history & culture
In 1989, Gay Warren Gaddis cashed in a $16,000 IRA and opened her advertising agency with three accounts, two employees and one big dream.
The last 19 years have been quite a ride.
Today, T3 is one of the country's largest independent advertising agencies and the largest independent agency wholly owned by a woman. Our current capitalized billings are $313 million. We are ranked in top 100 lists by both Advertising Age and Adweek and have been steadily climbing in the INC. 5000.
Constant forward motion.
T3 was one of the first agencies to embrace two seismic shifts in the communications landscape.
In 1994, we "blew up the ad agency model" to focus on developing truly integrated marketing campaigns, instead of programs driven completely by advertising. At the same time, T3 moved away from the skewed incentives of media commissions to a fee-for-service model.
In 1995, we recognized the game-changing potential of the Internet and rapidly developed strategy, media, creative, production and analytic expertise to help clients take advantage of what was then a new media form. Our initial digital programs for Dell and JCPenney were considered groundbreaking and established T3 as both an innovator and leader in digital marketing.
Today, we are thrilled to be part of a revolution in communications and marketing, driven by the Internet, social media and "all-way" dialogs between companies, consumers, friends and influencers. You'll see that our think tank model is uniquely positioned to connect the dots.
Creative capital cities.
T3 is made up of 200+ independent thinkers with offices in three of country's most creative cities: Austin, New York and San Francisco.
In 1994, our Austin campus took root when T3 moved into the historic Pope House at 1806 Rio Grande, in a tree-lined neighborhood nestled between the University of Texas and the Texas Capitol. Since then, we have expanded into five adjacent properties—a mix of historic homes, bungalows, carriage houses, garages and at least one ex frat house. We are in the process of renovating a 1950s-era office building nearby that will provide a dynamic, collaborative environment with more staff under one roof.
In 2002, T3's New York office opened with four people in the midst of the dot-com bust. Today more than 40 people work on two floors of a historic building in the Flatiron District on Fifth Avenue. We just adore the penthouse views of the Empire State Building and points north.
Today, T3's reach extended to all three coasts with the opening of an office in San Francisco. Clients and staff have grown steadily since. T3's San Francisco offices are in a former Del Monte grain milling warehouse, built in 1907 after the earthquake. We're tucked along a quiet part of Montgomery Street, with Telegraph Hill towering above and the Embarcadero a short walk away.
Whether coincidence or architectural fate, all three of T3's primary buildings were constructed around 1907.
Babies, dogs, creativity and balance.
In 1995, when T3 was just gaining momentum and recognition it faced an unavoidable problem: some of its most talented people were starting their families. Faced with losing talented women to motherhood, T3 president and CEO Gay Gaddis offered a creative solution: bring your babies to work with you. Our T3 and Under program was born.
Starting with one infant more than 46 babies, 30 moms and 10 dads have gone through the program. While we are quick to joke that "it takes an agency to raise a child," we fully recognize the impact this decision has had on our people, their children and our culture. It puts everything we do in a greater context.
With T3 and Under, we learned that culture is very much about making people feel comfortable, surrounded by friends of both two- and four-legged varieties.
Dogs have come to work at T3 also since 1995. (We believe they have their own reporting structures and are surprisingly prompt with timesheets.) While we don't have hard metrics on what they do for our creativity or productivity, we do believe they play a part in adding balance to what can be a very unbalanced business.
Thinkers who do.
Our think tank approach and corporate culture has attracted talent from the world's top corporations and brands where they can be close to their clients and the work, as well as being immersed in the industry on a global scale.
T3 thinkers blog for Pink magazine and ourselves. We write columns for Advertising Age and Media. We contribute content or pithy quotes to iMedia, Adweek, Communication Arts, BtoB and DM News. We also speak at professional events, universities and international business summits.
Our work and culture generates its own buzz, including coverage from NBC's Today Show, ABC's Good Morning, America and Nightline, the BBC, The New York Times, Business Week, Fast Company, FORTUNE Small Business, Inc. and other leading media outlets.
