Taking Risks and Going Big with Shannon Harris

Shannon Harris: But I think that being able to kind of push past the kind of order taking design and say, you know, like, let's kind of go back to your problem and understand that. And maybe you can kind of remap what the question is rather than just kind of like laying out the solution, I think is really where I've found success.

Chris Hill: Welcome to We Built This Brand, the podcast where we talk to the creators and collaborators behind brands and provide you with practical insights that you can use in growing your business. Today, we're talking with Shannon Harris. Executive creative director at Big Communications. Shannon was such a joy to have on our podcast.

Our conversation was also pretty wide ranging. We talked about everything from her career and extensive time at Big Com to what she thinks about creativity and design thinking. We also got the chance to talk about one of her projects, the "Seek Alabama" campaign, along with its success and the opportunities ahead for that client.

As I've said, there's a lot to cover in this one, so I won't delay us any longer. Here's my conversation with Shannon Harris of Big Com. 

Alrighty, well, Shannon, thank you for joining me today. 

Shannon Harris: Thanks for having me. 

Chris Hill: Really excited to learn from you today about Big Com, what you do there. Also, maybe get into a little bit about the theories behind your personal theories, I guess, behind design thinking and other things. 

So, I always like to start by just getting to know you a little bit better and learn a little bit about where you came from.

And you've got a kind of an interesting career in that you've not had many job changes or, you've had position changes, but you've stayed at the same companies for very long periods of time, which I feel like in this day and age is kind of unique. So take us through that and how you got to where you are today.

Shannon Harris: I grew up in Huntsville about an hour and a half north of Birmingham, Alabama, and Huntsville is a very smart city. I don't know, you know how, how aware you are. You're in Knoxville, so. 

Chris Hill: We have Oak Ridge National Labs next door. 

Shannon Harris: Yeah. Yeah. So I grew up in a town with, you know, genetics research and rocket science and all of those exciting things.

I was from one of the art families, you know, in town, just, you know, I feel like you probably growing up, you know, those families that kind of, you know, mom teaches art classes sometimes. My mom was an illustrator and my grandfather was an architect, his father was an architect, engineers on the other side. So very, very, very Huntsville kind of upbringing.

My family was very rooted, um, in the city. My grandfather designed all the, the modernist buildings that everyone loves to hate and in the historic downtown, kind of when all of the space age things were new. So, I grew up in that environment. I went to Auburn university, got a graphic design degree there. I met my husband there.

Who's also a designer. He's, was in the program about eight years before I was. Found him in a design magazine, um, first he was published for some work he did for Chrysler on behalf of BBDO. He was, um, kind of blowing up, you know, that was back in what, 2003? Um, inspiration came from, you know, design magazines and, and publications, right?

Like we didn't have, Pintrest didn't even exist at the time. Um, yeah, I think a lot about kind of the homogenization of, you know, kind of algorithms and all of that, and I'm like, we have more dots to connect now, at least, uh, back then we were all just kind of thumbing the same through the same publication.

So met him there, a lot in between, but, um, we both ended up getting jobs at an agency in Birmingham. And I, you know, had all of these ideas about, you know, moving to bigger cities. My mom battled cancer for a very long time. I really felt the need to be close to her, and when we kind of both got these jobs in Birmingham, we thought, you know, there's not, you know, another place we really need to be.

And I was really able to be close. to her. So started that career in the city, and we actually both worked at the same agency at the time. Our stories are, are, are kind of wild like that. Um, we ended up leaving at the same time to join another agency. Someone at our former agency left and partnered at this one at the time.

So I made that leap. I was very, you know, dramatic and exciting and, um, very exciting for a 26-year-old, and, um, I, I began at this agency as an art director doing a lot of, you know, design work, brand work, you know, working on a lot of different verticals of the agency doesn't really specialize in any one thing.

We do a lot of economic development, healthcare products, CPG. We've done, um, you know, a lot of tech work, a lot of art, and we've branded our local art museum, and we work with our film festival, and we're working with a spicy tequila brand right now. So it kind of runs the gamut.

I think that's part of what drew me to this business as the variety of the things that we get to touch.

And I, when I was in graphic design school, you know, I think they really saw us as kind of being trained to, to go into, you know, these design studios where you're creating brand identities, and that's where it stops. I kind of felt like the words of it all and the messaging and paid media and all of that really excited me.

I've been in four different positions at the agency. I'm executive creative director now. I have a team of designers, art directors, writers, video, interactive. We make a lot of really great work. 

Chris Hill: That's really cool. Yeah. 

I was looking over Big Com's, uh, portfolio and some of the things that you all have on the website, and you've worked with some big companies and some really cool projects.

Where does that name come from? Big. Is it just you do big things? Where does big come from? 

Shannon Harris: I love this. So our founder, he founded the agency when he was 27 years old. He was a big guy, you know, first and foremost, like he tells the story, the guy. Also, I think he really liked the idea of, I mean, of course, like outsized impact and things like that.

Um, all of the things that go into kind of, you know, a word like big, but he always says that he wanted to keep it kind of open ended, like in case he wanted to turn, you know, the agency thing, didn't he, he wanted to, [you know, maybe become a record label or, you know, some, some other kind of business. He liked the kind of open endedness of it, but a lot of that's his story.

And I think we are a communications agency. We do paid, earned, owned. We have an amazing, um, media department, PR, you know, all of those things as well. So John's a PR guy at heart and, um, it's got the, so the agency has PR origins. When I started, we were really working with local clients. I mean, there were 14 people at the agency. So in 2010, we pitch, um, a statewide account actually on my first week, and one, not taking credit. I was, I was making clipping masks, you know, like at 11 PM, you know, feeding into the presentation as an art director. But we, we won this, this big pitch and then just kind of kept getting these opportunities and growing and growing and growing to the point that we just wanted to pitch with the UK company.

So I think it's pretty exciting to be a part of something like that, um, where people continuously, kind of, trust you to get to the next level, but I think there's, there are a lot of reasons for it. I think there's a lot of tenacity at the agency. I don't know if you, you know, kind of on the website, you'll see, you'll see always hungry and you'll see, we make a big day, everything.

And I think that there's just always historically been a lot of ambition and tenacity and this group of people, and you never knew what's around the corner. 

Chris Hill: Yeah, for sure. Working on some big brands and some of the. Big campaigns you've worked on. I noticed you've worked with companies like FedEx and Google Fiber, DoorDash, Bayer, just, just to name a few.

How do you stay inspired creatively through all that? Because after a while, I'm sure ideas can feel like they run together or they can be a challenge. So how do you stay inspired through all that? 

Shannon Harris: I think, honestly, I, not to kind of bring up the, the "I'm a mom" thing, but I'm going to go ahead and bring up the "I'm a mom" thing.

I've got, um, a five-year-old daughter and, or almost five-year-old daughter. You know, it's funny. I, I think about a lot of times when, when she and I were kind of playing make believe, um, how similar it is to the work that we do at the agency, how it was her. It's like, we're, we're making up these stories.

We're creating these narratives. And last night we were, you know, doing a salon, we were getting everybody ready for Molly's birthday party, and, you know, sometimes we were opening an ice cream shop and we're, you know, it's kind of that, that make believe thing. And I think a lot of times when I'm thinking about, you know, as we're planning a production or as we're ideating and that's the idea of just that play and that kind of vulnerability of we're connecting the dots and we're understanding our research, but we're also kind of making things up.

It's like advanced make believe, right? Um, and adults doing that together. And sometimes I'm just kind of seeing those parallels lately and, and being in that space with her has really, really helped me in this season of my job to really remember, to kind of have that vulnerability and to, to really know you go from just like knowing things to all of a sudden knowing nothing about anything.

But I think that there's something really cool about kind of trusting your instincts and then you go and you Google a thing and you have to wonder, you have to have an instinct and then go ask the question and then, you know, kind of find the answer and then experiment and you iterate, and I think, you know, in talking about kind of design thinking, really, design is all about kind of having that empathy and iterating and experimenting and not always being right off the bat.

Like you have to be curious about your audience. You have to be curious about your user. You need a problem to solve. You need to spend time kind of in that problem space wanting to find out all of those things. I don't really have like fashionable to have boundaries. I don't have many. Um, I work with my husband, my, my daughter, um, you know, is very involved.

You know, kind of in our conversations of what we do and many of our friends are friends that we've made through this business and it's just a really lovely thing to, to just be constantly feeding yourself inspiration and constantly watching, and, you know, we watch TV in my house. We're into it. We consume. We consume media. I mean, I think, um, no, no one place for inspiration, I think it's just, it's just living a life of kind of openness and being culturally curious. 

Chris Hill: And kids, especially like introduce you to new ideas and new concepts, because they're always consuming something new on media, or there's something coming to your attention that you weren't even aware of based on, at least in my house. 

Shannon Harris: When you just think about what we did, the way that they kind of flip something or change it.

She rolled down the window after I picked her up from school the other day, we're in traffic. She rolled down the window, yelled to the cars, are y'all trying to go home? You're not acting like it. And just the way that she thought about that. I wish I had said something so clever. It's cool to watch and certainly inspires me.

Chris Hill: Absolutely. So one of the other things with big being kind of the theme of the business, obviously, do you think it's important to take risks to get big brands noticed? And how do you apply that in your company? 

Shannon Harris: Yeah. I mean, I think it's certainly important to take risks. I think, you know, even in our own brand this year, we, we went through a rebrand, and we had a fairly minimal brand that really didn't match the personality of, of the people doing this work. We're, you know, kind of at the, at the, even the local awards, we're the loudest agency in the room. We're a little bit garish. We have a good time. And I think that we went through a lot of, a lot of process, but then a lot of just kind of putting on paper, you know, what this agency feels like to us.

And we have this old Big Boy, Big Boy's not a client, but, uh, we do have this Big Boy statue in our, in our lobby, but our, but our boss brought back from California one time. Anyway, it's like the agency lore thing. And it's like this, we don't own this mascot. It's like this kind of, um, unofficial mascot kind of as a wink to that.

We brought this burger through, you know, in the brand and for our brand launch, we were just kind of like, we were throwing burgers in the air. We had our, um, agency founder kind of on a teaser site, just eating a burger, you know, like Andy Warhol style, just eating a burger on a loop. And, but I mean, that, that was even internally risky.

I mean, everyone internally didn't, I think many loved it. Some didn't love it. Some didn't get it. Those were, um, risks that I, you know, personally took. I think there, you have to do a lot to get noticed. And I think that it's important to be respectful of your audience. But, you know, taking a little bit of a risk is the way to get published and the way to, you know, we just worked with, um, Ghost Tequila to kill the regular margarita.

Chris Hill: I saw that. I was like, they killed the margarita. 

Shannon Harris: I was laughing as we were kind of working on that. And a lot of things were coming up at the same time. And like death is kind of trending and advertising. I'm like, are we so. Really kind of like, at this point, pandemic, post-pandemic, where we're all just, you know, we've faced our mortality, we've, we've all been through a lot, and we're like, "Death, isn't that funny?"

I think it's really fun to watch kind of how culture changes and how we all kind of, these things are in ether, and then they kind of happen all at once, um, and everyone's, death is trending in advertising. I don't know if anyone's written that article yet, but, um. Please include our work if you do. 

Chris Hill: But we have like Liquid Death and things like that were like this heavier, darker tone is definitely prominent.

I always feel like when creatives are under duress, we get some of the best art.

Shannon Harris: Yeah, chaos can be exciting, can't it? 

Chris Hill: Can be, can be. Let's hope it just stays interesting and that's it.

Shannon Harris: I mean, things have been weird for millennials. I mean, I just turned 40 this year and things have been weird for us since the beginning. I think since, you know, 9/11, I would, I would say. 

Chris Hill: Us, us older millennials have to deal with all the craziness.

And at this point it just feels like being numb. 

Shannon Harris: Yeah, I pulled up the aliens in the ocean, and the creative department meeting is like an icebreaker on Monday and I was like, what is wrong with me? That's aliens in the ocean and like, you know, alien life. And I'm like, fun fact, you know, like, like it's nothing because at this point I think we're a little bit desensitized. It's not Men in Black like we thought it would be. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. It's such a, such a wild thing, man. I could, I'm trying to avoid going on a rabbit trail there, but, um, 

Shannon Harris: I told myself I wouldn't bring our aliens on this call and I did. 

Chris Hill: Thank you. When are we going to have brand influencers that are aliens come out? It's a matter of time at this point, right?

Shannon Harris: At one point, many years ago, a vendor sent us the 23andMe kit, like a. holiday gift, um, which I thought was wild. And I sat there holding my little vial and I was ready to spit and I was so excited to find out just how Irish and German I am. I don't know what, like, what was I going to, you know, find out?

I'm just Irish or German. Um, I started to spit and I thought, I wonder how long before we're able to get this data for advertising purposes when they find out I'm Irish and, you know, they, they know they can sell me whiskey or whatever. And then I had this "Oh, no." Like this, like, first, like, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I can't spit in this tube, right?"

Like, if that's where I think this is going, then like, also what a horrible person I am, that I thought I'm just like, that I want this, this information so I can better start, like, right. And so I had this moment, I was like, you know, this is not going to go well. This is not, so I didn't do it. Yeah. So I, I don't know, you know, you have those moments where you're like, is this, is this going to be bad later?

But the aliens, we'll see. 

Chris Hill: Wasn't it 23andMe where they came out and said they were like selling that data and information? 

Shannon Harris: The company is in trouble and they're going to sell the company. Now it's whoever, I mean, whoever purchases, I mean, they don't have to abide by the same terms necessarily. So I think it's TBD.

I don't know who's going to buy that. But our director on my team laughed at me when we were all, you know, kind of starting to use chat GPT. Um, and I was asking a question and then she said, did you just tell it please? Did you just say please? I was like, Why wouldn't I be polite to the AI? 

Chris Hill: Yeah. Our, our future overlords, you have to be nice.

Now they will remember. 

Shannon Harris: I'm going to remember that they were treated well. 

Speaking of innovation, though, actually, um, I hadn't brought this up to you yet, but the agency launched a campaign for recruiting tech and innovation talent to the state of Alabama this year. Um, but there was this huge study that was done to try to identify what would bring innovation talent, recruit innovation talent to the state of Alabama. And there are, you know, the obvious reasons that they may kind of maybe ignore our state and, and, and maybe not, and not be as interested, or maybe there's some perceptions that you need to shift. But the study came back and said, Hey, we think that outdoor recreation is the thing that's gonna.

connect with this particular audience, which was exciting. I think so fascinating. And so we created this website that maps all of the outdoor recreation assets in the state and launched this campaign, um, locally first, but then we actually just launched it nationally at the Fast Company Innovation Fest in New York.

And we have this whole van build out and this whole AR experience. And it's been so much fun to paint a different picture of the state of Alabama. And I mean, people are unaware that we have. A coastline that we have beaches, you know, we're the most biodiversity in the country. I, I love when um, things that don't necessarily naturally connect are connected.

And I think it's been really, really fun to thread that needle and, and, and figure that part out because, you know, there are many reasons that I've. chosen to kind of plant roots here and stay here, but it's really beautiful. And it's really, you know, life giving to raise a family here and, you know, have access to all of that.

So that's something that I'm excited about right now. 

Chris Hill: I can relate a lot to that living in Knoxville, Tennessee, very similar atmosphere of like, you know, we've got the Smoky Mountains. Right next door. We have a lot of tourism that comes through. In fact, we're heavy on tourism here, but yeah, trying to attract new business, new industry to the area.

I mean, tech is a big one for us too. So we're probably competitors technically, but it doesn't really feel like.

Shannon Harris: No more mountains. We have beaches though. 

Chris Hill: You do what's, what's always funny to me is people that live on the beach around Alabama, around Florida. It's always the same conversation. They say, "Where are you from?"

And I say, Knoxville. And they say, "Oh, that's where we go for vacation." Cause they all go up to Gatlinburg and the Smoky mountains and all that. And it's like, "Well, we're down here on vacation." So it's always that trade off. Like we always see, we always see folks coming up and we go down and it's just the trade off that happens in the South.

Shannon Harris: I love it. I love it. 

Chris Hill: So going back to like the industry and everything, we were talking a little bit before we got started recording about design thinking, and I was told you're somewhat of an expert on it. 

Shannon Harris: Oh, I don't know. Certainly, certainly do not claim to be an expert. You know, I just find myself kind of often having to explain what a graphic designer is kind of doing in this world.

Like, just explain why there are so many graphic designers on my team. And I think that there's just something about, no shade of the AdBiz, but I think a lot of times in advertising, it's about kind of coming up with the idea, and then, you know, really you're selling that idea. It's like, this idea doesn't budge.

I'm going to do everything I can to sell through this idea and make this idea happen. And I think there's something so oratory about the design process and kind of beginning with that kind of empathy and that kind of iteration and bringing not just, you know, the client or the user kind of along for the ride and that in really testing and being willing to evolve and change.

It's really hard to design a subjective, but it's really hard to show someone something that's been graphic designed, and they, you know, they don't like it. It's very hard to tell them, no, you do like it, right? I think in advertising, a lot of the time, we're presenting ideas that are not fully baked, right?

We're saying, you know, "Here's the storyboard, here's the animatic, and here's the script, and believe us, trust us," right? Um, and design is just a little bit more straightforward in its purity of, does this work or does this not work? Does it communicate? In, you know, kind of design thinking, you have to have that problem space and you have to have that user and that end goal.

And I think that that build those kind of constraints along the way. I think people think that creative people love creative freedom. I'm not, I don't think designers don't love creative freedom. We love constraints, constraints, read ingenuity, finding those corners. Is something that is part of that process.

And I find that in advertising world and design world, um, kind of, if you skip that discovery and you skip that moment of really kind of having empathy for the user and understanding your audience and finding kind of what's going to actually kind of be effective and connect you to the outcome that you want or one of the first campaigns that I had.

A lot of success with was for a women's hospital and the marketing director came to us and said, Hey, we're, we're launching this, you know, state of the art women's hospital. It's beautiful. The bathrooms have bidets. There's like fold out couches for dad. Beautiful tile. It was, it was a really stylish space.

And I, and I remember getting kind of this brochure that the previous agency had created. And it had like, you know, teddy bears and like rubber duckies and like baby things. Right. And it said, "Women are talking." And I just remember being, I was, you know, 26 and I was like, "That's absurd. What? What kind of headline is, 'women are talking?'"

Was the brief that we want women to talk that we want to make, you know, kind of create this, this buzzy campaign. So it was like this kind of like literal moment of, well, it seems like the brief is like, let's get women talking. And so I created this like really early kind of influencer campaign for them, um, using Instagram and, and ended up, um, we ended up expanding that across the country.

It's kind of. That probably didn't answer your question at all about design thinking. 

Chris Hill: No, that's, that's a cool campaign. And it sounds like you were using your design thinking skills, right? To consider and approach this in a different way than maybe what you came in and discovered it as. 

Shannon Harris: I think the hard thing is, is if you're going to. Say, you know, look, I'm a graphic designer and advertising space, you may get kind of put into an art department where you're laying out other people's ideas. I think that that's probably kind of the conventional career path for a graphic designer in this world.

So you're going to lay out, you know, maybe other people's ideas, or you're going to design a brochure, and someone said, the brief is one more time when we're talking about some rubber duckies, whatever. But I think that being able to kind of push past the kind of order taking design and say, you know, like, let's kind of go back to your problem and understand that and maybe even kind of remap what the question is, rather than just kind of like laying out the solution, I think is really where I found success in kind of questioning everything in just the way that in design school, I was taught to interrogate things.

And, but like, respectfully, you know. I think one of my favorite pieces of feedback that I'll get from clients is, well, two things are, we feel like you guys really listened to us, this pitch that we just won, that was something that they said, and that we really feel like you understand our brand. And I think that there's something about kind of that brand understanding of understanding the look and feel, understanding how to evolve it.

I mean, you know, with Google Fiber, it's an Alphabet, you know, brand. It's not big "G" Google. It's, it's a standalone fiber internet brand. And they were expanding as we started to work with them, and they were really kind of feeling around what their brand language was going to be, you know, their outcome and goal was that they wanted to inform and educate their users to not have to call the help center all the time and to empower them to do their own troubleshooting. So we really work with them to create kind of this illustrated world and kind of what is the brand tone? How do we make it approachable? How do we, we sound like a friend that you might call on the phone and troubleshoot something together?

And that was just very exciting. I don't feel like I need to create, you know, kind of a brand from the beginning to interact with and help build on and help evolve a brand alongside an internal team or client as well. So I think that there's different kind of points of entry for what we do in that process, certainly created brands from scratch, but I really do like that kind of, "Hey, our, our company is growing and we are feeling out what this looks and feels like and how we sound."

I love that moment because there are things to interrogate and things to wonder about them and things to evolve. 

Chris Hill: It's always fun and interesting when you come into a project and someone's like, I know exactly what the idea is and we're doing this and you go, wait a minute. Why does that make sense? Can you help me understand it?

And then they go through it and you realize it's not the right thing or you can help guide them in that way. I mean, that's a quite a fun undertaking. When I, we actually deal with my company quite a bit because we produce podcasts and people have, or like, this is my podcast. I'm like, cool. Have you Googled the name?

Have you made sure that it's available? 

Shannon Harris: Yeah, I mean, I think it's you have to be aware of, you know, people bringing you solutions, but really, you don't do it in a condescending way, you know, you have to like kind of find that opportunity to kind of sit down with clients and, and kind of unpack the problem in a different way and work through that.

But yeah, I mean, beware the solution, the, you know. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down, right? And so I think sometimes with clients, it's, oh, we've created this logo. And we chose this typeface because the R is unique. And we really love this R. We'll, you know, get through this whole, this is a completely hypothetical.

This isn't something I'm dealing with right now. So, um, but it's just the R is unique and we've chosen this typeface because the R is unique and we get through this whole process and the client loves everything that's going on and we get to the end and they're like, okay, just one piece of feedback that the R looks kind of funny.

Can we change the, the R to look a little bit more, you know, kind of traditional or kind of match the rest of the letters? It's not really matching. You're like, ugh, that was the unique thing. But for me, the solution isn't. Change the R and call it a day. It's maybe we need to explore another typeface that has unique qualities.

That the client does feel good about. It's not like kind of take that feedback and kind of sarcastically answer and say, well, this is ruined now let's fix the R and oh, well, because I don't think that's being a good partner. That was probably a very sloppy illustration, but I think about 

sometimes addressing the feedback directly is not best serving your client.

Chris Hill: Yeah, just turning around and doing it versus actually questioning it and having a conversation about it and diving deeper into it with them. 

Shannon Harris: And hey, maybe we need to change something else about this. Maybe this casting decision you don't like. Well, we can swap this person, but it really kind of affects the rest of this.

So let's actually look at it as a whole. Sometimes we bring them problems back, right? It can go both ways. So I think it's kind of having that trust with clients and kind of feeling your way through it in that way. 

Chris Hill: You mentioned the casting thing, but like that's definitely a challenge to once you start changing things, you're also giving a little bit of a, how do I say this?

We've had some come to Jesus moments with folks over time due to projects where maybe they've got a grand idea for something that just doesn't quite fit what it should be. And I think being brave enough. To be able to come to the client and say, "Hey, we need to have this conversation," is sometimes one of the most important things you can do when you're working with the client.

Shannon Harris: We spend a lot of money. It's a huge investment. I think about that a lot when clients come in, whether it's over Zoom or especially in person when they come in, and what must it feel like on the client side, be sitting there waiting to see the presentation that they have just spent their entire, you know, fourth quarter budget on.

It's that moment of, you know, I think it's, we have to be kind of respectful to that investment. But there was a time probably in college that I was like over directing my haircuts. Like I just would go in and be like, well, do this. And I saw this picture and like, "Can you just do this over here?" And we're, it was, we're razor cutting.

It was like emo. And it got to the point that I just ended up with like worse and worse and worse haircuts. And I think another illustration, but you know, now I just truly just sit down in the chair and like, "It's, it's fall. Do what you need to do, you know." And I think trusting, um, experts, but you know, I don't, I don't necessarily want clients to be that way either.

I think I get really excited when I get feedback that I agree with and I'm in, and I'm like, "Oh, that's great feedback." I'm like kicking myself that I missed that or that, you know, I missed that opportunity, but I'm so glad that your feedback is something that, that we're so aligned on. That's always exciting for me.

Sometimes it's not that way. 

Chris Hill: It's good when it's insightful. 

Shannon Harris: Yeah. I've been very fortunate to, to work with a lot of clients that, um, you know, I've had some, some, some bad actors as well, but with a lot of clients that I've been able to have that trust with and have that kind of openness. 

Chris Hill: Yeah, openness and transparency and I think I always say is to not put seagulls and someone else's painting I don't know if you've ever heard that story. 

Shannon Harris: I have not. 

Chris Hill: It's an old sales thing, but especially when working with clients, it's very valuable to learn and that's basically some little girl was going to school, and she comes home from school. She has a painting, and it's this beach scene, and her dad looks at the painting and he says, "I really like this painting, especially those seagulls." And the girl started crying and was like, "I didn't put those seagulls in there. My teacher did." And she was so upset because her teacher had looked at the painting and said., "You know what?

This needs some seagulls. Let me paint them in for you," and added to this little girl's artwork, and it ended up being some big lawsuit, I think, in California or something like that. But the moral of the story is, like, you can really have an emotional impact on somebody if you're doing something that's deeply outside of what they believe in and think the end picture should be. So like, that's the balance I'm always trying to strike, and I'm sure you are too of, like, I want to give this advice and give them good, bold decisions, but also how do you do that in a way that doesn't feel like you're doing something that's against everything they believe about that picture. 

Shannon Harris: I've not heard that. That's an amazing story.

The fact that it became a lawsuit is super interesting. I'm Googling that right after this call. 

Chris Hill: Makes it memorable. 

Shannon Harris: It'd never go down that way in Alabama, but.

Chris Hill: No. 

Shannon Harris: As much respect for, for the arts or women here, but I thought, I thought you were going to tell me that they weren't seagulls, that they were something else, which I get in trouble for that a lot.

Like, I love that robot. And it's like, there's an alien. And I'm like, Oh,

Again, robots and aliens, it always comes down to robots and aliens. I had something on the tip of my tongue that I was going to talk about. 

How do you do this all day? How do you just do these podcasts and continue? This is kind of an amazing thing. 

Chris Hill: Magic. I'll just say that magic. No, I mean, this is kind of what we do to practice what we preach.

So we're a podcast production company. So this is my way of connecting with folks and just saying, "Hey, we're a podcast production company," and I, of course, love marketing, branding, all that because it very much ties into everything we do with podcasting. We're creating brands every time we create a new podcast.

We're creating a new, some people might say it's a new product segment for their business. Other people may say it's a brand new business, but it really is. Everything is just always creating a new brand, a new image, a new look for that person or that business, so it's just great to get in here and learn from folks and also to be able to help other people learn about people's career experiences and the industries they're in.

So, yeah, it's just something I'm passionate about. I'm a bit of a business nerd, so that helps too. 

Shannon Harris: Well, it feels like you found a way to create a lot of variety in your day-to-day. 

Chris Hill: Yes, which I need. I would hate doing the same thing every day. Day in, day out. 

Shannon Harris: I like to say, like, kind of in this business, it's like, you know, we know just a little bit about just about everything.

And I feel like it kind of makes us, like, insufferable at a dinner party. But, but, you know, I know a little something about that. You know, there's just no, you know, kind of no end to the kind of things that we all kind of. touch and be curious about. I think it's very cool to have a lot of variety in your life and get to talk to a lot of people.

Chris Hill: Yeah. It's a, it's a good skill to learn too, to be able to talk to people and strike up a conversation and hold it. It's an acquired skill. It's something I would say I've done podcasts in the past. I've hosted things. This is the first one I've ever like truly solo hosted like this, and yeah, it's been a learning experience.

It's been a lot of fun, and it's stuff that I can also take back to my clients and say, "Well, I've experienced this. I've done this because I'm doing it too." So again, going back to that, you know, I call it "dog fooding." You know, you're eating your own dog food. You're proving it's edible. 

Shannon Harris: And I think it's a little bit of a ubiquitous term in an interactive world.

Chris Hill: Yeah. So what is top of mind for you right now? 

Shannon Harris: Spicy tequila, luxury launches. I am very excited about continuing to build on the agency rebrand, layering in more case studies, and I'm excited about kind of what that looks like in the next year. The agency turns 30.

That's exciting. I've been there for half of its life. So yeah, I'm excited about doing work in some, some new categories. I'm excited about how year two of Seek Alabama and what that looks like, how we can really kind of push into more spaces there. I'm excited about a lot of proposals that we've got out right now. I've been kind of in that, that kind of world in planning.

And then also in kind of pitching a lot of momentum right now, I think the rebrand has gotten the agency, a lot of attention, the website, a lot of attention, even though it's not complete, people are, are still checking it out. So that's been exciting to kind of have that momentum moment.

Chris Hill: So what brand do you admire the most right now? That's always the last question I ask. 

Shannon Harris: And I know, and I, and you know, we're all brand junkies, right? Like we're so into, I, you know, the first thing that came to mind was Fishwife.

Are you aware of the, the tinned fish company, Fishwife? 

Chris Hill: I don't think so, no. Fishwife? 

Shannon Harris: Well, I actually just saw that they did a TV spot with Alison Roman, which I have not seen yet. I saw it right before this call and I was thinking about Fishwife. It's, uh, they really kind of jumped on this kind of hole in the market for a stylish and kind of premium tinned fish, but it is illustrated brand.

They've kind of created this whole illustrated world, but it's woman founded and they've grown. They won like a Shark Tank round. I mean, it's, it's only been around for maybe two years at this point. And I think kind of in the kind of specialty food category, they're very well known, certainly among millennial women, which, you know, I think you can probably look at the brand and see that they're targeting me.

So mission accomplished, and they, and they're also launching new products. Just launched caviar, but they came in kind of like a more, a more humble, you know, tinned fish and anchovies and kind of approach. So totally into, um, anyone that is really being intentional with, with their packaging, with their brands and love what they've built and just love how continuing to kind of watch them grow.

They say they, you can kind of see the collaboration and everything that they're doing. And I think that's special and I think that they're being rewarded for it. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. I'm, I'm browsing the website as you're talking now, cause I'm like, Oh wow. That's. Yeah, I like that aesthetic a lot. Okay. That's really neat.

I enjoy a brand with a good packaging experience and there's just something to it when you're opening it up. Like you're already anticipating something and to open it up and to have, even if it's food, like, to just know that you're opening a quality product, there's something to that packaging that really sells that end user experience.

Even if it's no different than the can of tuna you could have gotten, you know, from the grocery store, from everybody else, there's just something about the way it's positioned and packaged that makes a difference. 

Shannon Harris: I'm sure you've heard about all the The tweens and the skincare, and, um, I read an article over the summer that summer camps were banning skincare routines because they couldn't, it was like years ago, we couldn't get the girls to take showers, and now they're spending an hour and a half, you know, with their serums and, and all of that. But for my nieces, I like to kind of, you know, be the cool aunt and I stalk their Instagrams and, you know, kind of buy them things that they like. Um, and last year I gave them a bunch of, kind of, you know, I went to Sephora and just, you know, did my thing.

One of them is very into, she's got stacks and stacks of skincare and cosmetics. And I went into her room and I said, "Ava, this, this is all going to expire by the time, by the time you're able to use it. Like this is so much stuff." And she's like, "I just really like to look at them." It's really, really like, they're literally just decorations and props for her.

I mean, she's using them here and there, but these are like gorgeous, expensive products, but she's into the packaging. That into the packaging. And I think about, I mean, I've got a pantry full of Fishwife and Brow Zen and all of these CPGs that are, that are targeting me right now. And I totally get it. Like I get how your 12, 13-year-old brain did that and said, you know, "I'd like to look at beautiful products. I think it's, it's a really cool thing, but you know, maybe, maybe a future designer on our hands there, so. 

Chris Hill: Clearly, clearly runs in the family somewhere. 

Shannon Harris: What brands are you crushing on right now? What's? 

Chris Hill: Oh, man, at the moment, it's kind of funny. So I'm looking at this Fishwife, and I see smoked rainbow trout.

And as of this past Sunday, I just caught my first rainbow trout on a fly rod. So I've been fly fishing. 

Shannon Harris: Cool. 

Chris Hill: And it's, yeah, it's taken me a long time. I feel kind of pathetic, but I'm also very proud of it because it was so hard to get. Because I'm like other people, you know, I'm sure can go out there, but like fly fishing is a skill.

So learning that, and then the brands that surround fly fishing. I've really gotten very like, it's very stereotypical of someone getting into a new hobby to go out and just buy all the junk. I'm a podcast producer. Ask me about it sometime. I can tell you, but like people get obsessed with, "Oh, what do I need? What do I need?" And every type of hobby like this. And I tried to avoid that, but I've slowly been sucked in more and more and more. Orvis is kind of the company right now that I'm like, "Oh yeah." If they've got something out there, it's outdoorsy and I know it's going to be practical. Yeah, I'm probably gonna go for it.

They have a great customer experience. I've got a local shop here in Knoxville, and you can go and just like walk in, and, like, they'll offer you beer. You know, they'll hang out with you. They know some of their high end stuff is thousands of dollars, and so they, they want you to come in and feel like you can just sit down and chat and talk about things. And yeah, they do, they do a really good job of the brand experience overall. And I enjoy that. 

Shannon Harris: I love that. I mean, yeah, I think brands that kind of extend their, I guess, brand ethos into physical spaces are certainly always ones that I admire as well. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. I got my combo birthday Christmas present for myself, for my wife.

I'm not getting anything else now from Orvis and part of it was. I'm a December baby. 

Shannon Harris: My baby is a December baby. So 

Chris Hill: yeah, I share birthday, not the date, but I share the day of December 13th with Taylor Swift. So, 

Shannon Harris: Oh, okay. Well, that's a, that's a claim to fame right there. Why didn't I say Taylor Swift? 

Chris Hill: She is a brand in and of herself for sure.

She's definitely .

Shannon Harris: Spans generations. It's amazing. 

Chris Hill: She does. And the way she's done, like the sales of like vinyl records and all the different colored records, and you got to go out and figure out which one you want to buy. And yeah, they just, they make it to where people just obsess over just the smallest things like that.

Shannon Harris: Yes. Creating that anticipation, all of it. 

Chris Hill: Yeah. So she's, she's another great brand right now, but yeah, Orvis. And there was one more and I can't think of it right now, so it's probably whatever, but yeah, there's just always a good brand experience. Just makes it makes a big difference in a product. So yeah, absolutely.

Well, Shannon, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. I've really enjoyed it. Where can people connect with you and how can they get connected with Big Com? 

Shannon Harris: The agency website is bigcom.com. You can find me on LinkedIn. I'm Shannon Harris, executive creative director at bigcom.com. So hit me up.

Chris Hill: Excellent. Well, Shannon, thank you so much for coming on. 

Shannon Harris: So nice to meet you, Chris. This has been a blast. 

Chris Hill: Absolutely. Thanks for checking out this episode of We Built This Brand. Don't forget to like, follow, and subscribe on your player of choice. You can also keep up with the podcast on our website at webuiltthisbrand.com. If you liked this episode, please give the podcast a 5 star review, and be sure to tell all your friends about it so we can continue to build this brand.