Bob's Blog

I had the requirement to fly over the Thanksgiving holiday to help open our new headquarters, which meant I got to meet many travelers in the airports. I wasn’t going to fly back over the holiday, but I couldn’t wait to see Jane Jones and her new baby, Sean Callum. She told me Sean is South African for Bob, but I didn’t buy it. Jane is one of our first employees at The Archer Group and the delightful voice you hear when you call our offices. Happily, everyone is doing great!

While I was flying, I finished my book and started thumbing through the in-flight magazine. After a great article on Las Vegas, I turned to an ad for Big Brothers/Big Sisters. I have a real soft spot for BB/BS ever since I was a big brother while working on Wall Street. Despite being young, single and working crazy hours on the exchange floor, being a big brother gave me a grounding for what is important in life.

The ad was a very creative approach to enlist new mentors and had none of the smiley faced kids you would expect. The ad asked if you knew someone who would make a good big brother/big sister and gave you a message to photograph with your mobile phone and send on to that person.

The ad offered a compelling message with a novel way to take immediate action through picture messaging. With all of the different advertising mediums, I feel that the biggest impact comes from the merging of the mediums to the consumer. The consumer doesn’t just surf the web or read magazines; consumers frequently pass from one medium to the other, even engaging both at the same time. Effective ad campaigns like Big Brothers/Big Sisters embracing that mixing of the mediums to achieve great results!