Last week marked the kick-off of a 3 day Soho event for the Team Epiphany Agency and their team. We were on site mingling the first night and enjoyed the musical backdrop provided by the DJ, the cocktail menu, the small foods passed around throughout the night, the guest speaker, and the surprise musical performance by Black Thought at the end. Mingling, dancing, and celebrating the night, guests were treated to a lot of fun and education with the speeches. Founded in 2004, Team Epiphany is a leading NYC firm connecting brands to culture, through award-winning work.
The founder and managing partner of Team Epiphany, Coltrane Curtis, started the night with a passionate speech about the agency and what the night meant to him. “The goal became the next goal. And then the goal became a day, the goal became a week, the goal became a month, the goal became a year. Then five years, then ten years. It’s like an express train that feels like 15 years ago was yesterday…. When I was on the block, at first I didn’t know where this place was, they were like, ‘Mercer Street.’ I was like alright. I’m trying to figure out like, ‘Where’s the cheap part of Mercer Street at?’…. And then it was like, ‘Nah, we’re right off of Houston.’ The Mercer Hotel is right down the block, the Prada store is there, not to blow his spot up, Kanye got a crib right there on the block, so rent is high. And here we are. And when I got out the car, there’s a store next door called 45 RPM, and umm, I’m crying about a retail store! Me and my dad used to walk the block and that was his store. He couldn’t afford to get sh*t, but we would go in there and look at like indigo dyed denim, and we’d be like, ‘one day, we’re going to get denim.’ And that was his dream. He ran an agency for 25 years. He sold cigarettes and alcohol, because that’s what multicultural marketing looked like then. He worked in Chicago in the week, and came home on weekends. I didn’t know anything was wrong, I didn’t know the difference, but that’s what he did to make sure I was good. So, back to this retail store. My dad never got the opportunity to go to Japan. My dad never got the opportunity to see this. When I was thinking about that store, I was thinking about dreams. And that was his dream. And this is his dream, I’m living his dream.”
He continued, “That was his dream, and I’m living his dream, and then other people, this became their dream. One person in particular was my wife. I knew how to throw parties, and she knew how to produce events. And this is not her dream. But you would never know that. You will never know that. She will never let you in that this is not her dream. And it’s very easy to get through the day, and do things that aren’t sexy, when you’re doing something that you want to be doing. But if you can imagine that not being you’re dream, and having to fight through all the bullsh*t, all the challenges, cause this was someone else’s dream. And then along the way we made friends. Jared’s been with me forever. And then this became Jared’s dream. And then this became the dream for other people that started working here. This is a celebration about a collective dream, that we are all connected to. And we’re here to celebrate it. And it’s not easy, you know, today wasn’t an easy day. There’s no easy day in the office, but when you come here and you see the work and how it touches people, it’s more than the work, it’s more than just an agency, it’s family. Lisa and I don’t have much family. I don’t have any blood family, literally. You guys have never seen one of my family members here, ever. You ain’t never seen them at a party, you ain’t never seen them when I’m getting an award, you’ve never seen them at an event. I don’t have family. And as the only child, it’s the loneliest thing in the world. But when you think about this agency and what it means, I don’t walk around like I’m lonely because I have wild friends. I have friends who are family. And that’s what Team Epiphany is day in and day out. So when we came up with this concept, rather, when the team came up with this concept, they came to us and was like, ‘This is what we want to do.’ I was blown away. I was blown away at the humility and the dedication and the time. You gotta think about it, this is the end of the year for an agency, we’re beat. We’re getting ready for 2020 for brands, we’re closing out the year, and then the team was like, ‘Yo, we’re gonna do this pop-up for three days.’ And … what they create, is perfection, is utter perfection. And when you get a chance to do work for somebody else, that’s great, but when you get a chance to do this, this is what’s special. This is what makes New York, New York, this is what makes New York the best fucking city in the world.”
“This for Lisa’s dad, who embraced me with open arms, and it probably wasn’t easy. But he believed in me and looked at me, and, you know, I was in Taiwan and she packed all my clothes, never had been in Asia before and met this man and he gave me his blessing to marry Lisa. Little did I know, that not only would I love her to death, but we shared the same dream. That’s why we’re here today. This is a collaborative effort. It’s not about me, it’s not about her, it’s about the team and the community that has always been receptive to our work, and all our clients that believe in us and gave us the opportunity. And so, today, we’re moving through this conversation with Lucinda Martinez, who’s going to show up in a minute, and this is about opportunity, right? Everybody here in this room needs an opportunity, whether you’re from New York or you came here, the reason why we’re here is because we want to kill sh*t. We want to be the best at what we’re gonna do, and we know there’s going to be some bumps, and some trials and tribulations, but the reality is, is that we’re here to be great. We came through it as individuals, we can only do it as a collective. I’m so thankful for this squad,” Curtis added.
He concluded, “I forgot one last piece, right? So, all these jersey’s of people, are people who have been at the agency for about ten years or more. When you think about agency life, most people land at an agency for about two years, and clients stay for about two years, we’ve got people that’s been here for ten, twelve, fourteen, fifteen years. They’re here not because of the work, they’re here because of the camaraderie and connection that we have. I don’t know if you guys know much about the agency, hopefully you do, there’s a lot of us that work here, this community right here, we were figuring out what we could do, and what’s the agency built on? Right? And you really look around and you’re like ahhh, we produce events and we do social, and we do all this, and then you really look around and there’s somebody that’s there, no matter what the challenge is, no matter what time of day it is, no matter what the task is, no matter what the job is, no matter how you’re feeling, KP is always there. … Really, just enjoy the energy that’s there because that’s basically what Team Epiphany is about, which is, the assist is better than the shot. And KP is that assist guy. And you never get the accolades, you always see me, and you’re like, ‘Oh, I did everything.’ And the reality is, I don’t do much, except keep it together, because of people like KP. People like KP, Jeff, I’ll read the names, Suze, Jane, Val, Al, and everyone else in between. So, I just wanted to say thank you. God Bless you for coming out.”
Lucinda Martinez took to the stage next as the featured guest speaker for the evening. Martinez formerly served as the SVP of Multicultural Marketing at HBO. WarnerMedia recently appointed her to lead Multicultural Marketing, Brand & Inclusion Strategy “across the company’s units including TNT, TBS, truTV, HBO and HBO Max, among others, including their audience-led campaigns, as well as expanding the inclusion talent efforts across all brands.”
She spoke about the importance of team work. “The team is, especially if you build it, only as good as your vision. And it’s the people you bring on, that believe in your vision, which means, then when you have that, there’s a tremendous responsibility that comes with that and people don’t understand how hard that is. … I’ve always been the person that knows, I know why I’m in this for, I know who’s really in my corner, but more importantly, I know who I already am. And if you already know who you are, what you’re in this for, why you’re in this for, then everything else doesn’t matter.”
The topic then moved on Martinez’s multicultural work. “It was more of my truth, it was more of my compass. So, I ran distribution, and this multicultural thing was a side thing, because it’s always an afterthought. So, I was into doing the distribution part, which meant for HBO, it meant our affiliates, which are the people that carry HBO. I was given the largest part of that business which was our satellite business, so that was DirectTV and Dish. That represented 500 million dollars, half a billion of our revenue was there. And I knew this. So, if you want people to focus on something, if you impact the business, it matters. Right? And then the side thing was: I ran HBO Latino, and then I did all of our multicultural stuff, what they thought was, again, an afterthought, and it was only because when our affiliates called, it would be like, ‘It’s black history month, what are we doing for black history month?’ And then I’d have to be like, ‘We could do this, we have this, we have this movie’ … But you did it because that’s what they wanted.” Eventually she decided to make multicultural marketing her full time role because it was her true calling and passion and the rest is history as they say!
After a long period of mingling and dancing to the DJ, guests were treated to a live performance by Black Thought to close out the night.
