Crowley Webb celebrated its anniversary with a sleep-over — sort of.

The Buffalo company marked 25 years in the advertising business by giving away 25 continuous hours of its creative expertise to a local start-up.

You and Who, a one-year-old online business, got the marketing makeover after winning Crowley Webb’s Twenty-Five-Hour Workday Contest.

“This is huge for us,” said Dan Gigante, president of You and Who, which sells custom T-shirts and donates shirts and meals to charities for every sale that is made. “It’s like a rebirth of the company.”

From 9 a. m. Thursday to 10 a. m. today, Crowley Webb’s employees voluntarily holed up at its Main Street office, brainstorming and creating a multifaceted campaign to improve the brand of the start-up.

“In the end, the goal is to help You and Who sell more T-shirts and help more people in need,” said David Buck, president of Crowley Webb.

While Crowley Webb has made a name for itself as a full-service advertising agency, it was a start-up itself 25 years ago and is familiar with

the financial struggles that businesses face in their infancy, said Jeff Pappalardo, the company’s senior vice president and creative director.

For its 25th anniversary last summer, Crowley Webb organized the Twenty-Five-Hour Workday Contest, to donate its services to a local start-up, 25 months old or younger. More than 40 companies entered, and the agency narrowed the entries to three finalists that received votes on Crowley Webb’s site. More than 15,000 votes were cast, and You and Who garnered the most support.

You and Who, a Buffalo company that began in 2010 and has three employees, works with artists in 32 cities to design T-shirts.

Katie Krawczyk, director of communication for You and Who, said people appreciate the company’s mission but that appreciation hasn’t translated into sales, and the company doesn’t have the skills or resources to boost its business. But with Crowley Webb’s creative assistance, Krawczyk said there will be more traffic to the site and interest from artists.

You and Who is a company driven by a social cause, but Crowley Webb’s preliminary research found the company’s charitable cause was absent from its website and its overall brand.

So the advertising professionals centered their campaign around the company’s symbiotic business model.

“The emotion of what they are doing is missing from the website,” Pappalardo said.

“There are two sides of the company — You and Who. Someone buys a shirt and someone gets a shirt. But right now the focus is on the ‘You’ and the site looks like they are just selling T-shirts.”

All of Crowley Webb’s 45 employees participated in the work marathon, and the majority of them stayed overnight, undertaking a campaign usually accomplished by small groups of employees at various stages over a monthlong period. But with the entire staff working at once, the job was doable in 25 hours, Pappalardo said.

They worked in larger groups, brainstorming creative concepts, redesigning the company’s logo and website and developing media, marketing and social media strategies.

The working blitz was punctuated with fun. Employees could wear pajamas and they had pillow-fight breaks. Crowley Webb had a coffee/Red Bull bar and there was time for yoga and massages if needed. There was also a reality-TV-inspired confessional, a ping pong table and a morale team. And all of the work and play streamed live on the company’s website.

Crowley Webb was to deliver a formal presentation at 9 a. m. today and conclude the workday at 10 a. m.

“It’ll pretty much be the relaunch of the website, and the company,” Pappalardo said.

esapong@buffnews.comnull