SLY PEOPLES ’02
Peoples guides the next generation of brand leaders
Sly Peoples has a concise goal for his Brand Creation and Communication course: “I want my students to walk away with the three C’s: creativity, collaboration and confidence,” he says.
The class is part of Clemson University’s brand communications minor offered through the Erwin Center for Brand Communications and the Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business. With a curriculum that emphasizes hands-on learning and gaining practical experience, the program leverages the expertise of industry professionals like Peoples to serve as adjunct instructors.
After graduating from Clemson with a degree in financial management, Peoples worked at a bank in Minneapolis before changing directions early into his career. He opened a men’s sneaker and clothing boutique and discovered a passion for product buying, sales and merchandising. That led to marketing roles with top sportswear brands like Nike, Russell Athletics and Adidas and, more recently, a three-year stint in creative leadership at Edelman. Today, Peoples is the global social content architect for information technology company HP, overseeing content strategy and storytelling across channels.
“The thing I love most is the challenge of trying to stay ahead … in a space like social that is constantly evolving,” he says.
The chance to teach in the brand communications program materialized after Peoples visited campus in 2021 to speak at the Clemson CMO Summit. The course he now teaches, Brand Creation and Communication, provides an insider’s look at the strategic process behind brand development, and a key component of the class is building pitches that respond to real-world business challenges.
“They get an opportunity to present. They hear from industry professionals,” Peoples says. “And they also learn that if they’re going to get up there and present and be confident, it’s because they have done the research. They have the data to back up whatever their suggestions or recommendations are going to be.”
In addition to bringing in guest speakers to share their knowledge with students, Peoples has helped coordinate learning experiences outside of the classroom. In February 2024, more than two dozen students with Cadency, Clemson’s student-led brand agency, traveled to Seattle and Portland, Oregon, to visit companies including Starbucks, Edelman, the NHL’s Seattle Kraken, HP, Nike and Adidas. Peoples, who lives in the Seattle area, saw the Pacific Northwest trip as a valuable opportunity for students to engage with a different environment and make new connections.
“I’m a firm believer in you don’t know what you don’t know, and so I wanted to get students out here … to see what it’s like,” he says. “The response from the students when they got to Seattle and were able to explore it and hear from companies … and see their campuses (was very positive). It’s an experience in itself.”
Fun Fact: An Army brat, Peoples lived in Germany, Italy and Japan before returning to the United States when he was 15. He has visited more than 30 countries.
