Today we’d like to introduce you to Caroline May.
Hi Caroline, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I had a circuitous path into advertising. I majored in magazine journalism and practiced it for years before getting hired by one of my subjects (a local museum back when I was based in Houston) to become an in-house copywriter as they prepared to open and market a new wing. There, I had my first real taste of writing advertising and conceptualizing campaigns, and I discovered that I loved and was pretty good at it. So when I moved to St. Louis, I turned up at a local agency and convinced them to hire me, even though I had no actual book or strat comm degree. (Thanks, Joe!) From there, I just did and learned as much as I could. Then, as often happens, as I moved up, I moved away from the work. I got into management, and while I loved having a team, I missed making things instead of just overseeing them. So in late 2023, after a decade at big shops, I founded my tiny creative agency where I could do it all: grow, help other people succeed, and play in the weeds.
Please talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned. Looking back, has it been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Starting a business has obvious practical challenges, like putting together the money to get going and finding your first clients. (Government websites could be an entire chapter in this volume of the story.) There are more emotional challenges, like the pressure of being responsible for the place and everyone working there. But then there’s also a weird simultaneous relief because being accountable for it means you can change what you want to change and fix whatever needs fixing. The creative community in St. Louis has been, for the most part, supportive, collaborative, and embracing. I think most folks recognize that more creative organizations mean better creativity, denser talent, and a more extensive pipeline for folks interested in joining and advancing this industry.
Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Grown is so named because of a conversation with my then 4-year-old son when I had to explain what “grown-ass” adult meant. I told him a grown adult was a grown-up person, but a grown-ass adult was a grown-up person who takes accountability for themselves and their impact on others. As a company, Grown is a collective of grown-ass adults. Everyone who works here is a 10 to 15-year ad agency veteran, but more importantly, we all had other, worse jobs before getting into advertising. This is significant because some people get jaded at this point in their careers, while we still feel fortunate to be doing what we do daily for a living. And motivated to keep it going. That joy and enthusiasm show in the work we do for our clients.
We’re a full-service creative agency that can produce quite a bit in-house: branding, brand architecture, creative campaigns, web design — anything that requires a combination of art and copy. Then, we tap other industry friends for motion and development needs as projects require. We like working this way because it lets us grab different people whose skills and styles are better suited to certain projects and keeps the sameness at bay. It also means we don’t charge every client for specialists they might not need, but I could do a separate interview on how the model has changed and has to change.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
More and more, brands are competing for people’s attention. That’s the resource technology companies are mining, and they’re developing more and more effective (and alarming) ways to deliver it. At Grown, we consider it a responsibility to inform and entertain if we participate in snatching people’s time. We owe something to the end consumer, not just the clients trying to reach them. On the best days, we think of advertising as sneaking art into the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: grown.agency
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grown_creative/
Image Credits
Noa Azoulay
