This is where it all began. A small studio of no more than 40 m2 in General Pardiñas, in the heart of the Salamanca district. A temporary assignment. And a couple of words of advice from two top professionals: “don’t start a company, Silvia; it’s much better to work as an employee”. It was 1 March 1999. I have never lived by obedience.
We used a lot of paper then. And also fax, two lines, just in case. And many photocopies, for each media outlet, for each journalist, for each dispatch. Every morning the messenger would bring a thick envelope with hundreds of photocopies of newspaper clippings and the porter would hand us all the paper newspapers that the newsagent on the corner would bring. Reading the press took time; it offered a thousand scenarios of opportunities. And two clients, one financial, the other technological. Both were benchmark companies. A new revolution had just broken out: the dot coms. Being in the right place at the right time. Playing cards well.
My children were young. My marriage, unstable. The challenges, many of them unimaginable. Daring, daring.
Not even a year had passed and Pardiñas had already become too small for us. We went to Princesa Street, to a first floor of a mixed building with friendly neighbours, a smell of stew and scarce light. In the bathroom there was a bathtub. We never put up curtains. It was a flat of the past and passing through. From there we build a thousand stories, invent adventures and enjoy a job well done. Very well done. We went from brand to brand, evolving to try to find the suit that best suited us.
The light was too insistently absent and we decided to look for more space. The family continued to grow and, despite the dot-com bust, our experience had multiplied our knowledge and recognition. Pharmaceutical companies, real estate, law firms, transport, industry, regional administration, tourism… We were the first communication consultancy to talk about and in social networks and to consider a digital world, not without a lot of criticism for being so geeky and unaware. Life, which is so keen on its demonstrations, has ended up accompanying us, with a resounding force.
Thus we arrived at Fuencarral street, “between Bilbao and Quevedo” as we used to say to our visitors to situate them in space. Our neighbourhood, our territory. From there we went in and out pandemoniously, while our landlord avoided talking to women – “they are not suitable interlocutors”, he claimed – and steadfastly maintained an unconscionable rent. Our trust in people has been broken, only in bad people.
We had outgrown our own name. Our suit found its best model. “I am sorry I love you” or “I am sorry, I love you”. The important thing is the detail, the well done, the excellence, the craftsmanship. The comma does matter: comma.
Dressed to the nines, in September 2022, we opened Atmosphere comma, a space for freedom, for change, for transformation. At street level, neighbour to neighbour, friendly. From here, we have discovered that the comma story is born from the team, from its diversity, which puts communication at the service of the customer. And today it is our turn to blow out the candles with pride. It’s 25 years. Not one more. Not one less. A thousand learnings and one certainty: communicating is power.
25 years, 25 reasons
And it is power…
- because it honours the profession
- because it brings brands out of anonymity
- because it breaks the established script
- because it is passion
- because it makes the brands become real
- because it breaks down barriers
- because it allows constant learning
- because it is transparency
- because it convinces
- because it opens up the thinking of the members of the organisations
- because it is courage
- because it consolidates the reputation
- because it is art
- because it connects people, emotions, purposes
- because it makes you fall in love
- because it allows for influence
- because it consolidates the pillars on which to build
- because it is listening
- because it shows stories about what is possible
- because it guides the purpose
- because it inspires
- because it is generosity
- because it accompanies growth
- because it requires curiosity
- And because it is pure vocation.
25 years later, I am still proud to belong to this sector. I feel part of it and responsible. I am happy to have met wonderful professionals, good people at the root – heartfelt thanks to all of them – and I accept that, in order to appreciate the good, you have to go through the not so good.
I can only feel grateful. Special thanks to each and every one of the companies, entrepreneurs and institutions that have placed their trust in our way of doing things. Some of them have relied on comma for 25 years. Now that’s a test of excellence.
But today I am only thinking about today, and about the cake with 25 candles that I will blow out together with those who believe that another way of doing communication is possible: with passion, with craft, with power.
As the great Violeta Parra used to say, thanks to life.
