Our agency is 24 years old this year. I started the firm because I believed there was room for a firm that really cared about people, and could do some great design work. In fact, one of my favorite assignments was to design logos. Something about building a company’s new identity—that felt like we were really helping them. No question – a logo is foundational to a company’s marketing efforts. And we were really good at it.

Pretty soon, the folks we were designing for began asking if we would handle all of their marketing and communications work. The agency began to grow, and with growth came a lot of learning. We’ve built all kinds of campaigns for all kinds of companies. We’ve pulled together all kinds of ideas and strategies, and yes, made all kinds of mistakes. That means we’ve learned all kinds of things too.

As we grew, we ourselves were learning what a brand really was. We came to realize that a brand wasn’t just a look. It’s a person’s gut feeling about a product or organization. And good creative was only a part of crafting that feeling. Our hearts have always been drawn to building brands, and through the everyday work of marketing we were learning about the key ingredients.

I love westerns, especially Louis L’Amour books. He would often use a phrase in his books, referring to a cowboy and his ranch: "He rides for the brand." That doesn’t mean a cowboy is loyal to the literal mark emblazoned on the cow. It means he is loyal to what that mark stands for; the spirit of the ranch and fellow cowboys working together.

And when you think about it, that’s what Big does. We build brands that make people want to be a part of the product or service. It’s more than the mark, or a process, or even a little thinking. It’s all kinds of ingredients, all working together to create an experience or gut feeling about an organization.

Big embraces those key ingredients. We have a dedicated strategy team doing real deep research. We have a great development team leveraging that data into insight and applying it toward developing brand assets. And we have a team that turns those tools into tactics aimed at specific audiences at specific times. The result is a whole crew working together, believing "they ride for the brand."