CW @ Advertising Week: We made the long-distance call.
Matt Low
Chief Creative Officer
Unless you’ve been living under a 250-lb telephone booth these past six months (or 200 lbs without the phone) you’re well aware that we’ve been celebrating our 40th anniversary by going all the way back to our roots and schlepping a phone booth around WNY. As our founders didn’t have an office when they started Crowley Webb, they had to take client calls from a phone booth on Chippewa St. in downtown Buffalo (“Lovely weather in Buffalo today! We have the windows open!” Joe and John would say). In honor of this, we found a phone booth for sale; loaded it with 40 questions about communication, connection, the past, and future; and took it to visit Buffalo Arts Studio, Sahlen Field, the Buffalo Museum of Science, and other locations. And we’ve posted what we’ve heard here.
Well, back in June, we pitched the idea to have the booth also visit Advertising Week in NYC this October, and they were all about it. Well, first they said no. Then they were all about it. So a small group of us loaded up a truck and headed east for Manhattan. (This sounds far more whimsical than the trip and the logistics leading up to the trip actually were, but more on that at another time. Maybe. I’m still recovering.)
Now, I haven’t been to Advertising Week for quite some time now, so I wasn’t actually sure what to expect. I mean, I knew there’d be brands, agency folk, influencers, and media partners galore. And plenty of sessions to fill out four floors of the former Gimbels. And I thought (hoped) people would be interested in a giant piece of interactive nostalgia that allowed you to step inside and instantly become a part of history. I mean, we were in New York, for Superman’s sake, where these things were ubiquitous up through the mid-90s. But as the 9am hour came and went, it wasn’t just the stale air of the former department store that was causing me to sweat. No one seemed interested as they rushed by us to make their next session or meet a new contact.
Until they were.
It only took until about 9:10 (yes, I am well aware of how impatient I am) for someone to ask what this phone booth was all about. Then they went inside. Then another person, then another – until there was a literal line waiting to check it out. It seemed like a cold swimming pool; all one needed was someone else to dive in first.
And so went the days at Advertising Week. Folks would come by wide-eyed and smiley, and eager to step inside and give it a try. Sure, our messaging and questions shifted a bit from where we originally started with the booth to fit Advertising Week’s theme of “Give AI a Break” encouraging people to be present in person. But the underlying theme of human connection came through the receiver loud and clear. And not just in the content we gathered. People coming by the booth weren’t just hungry for nostalgia or anything not force-fed to them by the almighty algorithm. They wanted to connect with us. They wanted to chat. About the booth, about our agency, about our trip to New York, about pizza, about Josh Allen, about our sweet swag, about whatever. We heard their travel stories. We heard about their jobs. We heard over and over again, “THIS IS THE BEST THING HERE.” And when you’re competing with talks by John Legend, Southwest Airlines, and Disney, that’s quite humbling. And awesome.
This was the connection that rang loud and clear at Advertising Week and what definitely made the trip worth it.
