Agency News

Top Hat Opening Second Office in St. Petersburg, FL

May 18, 2020 — We're opening our second office in St. Petersburg, FL in June 2020. Top Hat Founder Ben Butler talks about the decision.

I started Top Hat while still in college, skipping classes to meet clients at our very first office in Wexford, PA. Professors said it probably wasn’t the best career move.

As we celebrate our seventh anniversary this month, Top Hat is living up to our long-tenured tagline, “this agency goes to 11” in a new way, raising the team size to 11 through the opening of our second physical office in St. Pete.

It’s been a thrilling and incredibly fulfilling adventure so far. As I look back on what we’ve accomplished — from growing a great team, to “Will Work for Beer,” to rebranding Iron City Beer, to scoring (3) career-capping Silver Anvil Awards, and much more across so many unique types of business — I’m excited to think what awaits us in this new chapter.

Why We Picked St. Pete

We created three new job positions (all filled, by the way. Sorry guys!). Two were for design-specific roles.

The weirdest thing happened … two candidates we wanted to hire were both from St. Pete. We investigated further and they had experience and chemistry working together.

St. Pete is a vibrant town full of businesses and people we want to work with and work well with, so it didn’t take long before we started connecting the dots.

Our Plans

The St. Pete office is a meaningful step into the South and its quickly growing markets.

To demonstrate our commitment to that we’re opening a physical location by June 1, which will be staffed as long as regional health conditions support sustained in-person work. Virtual work is always possible, and productive, but the spirit of our home office is in-person collaboration, which we’ll look to recreate with our St. Pete team.

Although we want this office to grow in size, and operate in its own right, we won’t be drawing any hard dividing lines.

Our entire team, and our entire list of creative capabilities, will be considered and integrated into every project we take on. As both teams continue to grow, that list of capabilities will only grow stronger.

Stay Tuned

We’ll have plenty of updates to share including interviews with our two St. Pete pioneers, our office address, and much more.

Questions?

For any media inquiries, questions, or business development head on over to our contact page and send us a note.

The Ole PR Boilerplate

Top Hat is an award-winning design and marketing communications agency with offices in Pittsburgh and St. Petersburg, FL.

Since catapulting itself into the beer industry three years ago with the Silver-Anvil winning “Will Work for Beer” campaign, the firm has designed over 150 unique beers across 300 SKUs for 5 regional breweries and has received 22 international awards specific to that work. 

Other achievements include back-to-back beers included in Ceros’ “30 Best-Looking Beer Cans in America,” another beer in Hop Culture’s “20 Best Beer Label Designs of 2019,” and yet another beer in Thirsty Bastard’s “175 Best Beer Labels of 2019.”

About Top Hat’s Founder

Top Hat founder Ben Butler, APR has been inducted into the PRSSA National Hall of Fame, and has been named: Pittsburgh Business Times 30 Under 30, North Allegheny Under 40 Distinguished Alumni, PRSA PR Entrepreneur of the Year, an Incline Under 40 Communicator, and one of Spin Sucks 10 PR Professionals to Follow.

He’s also Accredited in Public Relations (APR), a distinction held by less than 20-percent of all communicators globally, and a Certified Cicerone®, the beer industry’s equivalent of a Sommelier.

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