5 Minutes with… Garrett Garcia
Garrett Garcia was employee number five at PPK, the Tampa agency he has called home now for almost 20 years.
Two years ago, Garrett was made the agency’s president at an inflection point in its history. PPK was set to invest in its infrastructure in a bid to evolve from a smallish, more regionally focused shop to one that played on the national stage. It’s an important task for Garrett not just in a business sense, but in terms of personal pride; Garrett has not only been at PPK for the bulk of his career, he is also a born and bred - and extremely proud - Tampa native. The opportunity to put his city more firmly on the US advertising industry map is not lost on him.
To find out more, LBB’s Addison Capper chats with Garrett.
LBB> PPK is in Tampa, Florida, which is a city I don't encounter many agencies from. How does your home city inform the way PPK shows up with culture, clients and work?
Garrett> I think PPK being in Tampa was perhaps a detriment to us the first 10 years or so in business. As you mentioned, it is a relatively unknown ad market. But the pandemic really shined a spotlight on Tampa and people started to flock to the region from big markets, so our influx of big agency talent has grown tenfold over the last two or three years. It couldn’t have been timed any better either, because as an agency we were really starting to hit our stride at that point - growing our portfolio of clients beyond the southeast region and gaining more national attention. We balance that with our roots as a bit of an underdog shop, and even as a team of 100+ people now, we still look, act and feel a lot like that scrappy agency that we were 20 years ago. And that drives our mentality.
We're in this really interesting time right now where we can act and react much more like a big shop with full production capabilities and a huge media social team on staff, but still be as nimble as we were as a smaller agency. And, the mix of local and national talent gives us a unique creative expression and perspective. So I'd say, we're far from the Tampa agency that we were five or 10 years ago.
LBB> What is the origin story of PPK? How did it come to be?
Garrett> PPK was founded by three members, one of which is currently sole owner, Tom Kenney. His expertise was in the creative side, with the other two founding members - the two Ps - being the account and media sides of the business. So these three founders represented the core disciplines of a more traditional agency. They found each other from other local shops at the time, and they all had this shared ambition to build something on their own and unencumber themselves from the agencies where they were employed.
They came together and started hustling, and I think that's where our hustler mentality comes from. It started with local accounts, and then the agency just started to grow organically. I was employee number five, about nine months into PPK’s existence, and we’ve just continued to grow. As time passed, when we added a bigger client, we would shed one of the smaller accounts, until we were an amalgamation of regional Florida brands. Fast forward, five years later, we were 20 people larger and representing brands across the state, and so on. But our roots really were in this hyperlocal trio of advertisers who were chasing something bigger and better.
LBB> You were appointed president around two years ago - what have been some of your key focuses in that time? How have you aimed to position PPK?
Garrett> There were some operational things that had to happen for us to be able to grow from that smallish shop to a medium-and-growing sized shop. Things like investment in infrastructure, investment in technology, just getting our four walls really stable and set to scale. That was one of my first big initiatives. Another big effort was an initiative to grow our talent base, engaging more national talent. That has really started to blossom and pay dividends for us. The third thing was to continue growing the scale and scope of our clients. We're at that stage where our sights are set on working with more national brands – and that's happening right now.
There's certainly a lot more detail to it, but those three key areas were things that I set out to do and that we are accomplishing.
LBB> You've been with PPK for almost 20 years! Which in the topsy-turvy land of advertising is just about more than a lifetime. What has made you stick around? And how does that affinity for the brand inform the way you act as its president?
Garrett> It's first and foremost a love for Tampa. I grew up in Tampa, my parents grew up in Tampa. I knew Tampa when it was a fraction of the city that it is today. I loved it then, and I love it that much more now. I want nothing more than to see Tampa explode and become more creative, and it's doing both of those things. PPK not only reflects its city but vice versa. We have the chance to be a cultural driving force and a creative driving force just simply by virtue of the industry that we're in. That's number one.
Another thing is just being part of something at such an early stage and influencing its path and trajectory to get to where we're at today. And the future is bright. I've got a lot of big things in mind and this team has always been an incredibly passionate and creative team but it blows my mind every day to see what we're capable of and to see the people that we have on staff today that weren't here five years ago. That excites me.
Beyond that, we're a compassionate company, which also goes hand in hand with being rooted in Tampa and rooted in the community. We’ve been really maturing, growing, expanding, opening our perspectives and broadening our horizon beyond just the client work and that's incredible. All those things keep me around and keep me excited and passionate.
And to put it simply, I just can't wait for what’s next for PPK. Every year I’m like, ‘Man, I can't wait for this year to be an even bigger and better year’, and that really keeps me going.
LBB> Tell me about ‘Truth Not Yet Told’. What is it? And why is it scary?
Garrett> For us, the ‘Truth Not Yet Told' is about finding whitespace where the brand can exist relative to its competition, but also relative to its audience, the consumer. That whitespace is a very important place to play in. The ‘truth not yet told’ is us getting our hands dirty and digging deep into the brand, its history, and its legacy to understand all the nuance at a deep enough level to find that whitespace and find out how the brand is used, how consumers think about it and talk about it, and how it integrates itself into their daily lives. If we can find these really beautiful nuggets that allow us to position the brand and communicate creatively in a way that's never been done before by the brand or its competitors, that's the silver bullet.
And why is it scary? It's oftentimes a risk for a client to take that leap, because it's an unknown territory. And a lot of the time clients like to take a safe path, agencies like to take a safe path, and humans like to take the safe path. Anytime you're pushing into uncharted waters or uncharted territory, it can be scary.
LBB> What's a really good recent example of some 'Truth Not Yet Told' that you conjured up for a client?
Garrett> The first one that comes to mind is a campaign called ‘Pool Dad’ for Pinch A Penny, which is a national chain of pool supply and service retailers. We tapped into a universal truth that ‘dad thinks he knows best in every circumstance in every situation’ - and it was kind of a riff on dad jokes. Pinch A Penny is the pool expert, but dad believed he knew better than the pool experts and it created some really funny, comedic relief. That’s the first one that pops into my mind, but again it's about finding that single little kernel of ‘truth’ based on the consumer and how they use the brand in their daily lives and communicating it in a compelling way.
LBB> How did you wind up in advertising? Was it a planned thing or more a happy accident?
Garrett> Let’s just start by saying I began college as a physics major! I bounced around quite a bit – I think I changed majors once a semester for my first five semesters. I went from physics, to general science to economics, to possibly one or two other stops before landing on general business. I got an inkling that advertising was what I wanted to do when I took a marketing class with a business professor who was an ex-agency guy that had also worked at Coca-Cola for a number of years. His class lit a spark, but it was too late for me to transition into an advertising major because it was in the journalism school. So I stuck with my business school track in a marketing major, but by my last semester and a half I was dead set: I'm going to attack a job in advertising.
LBB> For any more junior folk reading this, is there any advice or words of wisdom you'd like to offer? What would you tell your past self about what it takes to succeed in the industry?
Garrett> Anybody who knows me knows that my advice to junior folks is to go out and get a restaurant job. And I say that with a smile because that was my background so I'm a little biased but I really, really do believe that that type of work sets you up brilliantly for a successful career in advertising. It teaches you to multitask, think on your feet, navigate customer service, put out fires, and it gives you a really sound work ethic. I think there are so many perfect analogies between the two lines of work.
That and just be curious about advertising. Watch ads. We're inundated with them every day just living as people, humans and consumers. Study them more deeply than just letting them pass across your sightline. Why is a brand doing something? Why did you see an ad in a particular place versus another medium? Be curious about advertising and I think you'll be a great advertiser.
I would probably tell my past self to make a decision earlier in school so that I could have come up through the advertising track, because although I had the character and soft skills, I was clueless about advertising. I laugh (and cringe) when I think back - I remember sitting in meetings and feeling so stupid. There were times it felt like I didn’t speak French and I was sitting in a French cafe and the conversation was just happening around me. So, I would tell my younger self to figure your shit out earlier, jump into your advertising track and enter the ad world a bit more prepared.
LBB> Finally, are there any things you like to do to unwind after a long day at work?
Garrett> I love being outdoors. I coach way too much little league baseball and softball for my kids, but if I'm not at the little league field after work, I am probably enjoying a good bourbon. I like to fancy myself a bit of a collector.
