C & D Advertising formally opens new office location

ROME — C & D Advertising has officially cut the ribbon on its new office space in its new hometown.

That new home, at 103 West Court St. in Rome, was completely remodeled to become a modern office space not only for the advertising agency, but also for multiple business tenants. 

The project was several years in the making, thanks in no small part to the pandemic, but definitely worth the wait, Jenn Brillante, C & D’s president, contends.

Brillante and her husband, Chris, purchased the building in March 2020 with the intent of renovating it from its former use as a doctor’s office. 

“It was definitely an interesting 2020 because we had the best laid plans and then COVID hit,” she says. Chris began gutting the second floor of the building and the couple slogged their way through renovations during the pandemic. They oversaw the project themselves, hiring various local contractors to do work only when needed.

Work included new insulation, a new driveway, electrical work, and designing open and inviting space for the advertising agency that helps foster collaboration among its 14 employees, Brillante says. They had funding help for the project in the form of a $50,000 Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant from Rome and a $25,000 grant from National Grid’s Main Street Revitalization Program.

With work finished upstairs first, C & D moved into the second floor in January 2021. Previously, the agency had offices on Genessee Street in Utica. George Carpenter and Barry Damsky founded the agency in 1997. Brillante became the majority owner of C & D in January 2021.

She first joined the company in 2012 and feels fortunate to have learned from Carpenter. “I was able to learn from him and grow the practice,” she says. The agency built out new departments for services it used to contract out for, adding new employees and new clients along with those new departments.

“We basically have doubled our size in the last 10 years,” Brillante says, adding that the agency has tripled its client roster during that period.

C & D has carved out a niche with a focus on the tourism industry, with clients including Enchanted Forest Water Safari and Oneida County Tourism. As a full-service advertising and marketing agency, it has generated many other clients across numerous sectors including Symeon’s Greek Restaurant, Clinton Tractor, Buy Madison County, Gates-Cole Insurance, Edible Arrangements, and numerous nonprofit organizations. Services include business-strategy planning, media buying, social media, and video/graphic design.

In the new building, C & D offers photography, videography, and audio-production suites including an audio-podcast studio on the first floor, which also contains office space for lease, Current tenants include Brillante Enterprises, LLC, which is the Brillante’s real-estate management company, along with Chris Brillante’s Roman Cleaning Service. One Nine Photography is also located on the first floor, and there is one 1,200-square-foot suite still available for lease.

Brillante says she is excited to have her business poised to grow in her hometown and is proud to be part of the downtown revitalization and giving back to the community.

One way the agency is giving back is through the creation of a college internship program. While C & D has welcomed interns in the past, this year it made the program official with a two-year program where interns spend one year working with the agency and the second year working with one of C & D’s clients. It has five interns this year.

Along with celebrating the new location, Brillante is also working to get C & D Advertising certified as a woman-owned business.