The Whipp Blog

Whipp recently noticed that there is an enthusiastic online outrage for pleat wearers, as if pleats are fanny-packs or the 1980’s prom dress of men’s pants.

Tags: blog, style, Whipp, don't de-pleat mens options, pleats, to pleat or not to pleat, vote for pleats, online

Rug&Home is a five-state home furnishings empire boasting hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of rugs, luxury furniture items, accessories, art, and decor.

Its reputation for high-end merchandise at rock bottom prices paired perfectly with its respected clientele ranging from Billy Graham and Gladys Knight to the Biltmore Estate and Hollywood movie sets (George Clooney HIMSELF has enjoyed the luxury of a Rug&Home rug).

But above and beyond anything else, they were best known for an iconic high-pitched, backward-walking blonde in a series of low budget commercials that were as much loathed as they were loved by viewers armed with mute buttons from Tennessee to Georgia and all points in between.

To make matters worse, test after test revealed that audiences thought Rug&Home only sold rugs, even though every one of their stores featured thousands of square feet of furniture and accessories.

So when their sweet young bombshell turned baby mama, Rug&Home turned to us to create something fresh and new that would signal a change without losing the fun, while elevating the brand and showcasing their variety beyond just rugs.

Derek had just recently been introduced to a brother-sister team of filmmakers from Hendersonville (who later moved to Hollywood and have just wrapped working on the Betty White Show) and Chris started stalking them on Facebook. After a few "brainstorming" sessions at Limeleaf Chris and Derek came up with the perfect plan to capitalize on the young artists' talents and sweep in a new era of commercial style for Rug&Home.


Challenge One: Turn down the volume without being boring

Challenge Two: Showcase the variety

Challenge Three: Elevate the brand and give it a personality


To contrast the chains previous vocal spokesgirl, the campaign featured a series of silent movies. Three styles of music were chosen to reflect three kinds of audiences (a happy and poppy charmer, a dramatic vaudeville jaunt, and a fashionista disco funk) and an animated tag was designed to highlight rugs along with the chain's three main locations and online store. The short silent films followed the antics of the brothers and sister through vignettes that showcased the entire scope of all the stores had to offer by allowing them to build entire rooms from start to finish and playfully interact with merchandise in a variety of styles.

We launched the campaign during the Super Bowl to huge success. And the purely visual approach proved to be just as effective if the viewer happened to be muting or fast forwarding as it was in real time. Responses from customers even indicated that they were so intrigued by the scenes that they tended to stop, rewind, and watch the commercials again whenever they spotted them.

Tags: creative firms, design, style, Whipp, Rug&Home, Whipp guide, Whipp and Rug&Home

Five fun info-graphic facts about Pinterest:

Tags: creative firms, design, vintage, style, Whipp, marketing, content, Pinterest facts, online, viral, inbound marketing

Should your company be using social media?  We all need it, and it’s constantly changing at hyper speeds. Before your company decides to kick social media out the door, here are a few statistics:

Tags: SEO, design, style, Social Media Explained by Whipp, Whipp, marketing, content, online, lead generation, inbound marketing, Whipp guide

1: Wofford. Ok, we may be slightly biased…We did design this one. But it speaks for itself. It is a beautiful site, easy to navigate and easy on the eyes. It’s an all around goody bag of worthy design technique to model after:

Tags: design, vintage, style, Whipp, top 10 college websites, content, inbound marketing, Whipp guide, Whipp’s top 10 college websites

Tags: SEO, vintage, style, Whipp, Links, marketing, online, viral, inbound marketing, Keywords

Ralph and Chris, Whipp partners, first began using Diet Coke when they took the Pepsi challenge in 1994 and Coke won. They desperately wanted to get out, but as the rewards points piled up the cost of quitting outweighed the benefit. They are most recently hoping to win a 60’’ plasma HDTV and a pair of Beats headphones. Coke caps, reward prizes, and bottles have begun to fill their offices, and hoarding has become an issue. As the Whipp partners have begun to realize they have a problem, they decided to start their very own, Diet Coke anonymous club.

Tags: design, style, AA, Whipp, google, marketing, online, inbound marketing, Diet Coke Anonymous, Diet Coke

The end of October was a perfect time for Whipp to visit Wofford College and have a photo shoot. Watch us invade Wofford’s campus from behind the scenes in this short clip by Whipp.

Tags: Internet, style, Whipp, marketing, content, online

In one of the WORST journalistic travesties to EVER occur in the HISTORY of journalistic travesties, a headline in the latest issue of Advertising Age read Marketers Rate Below Politicians, Bankers on Respectability Scale. Whaaaaaat? I know what you’re thinking. MARKETING people are THE SALT OF THE EARTH. The best people I know. TOP SHELF. I know, I know, I thought the same thing. Well, the article goes on to say ONLY 13% of people, including other marketers (35%!!!), think that marketing benefits society. First of all. 13% of you are brilliant. BUT WHAT ARE THE OTHER 87% OF YOU THINKING?

Tags: Internet, style, Whipp, marketing, content, online, inbound marketing

Penny Loafer posts: Keep readers in the loop

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