Crowley Webb Blog

If I wasn’t on a diet I’d totally buy a Kit Kat right now.

by Liz Maimone

From their famous jingle (go ahead, no one’s listening – gimmie a break, gimmie a break, break me off a piece that Kit Kat bar!) to their sponsorship of park benches, Kit Kat has been encouraging people to take a break for as long as I can remember. Now, with this little piece of genius in the form of a website, they’re offering visitors a break from the craziness that is the world wide web.

How do you stay on top of web trends? You spend your life on the Internet.

by Zack Schneider

I have been hesitant to look at my Google Reader Stats, and for good reason. At first glance all that went though my mind was, "I could be on ‘Beauty and the Geek’.” I have been reading about 10,000 articles a month, for about 2 years now. I will also admit that this is only the tip of the iceberg. To be the best in the digital world you need to understand everything happening in it. What do I call my digital world? The content ranges from communities like YouTube and Digg, to usability, programming, design, functionality, and real world needs.

Out of the mouths of babes.

My 14-year-old and I were discussing MySpace the other night. “Mom, no one goes on MySpace anymore,” she told me. “It’s so boring.” Sure, she still logs in occasionally to “see who’s on.” But the thrill is gone.

Fast-forward a couple days to a presentation given by Zack Schneider, our digital director, on the American Association of Advertising Agencies Digital Conference he attended in New York recently. Sure enough, Zack reported that MySpace is now considered “old school” by Generations X and Y. Facebook has emerged in its stead as the digital deity of the proverbial online hill.

When I got back to my desk I decided to dip another toe into the digital ocean that my generation – the Baby Boomers – admits we still find vast and incomprehensible at times. I went to Facebook, signed up for an account, and within 5 minutes had sent out 8 requests for friends I’d found there.

It was as easy as dialing a rotary landline phone.

Our digital team creates a winning website.

ADPRO Sports is one of the largest distributors of team and league sports apparel in the country, selling to high schools, little leagues, and colleges. They’re also one of only six companies in the U.S. who has a contract with Nike to be an exclusive distributor of Nike Team footwear, apparel, and equipment at prices 40% below retail. ADPRO came to us and said their salespeople needed a website they could refer customers to that would showcase the Nike product line. The site we created has the components you’d expect from a Nike portal – a fast-moving animated sports montage; a sleek look with a dark, dramatic design; and short, direct, sports-themed copy. Check it out.

You may now stop holding your breath.

by matt low

The long-awaited eighth and ninth videos in the JCPenney Men’s Store Fantasy Football Mannequin Standing In For Males Online Disaster Series have arrived! One features our friend playing football with a child and the other him getting murdered by a wood chipper (cue the laugh track).

Now all that’s left is the tenth and final installment. What scenario will we find our mannequin friend in this time? Jury duty? Trying on formalwear at JCPenney? Participating in a fantasy hockey draft? Only one thing is certain – this conclusion will surely tie up nicely any loose ends of a campaign undoubtedly conceived and produced by its own main character. Or his relatives.

Experience all the magic right here.

JCPenney promotes fantasy football for some reason.

by matt low

While perusing a sports website the other day, my eyes fell upon a banner ad that I just couldn’t ignore. It featured a classically creepy-looking mannequin seated at a dinner table with a human female. The headline read, “Free up your schedule with a stand-in.” The advertiser was the JCPenney Men’s Store. I was immediately skeptical of the video I was prompted to watch by a “Watch the video” command in the corner of the banner ad due to the fact that the only link between the merchant and this obviously fake service they were endorsing is that they have mannequins in their physical stores. However, the look on the mannequin’s face got the better of me and I obeyed the banner ad’s direction.

At the campaign site, I was treated to a video of a woman in a restaurant having her wine glass filled. But the filling doesn’t stop. The wine goes all over the table, creating a terrible mess. It is revealed that the pourer was the mannequin featured in the banner ad – no surprises there. Then came the payoff. “It’s fantasy football. Real life can wait.”

Okay, fine, I get it.

This woman’s husband is so into fantasy football, he has secretly replaced himself at a dinner date with his wife in mid-wine pour (mannequin can’t pick up wine bottles) with a mannequin. But what does JCPenney have to do with fantasy football? Luckily, this was just one video in a series, so maybe collectively they made sense.

Wrong.

Each video (there are actually seven of these things, with more on the way) opens with a headline. One is actually directly related to fantasy football, though there was still no clue as to how JCPenney is. Others, such as, “Walking the dog a drag? Get a stand-in.” and “Sometimes parenting stinks. Get a stand-in.” manage to confuse the issue even further. So, wait, am I getting a stand-in because I don’t like doing certain chores around the house, like walking the dog or changing a diaper, or am I getting a stand-in because I need more time to dedicate to fantasy football? And what does JCPenney have to do with fantasy football again?

My head hurts.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the single most bizarre ad in this campaign. It features a headline at the open that reads, “The honeymoon is so over. Get a stand-in.” We then see our friend in bed reading a book about marriage (upside down!) next to an aggravated human female.

What?

To put it mildly, this effort is a mess from top to bottom. The only redeeming quality is the sometimes amusing sight of a mannequin performing daily tasks (in one episode, he gets burned by a backyard grill – funny!). That is, if the campaign can be redeemed at all. And as I’m still unsure as to the point of the whole thing, does it even deserve redemption?

Find out for yourself at http://www.jcpbrands.com/fantasyfootball/index.html?vid=7&cm_mmc=Event-_-MensContinuity-_-ESPN_HP_1015-_-728x90. (That kind of says it all.)

crowleywebb.com 3.0

We’ve always been known for our provocative work. Recently, we sat down and put our minds together to develop a new brand position that would capture, in as few words as possible, the essence of what we do everyday. The result: never boring.

We then decided we needed to build a new Crowley Webb website that would show exactly what we meant. We looked at lots of industry websites, determined what the rules were, and then made sure we broke them. At our brainstorming sessions, every time one of us came up with a new idea they would look around the table and ask the critical question: “Is this boring?”

We invite you to see what we came up with by visiting www.crowleywebb.com. We believe our new site showcases our agency and our work in ways that are anything but boring. So dig around. You never know what you might find.