AUC MAGAZINE
“ 135 th Street Agency: Leading the Way”
February 2006
By Rahiem Shabazz
When it comes to publicity, marketing and promotion, there are several companies offering services. Public Relations as an occupation is teeming with aspiring neophytes attempting to make a name. The seemingly fruitful endeavors of being a publicist have not been as lucrative as once promised. This is due in part to a strong lack of knowledge many publicists have. However, the marketing/advertising/PR venture known as the 135 th Street Agency is here to change that paradigm. After coordinating publicity and special events for corporate powerhouses as well as some of music’s most prominent names, 135 th Street is leading the way by building reciprocal relationships with a diverse roster of clients.
No one knows better about building such relationships than CEO Shante Bacon and business partner Saptosa Foster. When Kevin Liles speaks about determination in his poignantly written book Make It Happen: The Hip-Hop Generation’s Guide to Success, Shante’s name is on the list. Ms. Bacon and partner Saptosa Foster who met 10 years ago while interning together, are quickly becoming a household name within the infrastructure of Corporate America that often seeks to target the urban demographic.
The two sat down with AUC Magazine to discuss their inspirations and the key to success for up and coming publicists to their latest project.
The entertainment business is fast paced. Every day is filled with excitement. As a publicist, what is the #1 misconception people have about the job you guys do?
Shante: The #1 misconception is that in PR you just go to events and you may send out a press release every now and then. There is a lot of tedious legwork and research; you have to know what you are doing. If you are doing PR, you are probably doing event planning as well, you are coordinating press opportunities. You are the liaison between the record label, the artist and the venue. You juggle a lot of responsibilities; there is a lot of writing involved, not just with the press release, but in any correspondence. The media coaching and grooming that you do with the artist, a lot of work goes into a successful publicity campaign.
Some people believe to become a successful publicist you need to possess an inkling of intelligence coupled with minimal ability and drive to succeed. What educational background is necessary and what advice can you give to those trying to break into this market?
Saptosa: You definitely need writing skills. I would suggest having a degree in English or Journalism for PR. Even if you don’t have any of that, you still need a good writer’s background. You need to be an analytical thinker; you need to have some internship and an entry-level job experience in the media.
Shante: Make sure you get in from the ground up and put your time in by paying your dues as an intern. Also, in this industry everything is relationship-driven. Everything you get depends on your relationship. You could get all A’s in your class as well as be the best intern, but if you don’t know how to cultivate and manage relationships, you are dead in the water. You got to have a knack for it. If you don’t, it’s like swimming upstream. No matter how you force it, it just doesn’t work. There are people who can’t seem to achieve any type of success and you wonder why. It’s because they are not a people’s people and do not know how to keep up a relationship. There are a lot of people who really have a deficiency when it comes to making relationships and satisfying people. Education and internships go so far, but it is your quality to create relationships that will help you make it.
135 th Street successfully orchestrated Young Jeezy’s release party. One of the things that struck me is that you all remained calm during the storm when unpredictability stepped in. How was that possible?
Shante: We expected pandemonium. I would not have been any happier if it came out any less crazy. This was not a quiet dinner for 12 and then 3,000 people showed up. I wanted it to be as crazy as possible with the block shut down where people could not get in.
There is a lot of excitement around your latest project. Tell us about it and can college students become participants?
Saptosa: It is called “The Executive Experience” and we pitched it to the Postal Service. Basically, it is a PR campaign challenge. It’s for a team of students in the tri-state area ( New York, New Jersey, Connecticut), where it is being piloted at to submit their PR campaign for three of the Postal Service’s online products: NetPost (www.usps.com/netpost), Click-N-Ship (www.usps.com/clicknship) and Direct Mail (www.usps.com/directmail). They have to come up with some type of PR campaign to see who promotes this better. There will be sixteen semi-final teams narrowed down to six finalists. Each team has to develop a public relations campaign that targets the 18 to 34 year old demographic. The teams will test their campaigns and present their results and methods to a panel of celebrity judges. Then, the winning team will be announced and awarded a scholarship during a ceremony in April of 2006.
