Work

Overview

We needed to find a buyer for a local restaurant, but it was a very different kind of transaction. The kind of transaction that would seem like a scam, maybe too good to be true, or perhaps the seller was just crazy. And in a sense, we built the site for just one person, the new buyer. 

The reality was that to reach the buyer, we needed a site that people would reach a lot farther. Since it was a local restaurant, we hoped a local newspaper would pick it up, and we hoped people would find the site and share it with their friends, hopefully one of those friends would be the new owner.

Strategy

To sell a bold (or crazy) idea, we needed to go big, push the envelope and stretch the imagination. We also needed to explain the transaction's rules and conditions in a clear visual way. We need strong visuals of pigs flying. Thus began the creation of the Cream City Dream website.

The site's content was built on one long, continuous page, something very uncommon in 2011. Navigation was accessible as a menu or by scrolling through with a mouse. We used CSS3 and HTML5 techniques, very new at the time, to create an eye catching and memorable page, and had backups for the old browsers that couldn't understand this technology ("polyfills"). We created a visual first, tech-first site that promoted an idea that was hard to believe, and the site really legitimized the idea and the process.

The site was also built and deployed in a matter of a couple days, unlike the usual three month timeframe we usually have. Thus the designers and programmers had to work together the entire time to make something everyone would love.

Outcomes

We hoped a local newspaper would pick it up. It did. But then the site, and the story, attracted the attention of a CBS Evening News producer in DC, who flew her team out to cover it as a piece of good news at the end of the broadcast. It was then picked up by Reuters, NPR, CBC, Los Angeles Times, London Daily Mail and the Chicago Tribune, and published in 15 different languages. 

One little idea, three days time, and we found the new owner and the restaurant is going strong today.