Born in Blackpool, Steve Harrison completed a doctoral thesis on American Society, Cinema, and Television: 1950–1960 at the University of Manchester.^[2] At the age of 30, he traveled to London and secured a researcher position at Ogilvy & Mather.^[3] After 11 months, he was hired as a copywriter at Ogilvy and Mather Direct after their global vice chairman, Drayton Bird, noticed a report that Harrison had written.^[4] In 1989, he was made Head of Copy at the agency, and by 1997, he was European Creative Director.^[5]

In 2001, Harrison founded Harrison Troughton Wunderman ^[6] after the Wunderman owned agency Impiric purchased Harrison's Agency, HPT Brand Response.^[7] The agency went on to produce a number of campaigns for brands including Xerox, IBM, Microsoft, Vodafone, and Rolls-Royce.^[8]

In 2006, Harrison became the first Creative Director to head up the Direct Jury at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.^[9]

In 2007 Steve Harrison stood down as Worldwide Creative Director of Wunderman following a management restructure of the Advertising Agency.^[10]

Harrison has won three gold, five silver, and two bronze Lions for his work.^[11]

In 2012, Steve Harrison authored a book on the advertising pioneer Howard Gossage entitled 'Changing the world is the only fit work for a grown man'.^[12] Harrison's study of Howard Gossage began when he came across Gossage's book 'Is there any hope for advertising' in the library of Ogilvy and Mather New York.^[13]

Harrison started out intending to make a documentary about Howard Gossage with a friend. He wrote a treatment for this documentary, which then became the outline for his book.^[14]

In 2010, Steve Harrison authored the book 'How to do better creative work'.^[15] In their review of the book, Campaign Magazine called it 'essential reading for anyone looking to demystify the creative process'.^[16] The book became the most expensive advertising book of all time when it was traded on Amazon.com for $3,000 per copy.^[17]