and dedicated to everything happening at downtown Springfield’s premier office tower and retail destination.

Video Stops the Scroll

Your audience is ignoring you, and so are the algorithms. According to our buddies at LinkedIn, unless you are using video, people just scroll right by you with the algorithm pushing them along like a baby in a pram.

“Tim The Barber,” Tim Long of Harwich Port, MA

It’s probably never been said that Google reviews actually give insight into the individual. In the case of my friend Tim Long, also known as “Tim the Barber of Harwich Port,” there is some truth to them.

GCAi Pro Bono Videos Help Local Nonprofits Launch Giving Tuesday Fundraising.

According to Fortune Magazine, Americans donated more than $4 billion to nonprofits in 2025, a substantial increase over the $3.6 billion donated the previous year. Yet, for many charities, getting a piece of that growing and increasingly important pie can prove difficult. Enter GCAi, offering free video pitches to area nonprofits.

“Look, I get it. I ran a nonprofit in Western MA for years and understand the importance and difficulty of fundraising,” explains John J. Garvey, founder of Garvey Communication Associates, Inc. “We also understand the power of digital public relations, so we were happy to put our tools and tactics to work for these worthy charities.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. Family Services, Tech Foundry, and Revitalize CDC took advantage of the GCAi offer and recorded their pitches in November for launch prior to and during Giving Tuesday 2025.

GCAi also kick-started each nonprofit’s Giving Tuesday with a $250 donation.

PeoplesBank Changes Leaders and GCAi Makes That News Known

For the third time in about two decades, PeoplesBank has named a new president and turned to GCAi PR to make that news known to both media and digital audiences. Starting with the transition from Joe LoBello to Doug Bowen, then Bowen to Tom Senecal, and finally, Senecal to the current President and COO Brian Canina, GCAi has helped the bank tell the story of both past accomplishments and future potential.

“It’s a bit of a profound role,” suggests GCAi founder John J. Garvey. “We are helping to shape one president’s legacy and another’s promise. I do think, however, the balance is tilted toward legacy. This is a time to celebrate the departing leader’s successes and accomplishments.”

One of the unique features of the Public Relations campaign was a GCAi-produced video interview between incoming Todd Tallman, the incoming CEO of PeoplesBank and PeoplesBancorp, MHC, and Tom Senecal regarding what success would look like in the coming years.

One of GCAi’s Digital Media Kits (DMKs) made its way to Jon Chesto of the Boston Globe, who chose to feature Tom Senecal in his Bold Types column.

Business Success Stories Sell for the Rush Insurance Group

Success sells, or so the saying goes. In a digital Public Relations world, however, GCAi believes that brands should focus on how they enable the success of their customers rather than boasting about their own success.

That belief is fueled by digital data and results. In both the B2B and B2C worlds, GCAi has found that digital results – achieving if not exceeding the key performance metrics of a campaign are based on storytelling related to how a company helps its customers, and putting the customer in charge of that message.

“We fight this battle a lot,” notes John J. Garvey, founder of GCAi and architect of its Digital Public Relations and Marketing approach. “I scratch my head about it, but some companies just want to digitally settle on ‘buy our stuff’ rather than explore why customers do that. If they care about data, we usually win the fight.”

For the Rush Insurance Group, there was no fight at all. Rush’s founder, Sam Hanmer, has been a GCAi client for decades – including during his tenure as owner of FieldEddy. Sam readily agreed to the Business Success Stories approach and found two more than willing clients – Center Square Grill’s owner Bill Collins and Springfield Museums’ president, Kay Simpson.

“The Center Square Grill shoot was a hoot,” Garvey explains, “We were just testing out our new G7x vlogging cameras when all of a sudden, we realized we were capturing something unique. On the other hand, the Springfield Museums shoot was terrifying. We used a more conventional approach – cameras, lights, etc., and when Kay told us we were shooting in the room with their most valued paintings, I almost had a heart attack. We were a few feet away from the works of the masters, and one falling tripod could have…well, I can’t even say it.”

The results made the risks rewarding. The Center Square Grill and Springfield Museums campaigns, which ran on Meta and LinkedIn, resulted in more than 100,000 video views and over 6,000 link clicks.

Oh, and Sam (our insurance agent) said we would be covered if we messed up the Monet.

GCAi Announces New Certifications for Nathan Dion

“Nate has entered a rare space in modern Public Relations – having expertise in digital content creation and dissemination.”

Nathan Dion, a Digital Public Relations Analyst for Garvey Communication Associates Inc. (GCAi), has earned several new digital marketing certifications from LinkedIn and Meta. Nate worked for two years under the supervision of Los Angeles-based James Garvey, Vice President of Digital Marketing for GCAi, before taking over specific client accounts. His new certifications include:

LinkedIn Advertising Fundamentals: Launching successful LinkedIn advertising campaigns, optimizing targeting and reporting.
LinkedIn Advertising Marketing Strategy: Full-funnel marketing strategy and using LinkedIn for brand awareness and lead generation.
Meta Digital Marketing Associate: Campaign creation, management, and reporting through Meta Ads Manager.

“Nate has entered a rare space in modern Public Relations – having expertise in digital content creation and dissemination.” ” explained John Garvey, founder of GCAi. “The spray and pray days of pestering reporters and readers are over. Both want relevant content delivered to their door, and Nate is an expert in accomplishing that.”

Nate is also an experienced video producer and has worked on video productions for automotive, financial services, and retail clients, managing the film crew and working in the GCAi edit suite. Some of his most recent work includes pro-bono videos for Square One, Tech Foundry and Helix Human Services.

Nate is a Westfield State University graduate, earning a bachelor of arts in Communication with a dual concentration in Media Arts and Analysis and Public Relations. He also minored in Graphic Design.

Five Keys To Supercharging Your Video Podcast Performance

Have you ever traveled over the Sagamore Bridge to Cape Cod just before the 4^th of July? Keep that image in your head because that is what brand video podcast traffic is like today. Just about everyone is driving one, and they all want to get to the same destination—into their audience’s hearts and minds.

We are currently producing video podcasts for two clients. The first is a large financial services company looking to engage internal audiences. The second is City Tire and Auto Centers, which currently has 11 stores in three different states. The results of City Tire’s video podcast campaign are particularly impressive. The podcasts produced in support of the Keene, NH and Great Barrington, MA stores generated approximately 55,000 engagement actions and 2,500 link clicks for the two weeks they were in market.

Keene NH, David Hadden	Seward’s Tire, Matt Buffoni
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That performance data, which we replicated in another market simultaneously, proves that the following five rules apply to the production and dissemination of video podcast content.

Quality content counts. City Tire’s video podcasts perform because they feature recognized experts providing quick and helpful information. Audiences gobble that up.
Quality production is critical. Too many brands think the video podcast is a way around the quality production threshold. Wrong. To get the high-quality content we seek, we use 4k cameras – three generally, including our two Canon G7x cameras designed explicitly for vlogging. One camera is mounted to a mechanical slider so we can add a hit of movement that captures attention. Finally, we light and use lighting very carefully. It’s time to throw that ring light in the trash because it screams “amateur,” and look it.
Let’s have a serious conversation about sound, particularly podcast mics. They are not props and should not be the most prominent thing in the shot. And for goodness sake, don’t cover your hosts’ and guests’ faces with them. You’ll notice we use them in active, kind of noisy settings because that’s what they do well. They also create flexibility regarding where we can shoot.
Again, we go primarily for active and exciting settings, so all the equipment used is to maximize the potential of that space. For City Tire, we shot right in a waiting room, not an antiseptic conference room. Also, there were no couches or puffy chairs. We used special stools so that those interviewed sat up straight, engaging their core and maximizing their delivery potential.
Optimal Length: “Begin with the end in mind,” Digital dissemination director James Garvey insists. He knows that these videos are not going to just sit on a website or YouTube. James builds campaigns to deliver this high-quality content right to the consumers’ door. To optimize that potential, the video podcasts are purposefully short—under 60 seconds. We use viewer feedback data as well as the potential of the dissemination platform to govern optimal video length.

Thank you to Peter Greenberg, president of City Tire, for letting us look under the hood of the engine that drove such impressive campaign results.

Production Credits: Nathan Dion, Director of Photography & Editor; Myranda Nasworthy, Second Camera and Grip; John Garvey, Producer.

GCAi Captures The “Back To Square One” Story In Capital Campaign Video

“So much of what people believe about themselves and their abilities and what’s possible is formed in early childhood, so positive early childhood education programs like Square One help people believe that more is possible.”

– Alex Balise, Director of Marketing and Corporate Strategy at Balise Auto Group

No one from downtown or South End of Springfield will forget the June 1, 2011 tornado. After starting in Westfield, the tornado made its way through West Springfield and made a 90 degree turn at GCAi’s office building. We watched as it turned south, travel down the Connecticut River, and then made another 90-degree turn in the South End that led it right to the offices and classroom of Square One. Everything in the area was almost completely destroyed, including the building where GCAi originally started, one block over.

Now, over a decade later, GCAi has helped Square One launch its campaign to return to the South End and build a new facility right on its old site. Four separate shoot days, lots of tours, and using our newest lighting and camera equipment were all important in creating a successful video. However, the real tool that GCAi would employ would be storytelling. We knew we needed to harness the power of storytelling to be effective.

The production of Square One (Springfield Day Nursery)‘s “Back To Square One” campaign video was an incredible experience. Kristine Puglisi Allard and Dawn Forbes DiStefano were so patient and accommodating. When the interview day came along, we interviewed Jeb and Alex Blaise – who made a very generous donation of $1,000,000 to the effort, our good friend Leo Florian, head of the South End Citizen’s Council, as well as the amazing Melissa Bissett, Vice President of Family Services at Square One. The interviews brought out the feelings and emotions of everyone in the room, showing just how important Square One coming back to the South End was to everyone involved.

Another amazing part of the shoot was when a huge storm blew in during the interview of Dawn which completely changing the light in the room as well as creating some background noise issues. We were happy, though, that it wasn’t another tornado!

The classroom setting also contributed to the story. We chose it because it really brought home the educational aspects of what the organization achieves – amplifying it in a way that a studio shoot/green screen/artificial backgrounds just could not. People are tired of AI, Zoom, fake backgrounds on the web. Authenticity rules the day and can very much help tell the story

The South End of Springfield is where Garvey Communication Associates Inc. was started decades ago and was the home of President of GCAi, John Garvey first legitimate business – a news stand on Sundays when he was a kid. Garvey expresses, “It’s so great to see the area coming back and Square One returning to it! It’s even more satisfying to be a part of it.”

Video production credits go to NECV video producers, Myranda Nasworthy and Nathan Dion.