Running a business for 20 years is no easy feat – only roughly half of businesses survive past their fifth year. From its beginnings in 2002, Antonio “Tronic” McDonald and his team have been able to grow boutique creative production studio KUAMP from an upstart at a global music channel’s promotion department to a full-blown multimedia platform company with some of the world’s largest brands as its partners.
KUAMP (pronounced Kee–Yamp) is an acronym for Keep Up And Make Progress, reflecting the organization’s focus on continuously improving its skills and capabilities. Since his youth, McDonald has always strived to become a better creative, never giving up on his goals. When he wasn’t accepted at an internship he was aiming for, he continued learning and built up his portfolio, which led him to get accepted on his second try.
Over the past 20 years, KUAMP has grown by leaps and bounds, having worked with world-famous clients and going up – and sometimes winning – against the heavyweights of the advertising industry. The organization has won several awards, and McDonald was invited to be a panelist on three separate panels during the 70th Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in June 2023. A Black-owned business, KUAMP tells stories of multiculturalism and the human experience to achieve success, never taking anything for granted.
McDonald says he couldn’t have done all this on his own, which is why, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, he is expressing his gratitude to everyone who has helped him and KUAMP grow and succeed for the past two decades. In all its campaigns, KUAMP emphasizes a collaborative spirit, with each team composed of the right mix of artists needed to make the initiative a success. It’s this mix-and-match model that ensures each client gets a team that is tailor-made for them. Everyone brings their whole selves to their work, resulting in better creative output and a smoother working environment.
“KUAMP is all about collaboration,” McDonald says. “In the beginning, KUAMP was derived from CAMP, which represented a camp of people coming together for collaborative efforts. So it’s really about every one of us coming together as a collective to support each other, which is why I’m very thankful for everyone’s contributions. Back when we started, it was very tough to break into the creative industry, especially with most of our team being people of color. We want to create work that we can be proud of, so being entrusted that our creative voice will be heard is imperative. We pride ourselves on being able to obtain a balance between the commercial and artistic sides of the business. Looking back 20 years, I feel like we’ve far exceeded our goals for the company, but still have a new dream to dream.”
McDonald says he is grateful not only to KUAMP’s internal team, partners, and clients but also to all the freelancers and contractors the company has worked with through the years, as they have made valuable contributions to the success of various projects.Â
“To everyone I’ve worked and solved problems with for the past 20 years, I thank you, and I appreciate you,” McDonald says. “I could not have done this without you. We’ve accomplished so much with each opportunity, and I look forward to collaborating on many more in the near future. Happy Thanksgiving!”
