“John’s personal passion and mantra for ‘making a difference while making a living’ continually propels our agency forward,” says Ford Wiles, Chief Creative Officer of Big Communications. “It is this simple philosophy that John brings to work every day that not only helps the company grow but it also leads to a lasting, powerful and ever- present-effect on the city and community around us.”

John started his career as a teenager, working as a promotions intern for the Birmingham Bulls. He founded Big in 1995 armed with nothing but a laptop, a loft and a giant cell phone. While the irony of the name was not lost on his first clients, John’s well-beyond-his-years experience in public relations, media and event promotions delivered against it, with an invaluable combination of headline-grabbing tactics, great relationship building and media targeting smarts.

In 17 short years, John has grown Big from a one-man PR circus to one of the hottest shops in Alabama. Though Big’s client roster now includes leading brands across the state and region, John has made sure that the agency proudly maintains its commitment to being a local firm first.

Big’s Chief Branding Officer Mark Ervin says “John is officially Birmingham’s biggest fan and actively pursues opportunities to make our city a better place to live and work. He loves this community and is proud of the potential, the progress and the collective creativity of Birmingham.”

John’s commitment to the community is visible through projects such as the popular Birmingham Convention and Visitor’s Bureau “IN” campaign, The Birmingham Business Alliance Blueprint Birmingham rollout and the reinvigoration of The Birmingham News brand. Regional efforts include the Alabama Construction Recruitment Institute’s Go Build campaign as well as Serve the Gulf, a pro-bono effort launched by John to counteract misinformed perceptions after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Robin Oliver, Big’s Vice President of Public Relations, says “John Montgomery is one of the most creative entrepreneurs in this field and quite possibly the brightest PR mind in our state. He’s a compassionate employer who puts the welfare of family and friends well ahead of profit and gain. We are grateful for the advertising community’s public recognition of John’s commitment to excellence.”

Big Communications also took home seven awards for its 2011 work at the ADDY Awards, held Thursday, January 2 at The Club. Big’s awards included:
Silver – Entertainment District Brochure, Bayer Properties Silver – Website, Big Communications Silver – Birmingham Airport Display, Birmingham Airport Authority Silver – Consumer or Trade Publication, Birmingham Convention & Visitors Bureau
Gold – EspresShip Sales Video, Royal Cup Coffee Gold – Shuttlesworth Service Brochure, Shuttlesworth Foundation Silver – The Civil Wars Poster, Standard Deluxe Silver – ‘This Is Our Story’ Musical Score, The Birmingham News Silver – Birmingham Magazine Campaign, The Birmingham News

So to comment on these greatest of seasons for us ad folks, our very own Chief Brand Officer, Mark Ervin, wrote a column in today’s Birmingham News. Read the full article here at al.com.

Overview:
The Assistant Media Buyer will assist buyers with the preparation, maintenance and follow through involved in negotiating and buying all forms of media.

Responsibilities:
• Gather statistics, media kit information and assist Media Buyers in preparing media plans.
• Assist Media Buyers in researching, managing and maintaining media buys and advertising plans.
• Maintain relationships with media vendors.
• Coordinate ad trafficking.
• Assist in inputting buys and pulling system reports.
• Assists in buying/allocation process.
• Assisting in tracking of buys.
• Checks contracts and helps to resolve billing discrepancies.
• Provide Administrative support as necessary.

Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree in related field.
• Previous experience in Media buying.
• Experience with Strata software preferred.
• Extremely thorough, analytical and detail focused.
• Strong multi-tasking skills with ability to manage multiple projects and deliver plans in a short time period.
• Strong mathematical skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Proficiency in all Microsoft Office Suite programs.

Not only did we add a new baby to the family, Hans August Montgomery, we also were blessed enough to add 7 new people to the roster: Jordan Sowards, Julie Ward, Shaydah Rabiee, Brittany Sanders, John Perry, Ryan Brown, and Niki Lim. And to bear all of that growth, we were able to take over the rest of our building and add 9 new offices in the new wing.

In order for us to add all those people, we had to be out hunting for new clients. And in 2011, we were fortunate enough to both keep our old friends happy and find some new ones along the way. By adding clients ranging from higher education and healthcare to aviation and publications, we expanded our reach throughout the state of Alabama and across the Southeast.

And then there’s the hardware. The 2010 Addy’s were the biggest in Big’s 16 year history. Not only did we rack up Illustrator, Designer, Copywriter and Creative Director of the year, our Go Build Alabama campaign garnered the Best of Show award. In total, we hauled in 32 Awards, by far the most of any agency that entered. For us, this wasn’t simply a feather in our cap, it was a testament to our clients who allow us to do great work on their behalf.

All that aside, we realize that there are two key components that allowed us to have such a great year: clients of vision and people of passion. Every day when we show up for work, we realize that our jobs and our work are predicated on the trust that our clients have in the people we are – that apart from their insight and their investment in our ideas, our work goes no where. Through the relationships we’ve developed with them over time, they see our passion, our tenacity and our potential to help their businesses. And for that, we are truly thankful.

So, here’s to an outstanding 2012. May it be filled with happy old friends, excited new friends and the thrilling potential of working with the best people on earth.

So, for all of our friends in and around the great State of Alabama, we humbly ask you to do one, simple thing: cast your vote in favor of the Magic City. Share this link with everyone you know and make sure you vote every day until January 31, 2012.

So a couple months back, Big commissioned a piece of art for our new office expansion. The creative direction was pretty rough: something that incorporated orange monkeys, robots and the Big Boy. Other than that, the sky was the limit. What John came back with was a perfect adaptation of who we are. And by sheer chance, he painted 24 orange monkeys – the exact number of employees we have a Big. In fact, we’ve gone through the painting and assigned people to each individual monkey. See if you can figure it our for yourself.

We were also thrilled to be able to get our “Serve The Gulf” brand integrated into the show. One of the boats on the show is the Miss Barbara, and that particular boat’s captain is one Jeremy “Bullfrog” Schjott. Bullfrog was kind enough to sport a Serve The Gulf T-shirt in every single episode in the first season.

Even though the crews are pretty rough around the edges and there’s often subtitles needed to translate through that beautiful South Alabama twang, the show portrays the workmen as tough, determined and doing everything it takes to keep their industry and their way of lives afloat.

Watch the intro below, and make sure you tune in on Thursday nights at 9 on The History Channel.

It’s been something we’ve labored over for several months now, because when you exhaust your creative and strategic energies on behalf of your clients every day, it gets way harder to do it for yourself. It’s the ultimate expression of that old adage: the cobbler’s kids have no shoes. But fortunately, we finally got our cobbler to work, and this time, he cranked out the most modern pair of shoes he’s ever built.

Not only does this edition of Bigcom.com have a great looking face, it’s got an even better looking back end. We built it on the ever-popular WordPress engine, but more importantly, we did it using HTML5. For most of the world that doesn’t spend their days coding in an interactive basement somewhere, HTML5 is new; so new, in fact, that it’s not officially out of beta testing yet. But the reason the world is shifting in this direction is that it embeds dynamic content, like video, audio and animation, seamlessly and drastically reduces load times. It has cumbersome, processor-choking plugins like flash (and even XHTML and javascript) squarely in the crosshairs. For us, it means an outstanding trial run at figuring out all the nuances of this new, shiny toy without wasting a single hour of client time. And it gives our clients our new-found understanding of this soon-to-be world standard of interactive programming.

So, now that we have the chance to flex our own digital muscle a little bit, we’re thrilled to be adding lots of new work to the site as well. From seafood marketing and outstanding university work to newspapers and new airports, we’ve loaded up the new Bigcom.com with fresh samples of our finest work.

In addition, this site is designed to reflect the ever-evolving nature of Big. Since our last site was created, we’ve added a ton of new staff and greatly expanded our capabilities and expertise. Never before have we been able to marry together the strengths of public relations, creativity, media and interactive under one incredibly talented roof. So, really, this is not just about being a new website; it’s just as much about being the all-new, better-than-ever Big Communications.

So, we humbly welcome you to our new website. And while you’re here, we hope it challenges you to forever think big.

Oh yeah, if you’re clicking around and break something, by all means, let us know.