Our Story

What Works Studio is an award-winning, certified woman-owned agency based in Baltimore and San Diego. We have a strong focus on sales, marketing, and communication services for renewable energy, environmental, healthcare, and institutional nonprofit organizations. We also love to create one-of-a-kind moments and milestone celebrations.

We’re focused on building audiences and driving leads for organizations who are making a difference. Our aim is to be a catalyst of transformation and growth for our clients – and to specifically serve clients who are having a positive impact on their communities and the planet.

Over the last 15 years, What Works Studio has created hundreds of brands, projects, and campaigns - some of which have become culturally significant movements that captured the attention of the world.

We’re grateful that our work has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in measurable ROI, billions of earned media impressions, viral social media events, and global brand recognition for our clients.

Our Team

What Works Studio is led by Brooke Hall Allen and Justin Allen. The team includes 20+ professionals working as project managers, social media specialists, content creators, designers, developers, copy writers, and creative strategists who are uniquely talented at their craft.

Our Expertise

We are experts in creative direction, campaigns, lead generation, outsourced sales, digital marketing, advertising, content marketing, social media, email marketing, branding, graphic design, video production, podcast production, and, most importantly, strategy.

Light City

We’re the creators of Light City, America’s first large-scale light, music, and innovation festival that has generated over $111.6 Million in economic impact for Maryland by attracting over 1.3 Million festival attendees to Baltimore over three years. Light City worked to position the region as a global hub of innovation, create economic impact, and help celebrate BGE’s 200th Anniversary.

Mr. Trash Wheel

Mr. Trash Wheel, another brainchild of ours, was Discovery Channel’s #1 Story of the Year, had 1.2 million impressions on Twitter in a single day, achieved the #1 spot on the front page of Reddit during a viral AMA appearance, was featured in National Geographic’s print edition, has been touted as the "most beloved and sensible anti-plastic pollution mechanism in the country" by the New Yorker, and has become Internet famous while raising millions of dollars for the client.

What Weekly

In 2010, we founded What Weekly, an online arts and culture magazine committed to focusing on positive stories and remarkable artists, musicians, and innovators in Baltimore. What Weekly rallied hundreds of local contributors to develop thousands of original stories, read by hundreds of thousands of people in countries around the world. The award-winning publication has been featured in The Guardian, Huffington Post , and New York Magazine.

See our portfolio for more.