The Archer Group on the importance of agency culture

Culture can sometimes make or break business for an agency, which is why building a strong culture is so critical to success.
Change is inevitable in the advertising world. As Don Draper once said, “The day you sign a client is the day you start losing them.” A strong culture affords an organization the ability to manage change effectively.
The folks at The Archer Group seem to have a firm grasp of what agency culture means to them.
As I walked into their offices in downtown Wilmington I asked Chief Experience Officer Todd Miller if there was a person the agency was named after. He said it was a fictional character named Bob Archer. I noticed pops of color and texture everywhere. A cornhole game sat in the lobby, giving off an air of playfulness. The interior design spared no detail: exposed brick and artwork made it look like an artist’s loft.
The doors were repurposed from an old Delaware Vlasic pickle factory that had shut down, the doors seemed solid and permanent. The doors were not the only materials the office utilized, pretty much the entire office was creatively wrapped in these materials, from the wooden panels to the core walls. The construction of the office is solid, just like the foundation of this 13-year-old company.

Miller, a part owner, is the longest-tenured employee. He joined the company two years after it was founded and has remained there ever since. His favorite part about his job is promoting people. “I think one of the the things I love the most about my role here is that you see where everyone grows over time,” Miller said. 
Le’Rhone Walker has grown with the company. The former Archer intern is now director of front-end development.
“There used to be something about our employee welcome letter,” Walker recalled. “It talked about typical agency operations and having fun, but there was this line about wizards and ice cream. My thought was, ‘Todd put it in there to see if someone read that far.’ Well, I did and when I brought it up they rented an ice cream truck and we got free ice cream for the whole company. That’s just him, he thinks of these off-the-wall ideas from a morale and culture standpoint that just work.”
For Chief Operations Officer Joseph DeCicco, staying consistent in the face of agency-world churn is key.
“We have a lot of long-time employees here,” he said. “We’re different from a lot of the agencies that use contractors or third parties to complete projects.”
Archer recently bolstered its social department by hiring Gina Fortune as social media director. A unique offering Archer has made available to its employees is called the “Everwonder Fund.” When I asked Fortune what she would use it for she said, “I would assume it would be trip somewhere, probably somewhere with a very good restaurant scene,” she said. “Another reason I love this place, everyday is different.”
But between all the omelette bars and ice cream trucks, there’s a lot of hard work. Archer has long done work for Wawa and recently rolled out a buzzy hidden-camera campaign with Eagles tight-end Brent Celek.