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Our guiding beliefs

Courage in the face of convention.

Status quo is easy and comfortable. But brands can become stuck doing the same things over and over again, expecting greater results. We’re experts at breaking this cycle of behavior, challenging conventional thinking and showing our clients a better way.

Changing the status quo for our industry.

The status quo for the advertising industry has not been as inclusive or equitable as it should be. Firehouse's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion team was formed in 2020 to shape agency policies, review creative work to ensure culturally insensitive work is never published, and report on the agency’s progress. You can read our annual report and our Racial Equity Policy Statement here.

To Get More Specific...

Strategy first. We insist.

"Ready. Fire. Aim." is no recipe for success. By taking a minute to plan and get smart early, we can get to better, more relevant ideas quickly and avoid the missteps and do-overs which waste time and money.

Our time is not for sale.

If you're paying an agency based on time and not deliverables, you've incentivized them to take longer and charge you more. Our clients pay us to be successful on their behalf, not just busy.

If it doesn't exist, we'll build it.

Making new stuff is what being creative is all about. If we waited for someone else to figure it out, it wouldn't be new or creative. We'd rather channel our entrepreneurial spirit, roll up our sleeves and make it happen.

We're rule breakers.

Anyone with kids will tell you the naughty ones get all the attention. Same is true for brands who break the rules or conventions of their category. We've simply mastered knowing which rules to break and which to follow.

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In case you were wondering

All the stuff we do.

  • Advertising
  • Brand Strategy
  • Consumer Research
  • Brand Architecture
  • SEO/SEM
  • Content Creation
  • Media Planning & Buying
  • Brand Identity
  • Social Media

Our Client Experience

Who we’ve done it for.

  • Lennox Website 2
  • Hooters Logo Bubble Letters Orange
  • Toyota Website 2
  • Bimbo Website 2
  • Mary Kay Website 2
  • Dallas Zoo Website 2
  • Trupanion Website 2
  • Coinstar Website 2
  • Alto Website 2
  • Baxter Website 2
  • Interstate Batteries Website 2
  • Dairy Queen Website 2
  • Service King Website 2
  • Cinionic V2 Website 2
  • Haggar Website 2
  • Taco Cabana Website 2
  • Happy State Bank Website 2
  • Wholly Guac Website 2
  • Nothing Bundt Cakes Website 2
  • Oberto Website 2
  • Wgutexas Website 2
  • Nokia Website 2
  • Dallas Mavericks Website 2
  • Texas Weslyan Website 2

Download our full category experience.

Our People

Why “Firehouse?”

Though none of us here have ever been firefighters, we find ourselves in an industry in desperate need of their values. You’ll find working with us to be transparent, open and refreshingly honest. We believe unconventional thinking leads to transformative ideas and that relationships, character and trust will always trump buzzwords, politics and bravado. We are bound by a work ethic that demands our best in all things and unified by the shared belief that doing the right thing will always be the best thing.

our leadership

Steve Smith

CEO

Steve is advertising’s version of a Swiss Army knife. He went through the creative sequence at UT Austin and initially tried his hand at copywriting. He then had careers of over a decade each as both an account guy and a strategic planner. Since joining Firehouse in 2006, Steve has built and shepherded the growth of Firehouse's media and strategy disciplines to be one of the most awarded in Dallas. In fact, his idea to combine our planning, media, PR and social media disciplines into a single strategic team was not only ahead of its time, it helped Firehouse earn AdAge’s Southwest Small Agency of the Year in 2010. Today he draws on all of these diverse skillsets to effectively run Firehouse as Chief Executive Officer. Steve also serves as the agency's unofficial bartender and resident foodie.

Tripp Westbrook

President/CCO

Prior to becoming Firehouse’s Executive Creative Director in 2007, Tripp’s award-winning career included stops at The Martin Agency, Riney & Partners, Fallon NYC and GSD&M, working on celebrated brands such as Mercedes-Benz, Wrangler Jeans, United Airlines, Time Magazine and Land Rover, to name a few. Over the years, Tripp has collected Cannes Lions, D&AD Pencils, EFFIE Awards and produced one of USA Today’s Top 100 Super Bowl Commercials of all time. Under his creative leadership, Firehouse has been recognized by The One Show, The Webbie Awards, Communication Arts, The OBIES and was named AdAge’s Southwest Small Agency of the Year in 2010. Tripp also spends some of his spare time restoring old Land Rovers, and then paying someone else to do it correctly.

Erica Baker

Partner | Group Account Director

When we say that Erica is a driven, motivated and organized person, we’re not just blowing smoke. She’s the kind of person who makes normally driven and organized people feel like sofa-surfing slackers. From running multi-unit brands like Texas Dairy Queen, Nothing Bundt Cakes and Baxter Auto to translating brand strategies across national, local and promotional levels, she does it all with the style, grace, flexibility and work ethic you’d expect from a former professional ballet dancer. In fact, she may be the only person at Firehouse who can, quite literally, bend over backwards for our clients.

Megan Ward

Partner | Director of Operations

Megan has 15 years experience and a wealth of knowledge and expertise in production for print, OOH, digital and broadcast. Megan also led the charge in developing and implementing a new agency process for Firehouse that allows for efficiencies to better manage client projects. But on top of being the most organized person in the agency, Megan is also the keeper of the Firehouse culture, helping to meticulously plan every major event we’ve had since the day she arrived. 

Emily Black

Principal | Group Account Director

When you can draw upon 20+ years of advertising and marketing experience like Emily can, there’s virtually no challenge she hasn’t faced. Whether it’s her extensive CPG, retail or B2B experience on both the agency and brand side, or her passion for understanding consumer attitudes and behaviors, Emily’s ability to navigate her clients to great success is a hallmark of her impressive career. Less impressive, however, is her musical ability. This is plainly evidenced by her acoustically talented husband and two children relegating her to tambourine duty during family jam sessions.

Marla Kyriakos

Controller

Since beginning her career in the audit department of a Big 4 public accounting firm, Marla has gone on to become a CPA and held a number of positions as both financial controller and consultant. And while she insists that “being boring is an amazing trait” for her position, it’s hard to reconcile that with her participating multiple times as a cyclist in the “Hotter ‘N Hell Hundred” bike race. Every summer. In Texas. Somehow also being a “cat and crossword puzzle lover” doesn’t seem to balance that one out.

Tara Hays

Account Director

Tara believes every project can be improved with a well-formatted spreadsheet and color-coding system—that love of organization probably has something to do with being an Air Force brat. Given her impressive amount of agency- and client-side experience, she brings a much-welcomed balanced perspective to whatever you put in front of her. Brands like Nike, Lennox, The United Methodist Church and AmeriSourceBergen have benefited greatly from a steady dose of Tara. Outside of the ad world, Tara is prone to fits of adventurous travel (again, Air Force brat) and selflessly donating her time to cancer patients in need of a supportive sounding board.

A Little Something To Chew On

Our work.

At the end of the day, we want to do work we believe in for brands we believe in. When that happens, success tends to follow.

Additional work

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in the world is advertising

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Client Testimonials

“Firehouse developed a strategy that breaks from so much of the usual crap in our category. The work they’ve done gets away from being purely functional and speaks to our customers on an emotional level. Not easy in the HVAC world.”

Kim McGill, Vice President of Marketing, Lennox Residential

“This is a team I can count on for anything. Their ability to juggle 23 car dealerships across multiple OEMs is a testament to their organization, integration, communication and process."

Julia Doria, Chief Marketing Officer, Baxter Auto Group

“From day one I was blown away with the quality of the thinking, the staff, the ideas… Firehouse really helped push us to a great place.”

Tyler Reeves, EVP & Chief Commercial Officer, Interstate Batteries

“Their collaborative spirit is something we were looking for. We wanted a team that felt like they were a part of Service King.”

Gregg Murry, Vice President of Advertising, Service King Collision Repair

“We’ve come to them for everything from websites, to redesigning product line, to consumer research studies…and they deliver. Time and time again.”

Donnie Robertson, Chief Marketing Officer, Nothing Bundt Cakes

“The ideas that Firehouse consistently presents to us make me excited to go to work every day.”

Nichole Davis, Director, Haggar Clothing Co.

“Firehouse was fantastic at identifying an emotional insight that became the foundation for a major strategic overhaul for our brand.”

Gregory Yahn, Vice President of Marketing, Oberto Specialty Meats

“The first campaign they did for us, I can still remember, it gave me goosebumps. Go on Instagram and search #theworkisworthit. We were blown away.”

Jenni Parrish, Executive Director of Marketing & Communications, National Cheerleaders Association