Your relaxed reflection on 2024.

Funny how what’s supposed to be the most joyous time of the year is almost always typically ferociously and unanimously packed with as much anxiety as it is smiles and snow. Maybe more so. And that’s kind of sad.

Think about it. The fancy parties. The colder weather. The crackling fireplaces. The sparkling décor. The reminiscing on the work put in the past 12 months. It all devolves into Who’ll be at this party? How should I dress? The snow is coming for sure. Did I put the fire out?? EF! I have to decorate! Did we do enough good work this year?

Can’t help but feeling like good ol’ Charlie Brown when we’re getting caught up in our mental snares. But then we remember Charlie Brown skating on the frozen pond and take that much needed sigh.

So take a breath and take in the stress-free view of Crowley Webb’s 2024. It’s sure to make you happily mellow. And not at all uneasy, troubled, or scared.

We played with the Bills (and Ravens!).

To say we enjoy the football season at Crowley Webb is a filthy understatement. So watch your filthy mouth. But what makes it even more table-smashingly amazing around here is the fact that we get to work with the Bills – and make new friends along the way – on behalf of our clients. This puts us right in the center of the action week after week. Sure, we may not be under center with a nose tackle breathing hot breath on our noses, but we’re there.

We activated two new Bills player partnerships on behalf of M&T Bank.

We drafted Dion Dawkins to help bring WNY some shout-worthy savings courtesy of AAA Western and Central New York.

We’re celebrating more than 50 years of memories at Highmark Stadium with a trailer that’s making history of its own.

And let’s not forget a new partnership that took flight in Baltimore this summer.

Now, let’s all cross our fingers and toes and arms and legs that this magic continues through February 9.

We helped fight cancer on ice (again).

Our partnership with the 11 Day Power Play has been well documented over the years. From its humble beginnings on the back of a napkin, through the pandemic (which still saw shift after shift charitable play), right up through this summer that had the organization just shy of $11 million total raised to fight cancer, we’ve been there. And it’s been an honor. Here’s a look back at the work we did this year that had our director of photography filming while snowboarding for the first time. Anything for this great cause.

We continued our DEI journey.

Back in 2018, Molly Chvala and Andrea Berki-Nnuji decided we should put our collective want to have a greater focus on diversity at our agency into action and founded our DEI Council. Sure, we’ve always supported DEI efforts in WNY, but we wanted more actionable goals and accountability throughout our agency. Basically, we wanted to walk the walk as much as we were talking the talk. And 2024 may have seen us taking some of the greatest strides.

In addition to continuing our summer internship program, Route 86, that focuses on diverse marketing and advertising students, we welcomed our first-ever apprentice as part of the Say Yes Buffalo program. Will Lloyd joined us this past August and will be with us through 2026. He’ll work with our video team, getting involved in all aspects of our work from pre-production right through post. We’re thrilled to have Will as a part of our team!

We continued our Chroma work which has us donating 100 hours quarterly to minority-owned small businesses looking for marketing and communications support. We pulled together a content strategy for the dazzlingly dynamic Eat Off Art. And we created a new identity for Moneybags Dumplings.

We were also extremely fortunate to take part in two incredibly moving trips to the Equal Justice Initiative’s (EJI) Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama. Founded in 1989 by public interest lawyer and bestselling Bryan Stevenson, EJI is a nonprofit that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally author convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in jails and prisons. In 2018, the organization opened the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. And then in 2024, EJI unveiled Freedom Monument Sculpture Park.

Nearly 100 Buffalo leaders made the trek to these sites in March and September to become immersed in our country’s history of slavery and racial injustice. And we now meet regularly to discuss putting what we continue to uncover into action. More to come for sure.

We showed up for our community.

Giving back by helping out important community groups has always been in the CW DNA. And with the formalization of our efforts through Crowley Webb GivesBack, we’ve been able to be more impactful. This year saw us collecting donations for organizations including Camp Good Days, Isaiah 117 House, The Teacher’s Desk, Starlight Studio, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and many more. We also donated full Thanksgiving meals to 11 Buffalo Prep families. And we are rounding out the year by adopting a family through Say Yes AND about to celebrate our own third annual CW Day of Caring, supporting 10 organizations across WNY on December 13. We are all so fortunate and have so much to give, so all of this is truly a no-brainer. But definitely a hefty hearter.

ISO 27001 means something around here.

This was a HUGE year for data security around CW. Our team worked their tails off and we were prouder than pigs in a data pool to officially achieve ISO 27001:2022 certification this past fall. I mean, you may be asking what this is all about. (But this is the last time, as there will be a quiz next year.)  Well it’s only the gold standard for information security management, NBD. So this certification framework confirms our unwavering commitment to protecting our clients’ data and covers all aspects of information security, from the physical to data encryption. Okay, it is a BD. The biggest D in the data world to be certain. So heading into 2025, we’re all breathing a collective sigh of relief that our information is under the tightest forms of lock and key. Now did we turn the iron off?

Our CEO was on more lists than the movie Wicked.

Tricia Barrett made a few very prestigious lists in 2024. And she didn’t even have to sing. She was bestowed a C-Level Executives Award by Buffalo Business First and was recognized on a night that saw Mary Wilson (life trustee of the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation) and Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker (former CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo) inducted into The Western New York Business Hall of Fame.

Tricia made the Buffalo Business First Power 200 Women list again in 2024, coming in at number 67, a near 100 spots higher than where she ranked in 2023.

And last but certainly not least, Tricia was recognized yet again by Buffalo Business First on their 2024 Power 250 list. For the past 12 years now, the publication has compiled a list of the most powerful people in Buffalo and Western New York, taking into consideration parameters of a job, community involvement, and overall impact.

I’m certain if you asked Tricia, she’d say that the greatest honor of 2024 has been leading our company, but we all know these acknowledgements are super as well. Here’s to all our CEO has coming to her in 2025.

Debbie Pollina is hanging up her calculator.

After nearly three decades, like 700 timesheet reminder emails, more than 5,000 expense report approvals, and around 30,000 invoices, Debbie Pollina is calling it a CW career. Debbie came to us in 1996 before many of our employees were even born. She worked diligently in our small but mighty accounting department ever since, ensuring cash flow and that our payroll was always on time and correct. Making sure we all got paid on time is not at all the reason everyone loves Debbie around here. It’s her good nature (even when asking for timesheets for the 10th time), her warm smile, her motherly (now grandmotherly) demeanor. She’s just one of a kind. So you can understand that while we’re only losing one, it feels far greater. Cheers to you, Deb.

Our PR queen made headlines.

Andrea Gallagher, our VP of public relations, was named the 2024 May C. Randazzo Outstanding Practitioner Award on behalf of the PRSA Buffalo Niagara chapter. Each year, the award is given to a Western New York public relations professional who, like May, has achieved exceptional professional success, displays the highest ethics, and is dedicated to serving the PR community and profession. Andrea checks each and every one of those boxes and then some. But don’t just take my word for it.

We welcomed new clients to the Crowley Webb family.

Forging relationships with new clients is always exciting. And in 2024, there was no shortage of thrilling news to share. We rang in the new year with news that we were awarded Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation’s promotional campaign for the Erie Canal Bicentennial. We began working with BestSelf, WNY’s leader in mental health awareness and treatment, with a branding assignment that kicked off with a new logo for the Child Advocacy Center. We launched a new website for United Way of Buffalo & Erie County. We’re currently constructing a new brand position and website for King + King Architects. We helped Northland Workforce Training Center announce their strategic plan. We’ve been strengthening our bones thanks to our new partnership with Upstate Niagara Cooperative, which had us sharing how much we love Bison dip with a little video (below). And, most recently, we got in touch with our inner children courtesy of The Strong National Museum of Play.

We had major milestones.

One of Crowley Webb’s eight philosophy points that have been in place since our founding in 1986 is “Fire lasts longer than fireworks.” This speaks to the longevity we seek not only with our clients, but with our hardworking people as well. And so in 2024, we were proud to celebrate some major milestones of some majorly wonderful people.

Celebrating five years!

Alex Behrens

Elizabeth Torre

Brittney Dullin

Andrea Gallagher

Maida Tutundzic

Nina Taylor

AJ Wade

Hey, hey for ten years!

Kim Taddeo

Mary Kate Sidoti

Colleen Hatcher

And a whopping 15 years!

Jon Gerlach

Cheers everyone!

We had a total eclipse in Buffalo.

Almost forgot as it seems like a century ago since there was a total eclipse in Buffalo (or at least 99 years – the last time we saw one in our neck of the woods). Back in April, we celebrated in the most educational, non-weird way. Not weird at all.

We had ourselves a year.

How nice was that?! It was rather cathartic rewinding the past 330+ days with you. We had some laughs. Shed a tear or two (I did). And hopefully it made you feel as good as it did me. Because as I look back on all this agency pieced together in 2024, it makes me rather proud. The people around me at this agency are not only super talented and driven, they’re also delightful to be around. And if that isn’t helpful when you’re feeling stressed, I don’t know what is.

So on to the next thing. The Bills. Watching that team isn’t one bit stressful, what with that kicker and all. See you next year.