When he first arrived at then-relatively obscure Tombras in 2019, following stints at Barton F. Graf, J. Walter Thompson and Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Jeff Benjamin had a goal. 

“We’re gonna feel like we’re on our way when, to the rest of the world, it just feels like ideas are dropping down from outer space,” Benjamin, the shop’s global chief creative officer, recalled in a recent interview. 

On the heels of an otherworldly year, the agency is more than on its way: In its first appearance in the A-List top 10, Tombras has been named Ad Age Agency of the Year. 

Tombras has enjoyed a remarkable recent ascendance, but 2024 was the year Knoxville, Tennessee-based independent firmly established itself among the industry’s top guns. “Everything that we’ve really been working on for the last four or five years has finally come together,” said Dooley Tombras, the agency’s president. 

Also read: Timeline of Agency of the Year winners

The agency continued to beef up its ranks with high-profile talent and expanded outside the U.S. Tombras also posted the winningest year in its 78-year history, nabbing integrated assignments with bigger clients and bolstering revenue by 6% to $98.5 million. The shop’s creative output—specifically its range of work—was also stronger than ever. 

The agency brought Josh Cellars out of retirement on X (formerly Twitter) after almost five years, courting younger consumers with humor and helping the wine brand boost sales by 29% year over year while the overall wine category slumped 8%, according to the agency.

It demonstrated quick thinking by helping ​​SunChips release a limited-edition flavor mashup, SunChips Solar Eclipse Chips—available for purchase only during the 4 minutes and 27 seconds of the solar eclipse—an effort that Tombras said contributed to an immediate sales increase of 14%.

But Tombras’ versatility was perhaps best displayed with Bark Air.

In April, the shop helped canine-focused company Bark launch a real airline for dogs, designing the carrier’s logo, in-flight experience and advertising. Much more than a stunt, the launch was a smash hit: The launch led to sold-out flights in 2024, according to Tombras.

Another similarly ambitious effort came in the form of the “Impossibly Smart Billboard,” where Tombras used Google’s Gemini AI tool to turn PODS, the portable storage trucks, into real-time digital billboards capable of auto-generating ads based on location, weather, time and neighborhood. The shop produced a total of 6,000 different ads. 

Tombras’ executives credit the team it has worked so hard to build over the past five years for the versatility of the work. They said Chief Production Officer Chad Hopenwasser and Chief Technology Officer Juan Tubert (who were appointed to the new roles in 2021 and 2022, respectively) played massive roles in projects such as PODS. 

Reflecting on his career, Benjamin said he has come to understand the importance of a diverse and unconventional team. 

“I had a co-worker once who chided me about the team we were putting together. He was like, ‘Jeff, you’re assembling the bar from ‘Star Wars’—what are you doing?!’ And at first, I thought, ‘I guess we are kind of random and weird and don’t belong,’” he said. “But here’s the thing: Every time I’ve been part of something truly special—where we’re creating work that feels magical, work no one’s ever seen before, work that the whole world (not just ad people) can’t stop talking about—I look around and think, ‘Hey y’all, we’re in the bar from ‘Star Wars.’”

Winning and taking on bigger fish

In what it described as its most prolific new business year ever, Tombras racked up a laundry list of new clients.

Perhaps most importantly, the shop won a slice of Kellanova’s creative business in a hotly contested pitch and a comprehensive agency-of-record assignment with Spirit Airlines. Spirit and Kellanova are now two of the agency’s top three clients by revenue. Other notable wins included media AOR duties for Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits and lead creative responsibilities for cough drop maker Ricola. 

As Tombras’ stature has grown, it has become more selective about opportunities. “Partnering with clients where we can have an outsized impact on their business is really important to us,” said Chief Growth Officer Maggie Jennings. Spirit, for example, has been working to shed negative consumer criticism. 

The agency’s breadth of services is also drawing attention from marketers, especially those with lean teams including Spirit, for which Tombras handles creative, media, PR, social and CRM. 

Access to such vast capabilities “was huge for us,” said Rana Ghosh, chief transformation officer at Spirit, which recently emerged from bankruptcy as a private company. “We needed support on multiple fronts.” The agency’s independence was also a draw, he added. “We tend to be more of a challenger brand, and I think we like working with agencies that feel like they’re fighting for their spot on the stage.”

That challenger mentality was on full display in Tombras’ first brand campaign for Spirit, which suggests the airline’s new premium offerings make it “More fly” than its competitors.

Tombras’ goal is to compete with holding companies for bigger, integrated accounts—a challenge the shop welcomes given it has always been full-service. “I think the original sin for the industry was splitting up creative and media,” said Dooley Tombras. “We’ve built the agency for full service, and we feel like the industry has almost kind of caught back up with us.”

“Dooley’s putting the holding companies on notice,” added Benjamin with a smile. 

Growing with the right people

Tombras continued snapping up high-profile executives in 2024, including former Supernatural co-founder Paul Caiozzo, who joined as chief creative officer based in Knoxville. Benjamin, who had held that role, was appointed as the agency’s first global chief creative officer.

The shop made other moves to strengthen its leadership. Avinash Baliga was named chief creative officer in New York, while Milla Stolte was elevated to head of strategy in Knoxville. And Kelsey Karson, head of strategy at Special U.S., joined Tombras New York in that same role. 

The agency has brought in some big names in recent years—Benjamin and Jennings came from Barton F. Graf and Wieden+Kennedy, respectively. To some degree, talent attracts more talent, but industry veterans are also finding an energizing proposition in Tombras. 

“Most of the people who’ve come here, they’ve come here with the thought that their best work, and this place’s best work, is still in front of it,” Benjamin said. “They’re excited about the idea that they’re not going to a place where it’s like, ‘Ah, great that you’re here, but you should have been here 10 years ago.’”

Tombras also added more than 50 new employees when it expanded beyond the U.S. for the first time with the purchase of Buenos Aires-based creative shop Niña. Dooley Tombras previously told Ad Age he expects to have 100 staffers in Argentina in the next two years. 

The agency is eyeing more acquisitions, but it will continue to exercise a healthy dose of caution. “What we really look for is the good chemistry fit,” said Alice Mathews, CEO of Tombras. “We’re independent, we’re entrepreneurial and we do things differently than a lot of shops. That’s a learning curve” for some other agencies, she said.

Staying true to its core

Tombras’ New York office is growing steadily, with staff up from 10 people to 35 in a year. The agency’s principals readily acknowledge the importance of the Big Apple, but the shop’s heart and soul will forever be in Knoxville, according to Dooley Tombras, pointing to Caiozzo’s appointment as a continued investment in the city. 

“There are a lot of great agencies in New York. There are fewer great agencies in Tennessee,” Tombras said. “That’s a differentiator.”

Indeed, marketers are taking an interest in the middle of the country. Henrik Werdelin, the co-founder of Bark, said that when thinking about how to best communicate with its wide audience, it was “quite attractive” to have a shop not anchored in New York. “We were honestly a little bit intrigued about the idea of using an agency in Knoxville,” he added. 

Unsurprisingly, Tombras’ recent rise has attracted potential suitors. But while several of its counterparts have recently turned to cash infusions, the agency is committed to protecting its independence at all costs. “Every entity that you could ever imagine—from holding companies to private equity to consultancies—has reached out to us, and I don’t even answer,” said Tombras. “I hit delete.”

Tombras is aware of how far the agency—started by his grandfather in 1946—has already come, and he’s cautious about growing the shop too quickly. But he makes no bones about chasing greatness. 

“We are very, very hungry,” he said. “We want to get even bigger clients and do even more high-profile work ... Our ambition really is to be the best independent agency in the world.”