Shea Moisture wins a Abby Award (All rights reserved to owner)
ShaNiece Pyles serves as the Creative Director of SheaMoisture, shaping the brand’s identity through powerful storytelling and culturally grounded campaigns. Known for her visionary leadership, she brings authenticity and intention to every project. Her work bridges beauty and purpose, spotlighting Black creativity, community, and legacy. Through her role, she continues to push the culture forward with care and creativity.
You graduated from Howard in 2016 with a degree in Psychology. What career path were you originally aiming for at that time? What were some pivotal moments or decisions that led you to step off the traditional path?
SP: I realized two years before I graduated that I was not gonna do anything with Psychology. I started understanding more of just the toll it takes on you, and I'm an empath, so I'd be crying with my patients. So I said, “Nope, sis, this one is not for you.” When I was on campus, I would do these different community moments and events for students, a lot with project management in the background. So, I honestly had no idea what I wanted to do after graduating, I fell into it. I was working at an event on campus and met my first boss out of college, and he happened to have a communications firm that was very grass rooted and community-oriented. He had a way of approaching communications from a purpose, full space, very rooted in, “This is the business objective, but this is how you meet that business objective while also helping community and helping people, and helping make lives better.” Once I realized the through line there, and just my psychology background, it's all psychology. It's just how you package it up, and I wanted to use that for good.So after seeing that was possible, I kind of just released control and was like, “Alright, God. I don't know what's going on right now, but this feels good.”
A part of that communications firm was creating content and developing campaigns, my kind of itch for storytelling came from Kip Baltimore was trying to drive enrollment and on the surface, it was a school trying to get more kids in the building. But when I started talking to the students and the parents and the teachers, it was a way out for these kids but the teachers really cared about them, and it was a safe space for them. To me it was a break from their realities, and I realized it was less about getting students in the building and more about getting them to a safe environment where they can learn and they can build a strong foundation for their futures. And I was able to tell that story
If you don't have the right lens on, I guess this is your business objective, but who are the humans you're trying to reach, and are y'all being helpful? That was how I stumbled into what I do now just by realizing marketing and comms can really help people if you do it right and if you're intentional.
Shea Moisture host a panel honoring Black Men (All rights reserved to owner)
You started from the bottom and worked your way up. You went from Integrated Marketing Manager to Associate Brand Manager to Content Lead & Creative Director. What skills or strategies were most critical in helping you advance through these roles?
SP: I spent most of my career just in spaces listening. I sat at the feet of a lot of strategic leaders and creative people, and I just needed to be in the space to learn, to watch how it all happened, and to watch how the sausage was made, if you will. I asked a lot of questions. I asked to be in spaces I wasn't necessarily invited to, I was like, “I'll just sit in the corner and get coffee, just let me be in the space.” So I took a super humble approach to trying to learn and it wasn't always direct learning. I've learned a ton of what has carried me here, just from listening and asking questions. In letting people talk, there's so much power in just asking one question, and just letting people flow. I did a lot of also sharing what I thought I wanted to do. In sharing that, people let me try it out. You say you want to lead a brand, and you say you want to do marketing, here's a project, test it out, see if you like it. And in that, I learned what I like, what I didn't like, what I wanted to do more of, what I hated, what I needed help with. I also became very comfortable with asking for help. Every role for me was baptism by fire, very few structures, very few processes. More like, “Here's your project, here are all the pieces to it, go forth and prosper. “ It was always, “This is what we got, go figure it out.” So, I had to ask a lot of questions and be okay not knowing what was happening, not knowing what I was doing. I had a very untraditional journey into this role. And it is one that I do not take for granted, because I got a lot of the learnings through just being in the space, working late, grit and being okay not knowing. Not knowing what was happening, because when you don't, you approach all the things from a spirit of, “I don't know the answer, I don't know how this works for real, can you help me get there?” You tap into the humanity of other people, and they want to help you.
When I was developing these campaigns for the communities I needed to talk to, there's data, and then there's going to actually talk to the people. You can read data all day long, but data is skewed, it is altered to whatever point of view the researcher is trying to prove. So I went and just talked to people who were in that community. For the men's campaign, I knew absolutely nothing about men's experience for real. So I knew I needed to go talk to them, and it was a very humble approach, like, “Hey, I want to see the world through your eyes. Help me understand XYZ, help me understand how you all felt after COVID. What did you go through during COVID? What are some of the things that are the least understood about you? How can I help shift perspectives around that to create some empathy, so people start viewing you in a different way? I genuinely wanted to see them through their eyes.
So for me I go much deeper than the surface, and I try to understand the human first, and their experiences at their core, and what makes them tick, and what they hate, what they don't love, like, what they feel judged about, and then create from that perspective. I like to make sure my work is always impactful in that regard, and that it’s not just wallpaper, that it means something to people. So I think that level of intentionality has really been what's carried me through. And that’s the mark I want my storytelling to leave.
“I like to make sure my work is always impactful in that regard, and that it’s not just wallpaper, that it means something to people. So I think that level of intentionality has really been what's carried me through. And that’s the mark I want my storytelling to leave.”
- ShaNiece Plyes
You’ve been behind some incredibly powerful work—the 'Black Men Love' campaign, which won a Webby, and now the 'Yes, And' campaign for Shea Moisture, including the pop-up magazine experience in NYC. What was it like bringing those ideas to life, can you walk us through your creative process when taking on projects with that level of cultural and emotional depth?
SP: Being a creative in corporate America is very, very hard. You battle carving out the time to exist in your creativity, and then also the hoops and ladders and checkpoints to bring something to life. I wanted to quit several times but it forces you to remember who it’s for every day. And that the most beautiful things you create come with a level of resistance, if it doesn’t come with a ton of resistance, it’s not going to be beautiful. Being okay with that, and not wanting to flip a table every time something so simple should become so complex.
Process-wise, it’s hard. You cry a lot, you crash out a lot. You sell your ideas a lot, you repeat yourself so many times. You have to really understand who your audience is in terms of selling the idea in, because most of the time the audience doesn’t care like you do. They don’t have the same level of intention that you do. And trying to sell people on something that matters is really, really hard. Unfortunately the visuals that created the magazine (‘Yes, And’), that then turned into the newsstand—I was briefed on that a year before it actually came out. And it took a lot of selling in the vision to even bring it to life. We didn’t shoot it until a year later. Thankfully, I had leadership that also helped me get into the right rooms and sell it the right way and all the things. I’m very grateful for that, but it’s hard. You don’t just have a good idea, and people believe in it, and I think sometimes when people see it in market, they’re like, “Oh right, this made all the sense. This had to have been an easy sell.” Nope, it wasn’t and then making sure you have the right partners in place to bring the vision to life is key.
Within the creative process you research a lot. You have to first identify what about the current state of affairs, or the current state of the project isn’t right, could be better, or could be more intentional. Then you do research on your community, what they’re experiencing, what are you trying to communicate in your creative? How do I back into that? Once I was clear on what I needed to communicate on the “Yes, And” campaign, me and Pinterest were BFFs. I was on Pinterest every day, all day. I’d be on calls, scrolling through Pinterest, like, “Oh, shoot, I love this hairstyle, I love this makeup, I love this wardrobe.” And then I’d go on TikTok, and I’d search Black hair tags on TikTok to see what the girls were doing, what they think is cute, what they think is cool, what I think is insane, but they love it, right? I put myself in my community’s shoes, and again, just try to see the world through their eyes. Once I’m clear on the vision, it’s who are the partners that will help me bring it to life. Because I can’t—well, I do—but I try not to write all the copy. I need to make sure the lighting is right, I need to make sure the person capturing the visual is right, that the hair person, glam, wardrobe, all those people have enough depth to share the vision. You have to make sure the people you’re working with care as much as you do, because if they don’t, the Pinterest board will never come to life. The mood board will never come to life. As I was picking partners, I shared the vision, and you have to really listen to the reaction of when you pitch an idea to someone, because you know when they’re into it or not. You know when someone’s looking for a check and when someone is invested. And I needed to make sure my partners were invested.
One of the things I make sure of when we’re producing content, visuals, whatever, I need to make sure you have enough space to cook and do your thing. Because yes, I have a vision, but I’m also bringing you onto this project because you have a unique point of view, so I create an environment that makes everyone feel safe enough to do their thing. I don’t micromanage. I’m like, this is the vision, these are the pieces, come back with a recommendation on how you bring this to life. When you do that, people have their own buy-in, they’re invested, they’re excited. And then when we get to set, it’s 10 to 12 hour days, so the music is on, we feel good. It feels like a beauty salon. I’m checking in with people, people are making connections and making friends. I just make sure I’m bringing, as best as I can, the full dynamic variety and layers of who they are to the creative. Because if they don’t feel seen, I didn’t do my job.
'Yes, And' campaign for Shea Moisture (Rights reserved to owner)
What are you currently paying attention to when it comes to the next wave of Black creators and storytellers?
SP: They are shifting the advertising industry in ways that I think people are not realizing yet. Creatives who are not tied to agencies or in-house teams—they have such a freedom to how they create. It’s inspiring, it’s energetic, and it’s cool. It’s fearless. It’s fearless because they haven’t come into a structured environment where you have to check this box, and if this person says no, you can’t do it.
There is such a freedom to this next generation of creatives that I am so excited about, because they haven’t been inundated with what’s “supposed” to be, or how you’re “supposed” to approach content or storytelling. It’s irreverent in all the right ways and it’s creating space for authentic storytelling and authentic visualization of real experiences. It’s getting us away from this picture-perfect, overly polished version of things, where every photo has to be perfect, every edit has to be perfect. It doesn’t. And that’s the beauty in it. I love how they’re saying, “Yeah, y’all been doing this for years, but this is my take on it, this is my point of view.” And it’s amazing, because it’s the exact opposite of what’s happening at agencies and in-house teams.
As I work with more of them, and as I’m intentional about working with more of them, I see how it’s disrupting the advertising world. But it’s also going to disrupt TV and film. I just hope they don’t let the old heads in the room convince them that they are not up next. I’m personally trying to be an advocate for them. Because it’s not just about the work, it’s about packaging, saying the right things, and selling to the people who hold the purse strings. I’m trying to be such a conduit for them, because I’m like, “Y’all these are the people we need to work with. Let them talk, let them create, let them run, come back and give them guardrails after.” I’m so inspired and I just hope they hold onto it. I just want to protect them all. Like, “No, no, no, no, no—let them rock.” Because they’re so talented, and it comes innate to them.” So I’m trying to figure out how to work with more of them in bigger, more intentional ways. Because there’s space for them. And the industry, because they’re scared. Can pretend like there’s no space but there’s so much space and I personally want to flip tables and knock down doors to force them into the room. Because that’s what it takes. I had people force me into rooms I didn’t necessarily belong in. And I’m so excited for them, I just need them to hang on to it.
What role does representation play in helping the next generation believe that their dreams and aspirations are truly possible?
SP: Representation of diverse thought, not just diverse people. It’s not just about who’s in the room; it’s about how they think. True representation is rooted in thought. It’s thinking that upends tradition, thinking that challenges norms, that’s sometimes combative, that’s uncomfortable. When I hear “representation,” I think people too often default to optics, like, just put a brown person, or a Black person, or a Latino person in the room. No, it’s how that person thinks. Do they think outside the box in ways that are disruptive—in the best, most necessary ways? The kind of representation I look for, and the kind I know this industry needs, is about perspective. Because what happens too often is, you get in these rooms, and everything starts to blend. It becomes groupthink, it becomes performative, it becomes boring—so boring. And it takes someone being bold enough to say: “Hey y’all, didn’t we already do this?” “Didn’t we say we didn’t want to do this anymore?” “I thought we were here to make cool stuff, because this isn’t it.” If it checks none of the cool boxes, who are we talking to? Ourselves? Or are we actually trying to do something different?
So when I talk about representation, especially in the next generation, it’s about diversity of thought, background, experience. It’s someone from a less-resourced community working next to someone from a trust fund background—and both of them learning from each other. Seeing the world through each other’s eyes. Creating together. Especially in America, there’s this push to stay in our own lanes. But there’s so much power in bringing people from different walks of life into the same space, and asking them to collaborate. When that space is safe, when we can share ideas, say the quiet part out loud, that’s where the real impact happens. We need to curate environments where that kind of diversity is not just welcomed, but foundational. That’s the representation that matters right now.
Want to hear more amazing stories like this? Check out our “More of Us” series! If you want to connect with ShaNiece and support the work she is doing, follow her on Instagram, you can support Shea Moistures by clicking here.