Top Customer Journey Mapping Agencies in Chicago, Illinois

Crux Creative

Verified

Creating Experiences That Make Complex Stories Clear

Crux Creative is a women-owned brand and experiential design agency founded in 2005. For over 20 years, we’ve helped organizations turn ideas into meaningful, high-impact experiences that move people and businesses forward. We specialize in branded environments, museums and exhibits, trade show experiences, digital marketing, SEO, AI-powered strategy, and full-scale brand development. From large-scale interactive exhibits to growth-driven marketing campaigns, we bring strategic clarity and creative precision to every engagement. Our approach is rooted in partnership. We don’t just design, we listen, align, and build alongside our clients. We combine big-picture thinking with detailed execution, balancing creativity with budgets, timelines, and measurable ROI. Whether we’re developing a donor wall, launching a brand, building a website, or designing an immersive exhibit, we ensure every element supports a larger strategic objective. What makes us different: • Experiential depth + marketing intelligence — We merge physical space, digital strategy, and storytelling into cohesive brand ecosystems. • AI-forward, ethically grounded strategy — We leverage emerging technology to give clients a competitive advantage while maintaining human-centered design. • Operational awareness — We understand fabrication, installation, production logistics, and real-world implementation — not just design theory. • Entrepreneurial mindset — As founders ourselves, we understand growth, scale, and smart investment. • Long-term partnerships — Many of our client relationships span decades because we prioritize trust, transparency, and results. At Crux, we don’t chase trends. We build brands, spaces, and strategies that last. If you’re looking for a creative partner who understands both vision and execution — welcome to the center of it all.

Pietryla PR & Marketing

B2B communications for packaging, manufacturing and clean energy

Pietryla PR & Marketing is a B2B communications consultancy built for companies whose products are technical, whose sales cycles are long, and whose buyers are not moved by clever campaigns. Founded in 2002, the firm works with manufacturers, packaging companies, and clean energy businesses that need communications tied to revenue, valuation, and reputation rather than impressions. The model is deliberately narrow. Clients work directly with founder and president Christine Pietryla Wetzler, a fractional CMO and senior strategist with more than twenty-five years in the field. There is no account executive layer, no junior team learning the category on a client's budget, and no rotating staff. The people who sell the work do the work. For companies that have been through the traditional agency experience, this is usually the reason they call. Services concentrate in five areas: Media relations and trade press, with particular depth in packaging, converting, industrial manufacturing, and energy publications where technical credibility determines whether a pitch lands. Executive positioning and thought leadership, including bylines, awards, speaking, and the long-term work of turning a subject-matter expert into a name buyers recognize. Investor and public-company communications, including Reg FD-compliant disclosure, earnings support, and investor-readiness work for companies preparing to raise or exit. Crisis and issues management, from product recalls and security incidents to leadership transitions and litigation-adjacent reputation problems. Content and messaging architecture, meaning the positioning work that has to happen before any of the above produces results. Category experience runs deep. Early in her career, Christine managed a $1.2 million global communications budget embedded at Dow's performance foams business, where her team's work getting Ethafoam specified for museum preservation applications still holds decades later. She spent roughly ten years as fractional CMO to National Coal Corp., a NASDAQ-listed company, handling SEC and Reg FD-sensitive communications alongside crisis work, and served as director of PR and content for Servidyne, another public company. When an FBI investigation into card skimming hit United Federal Credit Union, she managed communications across forty locations. She also knows the media from the other side of the desk. She has been a contributing editor at Paper, Film & Foil Converter since 2009 and previously edited Packaging Technology Today. That matters practically. Knowing what an editor will actually run, and what will get deleted unread, is the difference between a pitch list and a coverage strategy. The firm's leadership experience extends beyond consulting. Christine served as SVP at Walker Sands, where she led a 48-person team through a 130 percent increase in profitability with 95 percent client retention, and as VP of global marketing at inRiver. She has sat on an advisory board and invested in an early-stage company, which shapes how she reads a client's growth stage and what communications can reasonably be asked to do at each one. Recognition includes O'Dwyer's listing among the top independent PR counselors. She contributes regularly to Forbes and Entrepreneur, and her commentary appears in trade and business press. Engagements typically take one of three shapes. Fractional CMO retainers, where the firm functions as the senior marketing leadership a company is not yet ready to hire full time. Program retainers focused on sustained media and thought leadership presence. Project work for launches, funding events, crises, and repositioning. The firm is a strong fit for companies with a real technical story, a leadership team willing to be visible, and a business problem communications can actually solve. It is not a fit for organizations looking for volume content production, low-cost execution, or a vendor to take direction without questioning it. The value here is judgment, and judgment sometimes arrives as disagreement. Pietryla PR & Marketing is based in the Chicago area and works with clients across North America and Europe.