It all started when Susan Isaacs graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2001.
She didn’t want to leave Savannah but couldn’t find a job — design wasn’t a big deal in Savannah, not yet at least.
So she and a group of SCAD alumni founded Paragon, eventually making the company a top design firm with clients such as The Weather Channel and Gulfstream.
Isaacs spoke Wednesday about the origins and growth of Paragon, as well as the future of marketing, at the quarterly BiS luncheon sponsored by Abshire Public Relations, Hancock Askew & Co., HunterMaclean and the Business in Savannah in the Savannah Morning News auditorium, 1375 Chatham Parkway.
For Isaacs, the little things mattered in the beginning, especially when the group who started Paragon had just graduated college, had zero business experience and connections and worked with little capital.
“We realized we were a little bit in trouble and needed some help,” said Isaacs, “so we hired people who were thoughtful and considerate and valued them as part of the team.”
She said Paragon continues to put people first and refine the client experience to build the foundation of the company’s client base.
“If we’re not getting feedback from clients,” said Isaacs, “then how engaged are they in our product?”
But the success of Paragon, she said, would not have happened without help along the way and plenty of patience.
“In starting our company,” said Isaacs, “it involved nothing we learned in design school.”
She consulted with the Small Business Development Center and Creative Coast and urged the audience of about 100 businessmen and women to take advantage of the resources available for Savannah small businesses.
“We can tell you without a shadow of a doubt,” said Isaacs, “we would have failed without the help of these organizations.”
None of the success of Paragon, which now has a second office in Austin, Texas, was by accident, Isaacs said, but was deliberate.
She said earning trust is vital to success.
Paragon was able to develop long-term relationships with early clients, said Isaacs, which allowed the company to grow when clients changed positions and took Paragon with them to other companies.
Going forward, she said, the future rests in what she called multi-layered content marketing.
People are no longer consuming content in a linear fashion, one source at a time.
Isaacs highlighted ABC’s show Scandal, which has a real-time app that tracks characters’ fashion and allows viewers to buy outfits online while watching the show.
She said visuals are louder than words and named infographics and explainer videos as two of the top current marketing platforms.
But as marketing and branding spread among different platforms, content will need to be controlled.
“It’s about valuable content, not noise,” Isaacs said. “The stuff that rises to the top is what’s most informative.”
ABOUT PARAGON
Paragon is a Savannah-based, multi-disciplined creative studio, specializing in marketing and branding through print, online and motion platforms. For more information, go to iamparagon.com.