Advertising was one of my beats when I worked at the Tampa Bay Business Journal in the mid-1990s, and it was something that I really enjoyed. Advertising people are creative and interesting, and the work they do is often clever and attention-getting — at least, it’s SUPPOSED to be. Bill Lipphardt was a successful young guy on the Tampa ad scene and I wrote about him several times. Tragically, he died in 2000 at age 47 when his Porsche crashed during the holiday season.

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Ad firm expanding as billings take off

Arthur Frederick
Staff Writer

When St. Petersburg-based Sun Jet dumped its New York ad agency and went shopping for a local replacement, it eyed the top of the list — WestWayne, the Bay Area’s biggest agency, and FKQ Advertising, another big gun.

That’s why more than a few eyebrows were raised last month when the three-year-old airline passed up those two agencies in favor of Lipphardt Advertising, a smaller shop whose 1995 gross billings were only around $9 million — a figure exceeded by about a dozen other local agencies.

There may be more eyebrow-raising in the coming months: Lipphardt expects to more than triple those 1995 billings next year and said they may go even higher than that.

Admittedly, a significant chunk of that increase will come from Sun Jet, the agency’s newest client, which will probably add around $10 million to Lipphardt’s top line. But other new business, plus additional revenue from existing clients, will also weigh in, and Lipphardt is busy gearing up.

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