An Interview with Build-A-Bear CEO Sharon Price John

Trinity Bliss as Marzipan in ‘Glisten and the Merry Mission’. (Still Courtesy of Build-A-Bear Entertainment and Foundation Media.)

Sharon Price John is a well-known name in the business world. Mainly because she is the CEO of the world-renowned Build-A-Bear, a company that has touched all of our lives in some form or fashion. But recently, Sharon opted to expand her skillset by helping to write the new Build-A-Bear Entertainment film, Glisten and Merry Mission, and we here at NTG were lucky enough to sit down with Sharon to discuss her work on this new feature.
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John Betancourt: What was it that prompted Build-A-Bear to get into visual entertainment?

Sharon Price John: Well, Build-A-Bear has been in some visual entertainment in the past. But there were a couple of things that were two key impetuses for this. One is that there's a changing business model of, how do you speak to kids, create, you know, relationship with kids, like the old advertising model is not as valid as it used to be. And so, the creation of content makes sense, short form, long form, you know, what, from TikToks, to feature films, is a way to create that relationship and introduce new products. But I think more importantly, Build-A-Bear recognizes that we, for over 25 years now, we've sold 250 million furry friends, all of which have stories that are created by the guest, you know, and they all have names, and they all have story arcs, and they all have character arcs. And, you know, it's just, it's an integral part of who we are already. It's woven into, I think, the magic of Build-A-Bear. And the idea that we would take that one step further, and create sub stories and intellectual property, inside our own vertically integrated retail stores, where we introduce it to people in those locations. Whether that's Honey Girls, which we launched with a film some years ago or (Glisten and the) Merry Mission makes sense.

So, we look to where there's opportunity, and we wanted to provide guests a reason to celebrate the holidays together each year. And I say this carefully, but not just find the bear under the tree. But you know, come to Build-A-Bear make this reindeer have the, you know, have this, this experience together, which is what we're all about. But in the in the creation of that construct, it was important that, you know, we have a story that holds us together. Why are these reindeer here? What are they doing? Do they have a mission? And the answer was, yes, they have a merry mission. And so, we launched this a few years ago as an idea of bringing families together during the holiday, maybe after they've gone to visit Santa in the mall, or maybe before they go visit Santa in the mall. And then we introduce Glisten, but it was really the reindeer were trying to solve this Nice List issue, that there were too many kids on the Nice List. Which is a great problem to have, right? And the reindeer are like, “Wow, we know where there's another workshop. We can help.” That was the underlying idea.

John Betancourt: So, you’re more than a CEO, you’re also a writer as well, and I am very curious as to what inspired you to step in and co-write this particular story?

Sharon Price John: Well, an awful lot of things in a CEO role come out of need versus desire. (Laughter from Sharon and John) Yeah, and so, there wasn't some secret intention of, “Hey, I really want to be a writer and an executive producer.” That was not the way this happened. It happened that we saw a business model opportunity through the holiday season, which of course, is a very high traffic time period for shopping centers and toy purchases and product companies and products like ours. And you know, you’re wanting to make sure that you're finding a way to optimize when the consumers are already in a certain mindset. And so that's where we really wanted to find this story. And this was, it just kind of struck me about that I didn't want to create an antagonist. I didn't want to have like a bad guy that would make you want to come to Build-A-Bear. I wanted it to be all positive, because that's really what we're about, and that idea that the Nice List was too long, so it felt like a nice hook and I did some research on that, and really, to my knowledge to this day, that really had never been a hook of the problem that needed to be solved, and it was a great, you know, a great problem to have. So, that was successful. And we were able to create, you know, every reindeer with one reindeer because you could then choose his, you know, his or her sort of medallion to name the reindeer. That was the original idea. And then we brought Glisten out the second year, and each of the reindeer, we made half the reindeers’ girls, and half the reindeer guys, which was also something people were like, “Well, you can't do that.” I'm like, “Yeah, yeah, I can.” I simply did.

And, and then we made, you know, Glisten, and grounded her in this idea of believing. That you have to believe before you can see her. And that's how she's able to save the holiday. Now, that was just the simple story from the original idea. And I just ended up creating that because I'm a marketer, at heart, and also, I have a writing background. But that was not the objective. And then when this continued to be so successful, and we continued to flesh out the story over time, you know, we believed that there was something bigger here and started thinking through how to bring in different characters, how to elevate the story, how to construct something where you're actually appropriately exploring things like, you know, a single mother who's working, who gets put into a difficult situation, and her daughter, and how her daughter's watching that and how she evolves during that, or the kind of… the discussions between the elves and the reindeer. Where the elves are trying to keep it the way it was, and the reindeer trying to move it into modern technology and all of that, that happens in the work environment or in just today's world.

And do it in a really fun way, you know, and you've got the person that worries about everything, and the one that believes it's all gonna be all right, and how that all comes together, you've got Grizz, this character who… he's not really a bad guy, people just think he's a bad guy, therefore, ergo, he's a bad guy. But still, doesn't he deserve a good teddy bear in his life? You have the wisdom of Santa, as well as the wisdom of Sage Evergreen playing a really important role here. And the thing that keeps moving the story forward, is again, there's no antagonist, the thing that keeps moving the story forward is life. Life just keeps happening. And the big unlock here is, what do you do in these moments? And how do you come together? And how do you think about those things? That’s a very strong message for children.

John Betancourt: I very much appreciated the fact that this movie has messaging to offer to children. Since a lot of holiday films lean into the fluffy. But speaking of that messaging, since there is more than one message here, what kinds of challenges did you run into in bringing so many themes and concepts together?

Sharon Price John: Um, yeah, to weave all of that together in a way that did not feel overwhelming… was… was not that easy. So, part of it is we wanted to make sure there was enough lightheartedness in it, that if you didn't really want to delve into some of these, you didn't really have to, you know, but there's always that. Some people look at the same situations and see different levels of depth, and is there meaning to this? Or isn't there meaning to this? So, you know, the Nice List machine is broken, is there meaning or it just happened? Who knows, you know, but that is what happens in life. Things get in the way; they don't go exactly like you planned. Even when you think you're doing everything right. The teddy bears can weigh more than you planned, even though it's the best and the right thing to do. How are you going to find the solution for these things? And sometimes it is, at the end of the day, sometimes it is still just about believing. What are you putting out there? What how are you approaching this and the beautiful thing about it is that like so many Christmas stories, it is the sole belief of a child that pushes it over the edge.

John Edward Betancourt: I hear a lot of passion and joy as you speak about this project. What did you enjoy the most about working on this?

Sharon Price John: It… as I'm sure you've heard when, when something that was just an inkling of an idea you know, sort of a wake up in the middle of the night, “Oh, we'll just make the Nice List too long and that'll work, it will work its way out.” This now turned into a feature animated film filled with incredible talent that was moved by the story as much as anything, that has now come to full fruition and going to be in theaters with our great partner Cinemark. You know, that’s just a remarkable journey. And almost like the journey of Glisten herself. It was just all of these things, you know, not everything was perfect and the creation of anything like this is not always going to go without flaw. And so when you get “here's another thing,” we work it out. And here's another thing, and it's turned out to be, I think it… almost looks like a classic film, the way we chose to do it, but is dealing with a lot of more modern but forever themes. And we just had to believe in many cases.

John Betancourt: What are you most proud of when it comes to this project?

Sharon Price John: I think it's the combination of all of the extraordinary contributions. Of the talent, the writers, the directors, the foundation media, when Cinemark stepped up, my whole team here. It’s not just a movie, this is an entire ecosystem, from you know, music to music videos, to gaming, I mean, we're gonna have a Roblox inside of our Roblox game, we're gonna have like, little Glisten and Merry Missions. We've got an app where you can help them get, you know, get the names on the Nice List and help them get back teddy bears. I mean, it is a complete ecosystem. And we used the same mantra inside, which is, you know, we're on a merry mission, and the team really got fired up about it and made it happen. So, we're very eager, but it's fun to watch an entire organization, get really enthused about a project.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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