Billboard couple never was

PROVO — Ladies and gentlemen, they are still single.

In July, Lance Archibald became a household name when his company, LogoWorks, advertised his single status with a billboard. The response was better than expected: The billboard received attention from national and foreign news media and generated 23,000 date requests at datelance.com.

That billboard prompted another firm to respond with one of its own: Connect Magazine, a regional business magazine, offered up its managing editor, Anmaree Osmond, as a potential match for Archibald, a former Brigham Young University basketball player.

Now, six months later, the hype over the billboards has died down a bit. And life is returning to normal for both Archibald and Osmond.

"I'm not recognized that often anymore," said Archibald, who has an MBA from Harvard. "When the billboard first went up, it happened occasionally. But now it's pretty rare."

Archibald said he was recognized most recently at the Las Vegas Bowl.

"The couple sitting behind me at the game had a little bet as to whether it was me or not," he said. "The wife lost the bet."

When people recognize him, Archibald says, a typical reaction is pointing and whispering. If someone approaches him they usually laugh and ask if he's "that guy" from the billboard, which has since been taken down.

Connect Magazine marketing director Jennifer Black had seen Archibald's billboard and visited his Web site and thought it would be a great idea for Osmond to apply.

Osmond, the niece of Donny and Marie Osmond, said she told her co-workers Archibald looked like a great guy, but if she were to apply he probably had so many applications that hers would just get lost.

"He would probably never even see it so I told them, 'What's the point?' " Osmond said.

Osmond's co-workers told her they were going to fill out an application anyway but wanted to think of a way to make her application stand out. Then they hatched the idea of answering Archibald's billboard with one of her own.

"We already had the electronic billboard space," Osmond said, "so it would not cost us anything. We just had to swap our usual ad with the new one of my billboard. I thought it was a brilliant and hilarious idea. I thought people would think it was so funny that we were responding to Lance's billboard with a billboard of our own."