{"id":41257,"date":"2022-11-01T10:15:13","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T14:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/?p=41257"},"modified":"2022-11-01T10:15:40","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T14:15:40","slug":"coming-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/2022\/11\/coming-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming Home"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photography by Tony Young<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Scottsville native returns to invest in community<\/span><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

When Ada Oliver left for Georgetown College shortly after graduating from Allen County-Scottsville High School in 2005, it felt like an ending to her life in Scottsville. The opportunities for an advertising creative like herself weren\u2019t available in her hometown, and Nashville seemed like a better fit.<\/span><\/p>\n

But a bad economy and fate brought Oliver to work as a designer at advertising agencies in nearby Bowling Green in 2012. At these companies, she honed her skills in branding, web design, and app and game design with some big-name clients, including Billy Crystal, the NBA and the actor, Tom Hanks.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI<\/span>\u00a0helped build his typewriter app,\u201d says Oliver, explaining that Hanks is an avid collector of vintage typewriters.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cSo,<\/span>\u00a0we created an app for him that would allow your keyboard to type in the different fonts from his collection.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Coming home<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ten years after starting her career, Oliver quit her job and started her own advertising and branding business from her home in Bowling Green. And on March 13, 2020, she decided to open up Oliver Creative just off the Square in downtown Scottsville.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She describes Oliver Creative as a brand strategy and design company. They offer everything from logo creation to website design, helping with marketing strategies and other problem solving ideas.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI<\/span>\u00a0never really intended to be back in Scottsville,\u201d Oliver says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cBut<\/span>\u00a0there was an opportunity to lease a building here. It was in my price range, and it gave me the ability to operate this agency I\u2019d started right in my hometown.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She wanted a few things from the business, she says. First, she hoped to invest in the city that gave her so much and also be part of the rebirth of the historic Scottsville Square.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cEvery<\/span>\u00a0time I was in town, I\u2019d look out and think,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u2018If<\/span>\u00a0we don\u2019t do something now, will these buildings be here in 50 years? We need to take care of them now. We need to maintain the integrity of our own downtown.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She also wanted a little more freedom to serve her clients on her own terms.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI<\/span>\u00a0work for long hours, but I also love to talk to people,\u201d Oliver says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI<\/span>\u00a0love to be outdoors, and this has provided me flexibility and a lifestyle that allows me to enjoy some of the passions I have outside the office.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Building her own business also gave her the opportunity to do things in a more personal, less superficial way.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI<\/span>\u00a0like to have meaning behind what I do,\u201d Oliver says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI<\/span>\u00a0like to talk to my clients and find out what drives them, why they do the things they do. It serves them better. It brings more meaning to whatever they offer, and it connects their customers to them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She describes how one famous brand does this.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cOftentimes,<\/span>\u00a0we look at branding as the logo, like the Nike swoosh,\u201d she says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cBut<\/span>\u00a0really, it\u2019s the gut feeling that you get when you think about Nike. It\u2019s the urge to run or to accomplish something.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Braving the pandemic<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

When she signed her first lease on March 13, 2020, it turned out to be a bigger day than Oliver imagined. That same day<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0the president declared a national emergency for the\u00a0<\/span>COVID-19<\/span>\u00a0outbreak.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cIt<\/span>\u00a0was the day the world shut down,\u201d Oliver says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cEverybody<\/span>\u00a0else was going home to work, and I was doing the opposite.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Her largest client at the time stopped its marketing functions, which left Oliver scrambling. For the first few weeks, she sold Scottsville T-shirts to make ends meet. But soon<\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0she gained more local clients, including restaurants<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>looking for new ways to reach customers during a time of shutdowns.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Soon, however, businesses sought her out to rebrand themselves or make changes they\u2019d been too busy to\u00a0<\/span>implement<\/span>\u00a0before the pandemic.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI<\/span>\u00a0think people realized they were going to have to get creative with their businesses and how they reached people,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Forging ahead<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Oliver Creative\u2019s fiber internet connection with NCTC helped in a big way,\u00a0<\/span>she<\/span>\u00a0says. While other towns and cities across the country\u00a0<\/span>were\u00a0<\/span>struggl<\/span>ing<\/span>\u00a0to meet the increased demands of bandwidth, Scottsville wasn\u2019t.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI<\/span>\u00a0started in an older building with older wiring, but NCTC came and got me set up on fiber broadband,\u201d Oliver says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI<\/span>\u00a0work with a lot of large files and graphics that I have to not only build but send back and forth to clients. I wouldn\u2019t be able to do the work I do in Scottsville if it wasn\u2019t for NCTC\u2019s fiber internet. The efficiency of the internet here is a huge, essential part of this business.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Soon, Oliver outgrew the space and found a new building directly on the Square. She\u2019s gained even more clients, some of which are outside the region. She\u2019s also helped smaller businesses with branding on a pro bono basis. She calls it the branding fairy, and it\u2019s her way of giving back to her community.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0hard work, but it\u2019s rewarding,\u201d she says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u201cI<\/span>\u00a0love being part of all this.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scottsville native returns to invest in community When Ada Oliver left for Georgetown College shortly after graduating from Allen County-Scottsville High School in 2005, it felt like an ending to her life in Scottsville. The opportunities for an advertising creative like herself weren\u2019t available in her hometown, and Nashville seemed like a better fit. But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":41258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[304],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41257"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41260,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41257\/revisions\/41260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennesseebroadband.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}