Here’s the answer.  Yes, it does have something to do with the Richter scale.  Richter7 is a metaphor for moving and shaking, for breaking down the barriers to effective communication and successful branding.

The name connotes a determination to create messages with enough magnitude to move the proverbial needle.

We intend to awaken the target audience, mentally and emotionally, with messages that shake their media-dulled senses and disrupt normal thought patterns – yet, resonate amiably in their soul.  As a consequence, they will be persuaded to favor and purchase our clients’ products and services.

Plain-Jane, parity advertising won’t get that job done.

A respected marketing man once said, “Creativity is the last remaining legal means you have to gain an unfair advantage over your competition.”   Amen.

To that end, clients should demand (and this often requires considerable bravery) daring, distinctive advertising that can separate their product or service from the pack – that can differentiate, build and solidify their position in the consumer’s mind – and do it with enough charisma, charm or edge to leave people leaning forward, thinking, smiling and believing.

When people feel kindly about a product and feel an affinity toward a brand, that product or service preempts the appeal of the entire category.  It jumps to the front of that imaginary line of competitors in the consumer’s mind.

We believe effectiveness and creativity are inseparably linked.  As a national study published in ADWEEK declared, “Award-winning advertising is four to five times more likely to reach client goals than non-award winning work.”

Gary Goldsmith, chairman of Goldsmith/Jeffrey, New York City, said, “More and more clients are realizing creative ads work better, are more memorable and make their point more effectively in the marketplace. You can run a good creative ad fewer times.  People can remember it after seeing it three times rather than 30 times.”

Disruptive creativity, based on sound strategy, counts – big-time.  Because that’s how you connect with consumers.

And there you have the long-winded answer to why we call ourselves Richter7.

Old Spice responded with this:

Point to Old Spice. Why? Well, it’s a lot easier to talk to a target demographic if you’re brand is already built up around said demographic. Dove was making a huge leap from decades of speaking to women to try and speak to men without alienating or venturing too far from the brand that’s made them what they are. Old Spice has always been about men so it’s more of a natural fit.

That and the writing is just flat-out better on the Old Spice ad.

One afternoon not long ago I took a moment to sit down and read the morning newspaper.  I’ve always been an afternoon newspaper guy. (Deseret News, can you hear me?)  Immediately, frustration set in — not with prognostications about the recession, but with the advertising content.

I noticed a local grocery store insert – jammed full of prices and items, but nothing else.   Then I happened upon a second insert — different grocery store, likewise packed with products and prices.  “Fresh, crisp broccoli, 69 cents a pound,” the first screamed at me. Not to be outdone, the second insert’s main headline also touted “Broccoli, 69 cents a pound.” “Citrus sale” both also loudly announced. Other prices and featured items in the two competing inserts were similar, as well.

A few minutes later, my frustration level rose. This time two competing sporting goods stores were announcing similar “40% Off” sales on almost identical “active apparel.” Again, sale items galore. Then, finally, a logo, address and the dreaded, microscopic disclaimers.

I wanted to bellow, “Give me a reason to choose one of you!”  “Any good reason besides price!”  “Please, tell me why I should select your store over theirs!” “Offer me a worthwhile point of differentiation!”

Is it a disease transmitted by local, retail advertisers only?  Sadly, no.  A day later I sat down with a recent issue of Fast Company Magazine.  Hot car ad #1 looked like hot car ad #2 which looked like hot car ad #3.  In each instance, I beheld a page-dominant photo of a glistening machine in full zoom mode, accompanied by a small, pithy headline about escaping life.  My wife and I were actually in the market for a car at the time.  None of the ads, at the cost of about $60,000 per page, left me with a clear understanding of their respective vehicular differences.

The same could be said of that issue’s multiple laptop computer ads. Shame on them.

Come on now, how long has the philosophy of “positioning” been around?  Yet so many companies (and, apparently, ad agencies) still ignore it.  Failure is fully deserved when the principle of positioning goes unobserved.

Jack Trout and Al Reis introduced it in their classic business book, “Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.” The year was 1972. They spoke convincingly of creating and owning a unique position in the prospect’s mind and heart. A pretty photo with a word-play headline just doesn’t do the job.

No client will succeed long-term with a grocery store mentality. Someone else will always announce a can of beans at a lower price. Price is not a powerful, long-term marketing position, in my opinion. Target has created an “upscale sale” niche that has nearly destroyed K-mart – by focusing on something more than mere coupons.  They’ve created an edgy feeling and attitude about their value-oriented brand.  They’ve carved out a position that differentiates their stores from competing retailers.  Target is a hip place to save money.

Apple has done the same thing.  No matter the product, their approach is “think different.” It’s a brand that stands for innovation, design, and revolution.  Bottom line, it stands for something meaningful.

If only those grocery store ads had given me a reason to smile, to think, to feel, to like them for more than just the price of broccoli. Wild Oats does that in spades.  They’re willing to take some of that supposedly precious price-and-item ad space to build a meaningful, lovable personality that creates long-term loyalty.

The principle is the same regardless of the venue in which you practice capitalism. The goal is to avoid that grocery store syndrome at all costs. Give consumers a reason to buy, to be loyal, to love your product or service. Build a unique brand, not merely a me-too ad. It’s called meaningful differentiation, and it makes a difference at the cash register.

Image courtesy of jbcurio on Flickr.

(This is part two of a two-part series on what those dwelling in haunted residences can do to better lure in unsuspecting victims. Click here for part one.)

In my previous post I discussed how the majority of individuals living in haunted residences have severely limited their target market by clinging to age-old ideas of how to present themselves through their properties. This section will discuss specific action items you can act on today which will dramatically increase human traffic through your home.

Live like you’re living
In the advertising world we have professional photographers shoot products and then talented designers create beautiful ads because people are more likely to interact with something that’s aesthetically pleasing.

Apply this principle to your dwelling and clean the place up a bit. Take the boards off the windows. Hang some draperies and put a bulb in your porch light. If you’re feeling really bold, plant a garden. Make it look like someone living is living there. You’re more likely to get an unsuspecting neighbor bringing you a plate of cookies if they don’t think they (the neighbors) are going to be eaten. That way – bonus! – you get dinner and cookies for dessert.

Don’t go overboard on Halloween
Consider your target audience. You may be tempted to hang entrails from tree branches and line your porch railing with skulls. Again, even for Halloween this is too scary. I recommend something like this:

Yes, it’s cliche´ and suburban. But it has the right mix of allure for the kiddies (the cartoon ghost) while the scarier elements (figures in black) help you maintain credibility amongst your peers. The owner of this house had the right intention with the pirate flag, but it looks desperate as it doesn’t go with any of the other decorations and pirates are dated (tip: vampires are in now).

The chain across the front of the street actually works on a subliminal level – people want things they can’t have, so putting up an easy-to-cross barrier works in your favor.

Adapt for the season
There’s a reason there aren’t Halloween decorations of fake cobwebs, plastic tombstones and talking heads in grocery stores all year ’round (yet for some reason, it’s totally fine to have a realistic-looking severed hand in a grocery store during the months of September and October).

The reason is this: people are fickle when it comes to holidays. They don’t like Christmas lights up in April and they don’t like creepy houses in June. So if you can maintain your residence as described here – perhaps actually putting up Christmas lights around the holidays – you can lower the barriers to entry to get people in your house.

If you’re a zombie, ask yourself, “Would a Christmas caroler knock on my door without coercion?” If the answer is “no” you have some work to do.

Take advantage of other holidays
Here are some other holidays which provide perfect opportunities for those who feed on human flesh:

Thanksgiving – Meals on Wheels. Literally.
New Year’s Eve – People like to stay up late and get drunk. Those two factors are working for you so take advantage.
Girl Scout Cookie Time – While not technically a holiday, still a golden opportunity.

Really, all this speaks to a larger point: who wants to live in a dump forever? What do your living conditions say about you? Boarded up windows? Dusty cobwebs? Unkempt yard? I don’t think it’s written anywhere that the undead have to live like pigs. Ask yourself, “Just because my flesh is rotting (if you’re still embodied) am I perpetuating a negative stereotype?” If so, it’s time for change. And that change will bring a higher caliber of victims more frequently.

Stay tuned as we continue this series with Social Media for the Undead which will include the following tips and tricks:

• Bring hundreds of LIVE humans right to your doorstep with Twitter
• Three reasons why zombies should avoid podcasting
• Use Facebook to create/recruit an undead army

Images courtesy of Pictr 30D and ScottSchrantz.

We live in a time of rapid evolution. Economic models are being turned on their heads. Newspapers are folding. The music industry is being forced to change and Hollywood is sure to follow. But this change isn’t limited to media. It’s also time for your garden-variety undead person to reevaluate how they do things.

Audience: I write this to the hungry zombie who is sitting at home wondering why he/she can’t seem to find any food around the house.

Thesis: The traditional models of 1. limping after people or 2. using a graveyard/haunted house to lure people in are all wrong if your end goal is consume human parts.

Push vs. Pull
There are two methods you can use to get a meal: push or pull.

Traditionally zombies have used push methods to claim their victims, stumbling around the streets hoping one of the fleeing masses trips, making it possible to overtake him or her. That may have been fine in decades past but it’s not cutting it anymore. Nowadays, for the nightmarishly freakish such as yourself, it’s all about The Pull – getting people to come to you.

Besides, if you stay at home instead of wandering the streets you’re much less likely to get shot in the head and die (again).

The method of finding a cemetery or house to “haunt” is becoming a universal tool for all spirits, witches, undead and others who wish to draw in people for entertainment purposes (e.g. to scare them) or due to nutritional needs/insatiable hunger for human flesh. This, however, has severe limitations. That is why we at Richter7 have created marketing and branding techniques to help the struggling undead.

Understand your target audience
The idea of voluntarily entering into a place believed to be haunted is alluring only to stupid teenagers. This seriously limits your target audience. Little kids won’t come visit because it’s too scary and adults won’t come visit because the property looks like it’s in disrepair. The result? You have the strongest, fastest and most difficult-to-capture demographic wandering through your house/grave yard/crypt instead of the old or very young. You’re at an immediate disadvantage.

In addition, teenagers aren’t likely to dare each other to go into haunted places unless it’s near Halloween. This means you have maybe two weeks to capture enough of them to sustain yourself for an entire year (unless someone’s car breaks down in front of your house which, let’s be honest, only happens in movies).

It’s harder than it looks
Catching a year’s supply of food in two weeks isn’t an easy thing to do (trust me) so why put yourself in that position when a little elbow grease could radically improve the quality and frequency of your prey?

Stay tuned for part 2 of this post where you’ll learn specific, actionable items you can take to lure more unsuspecting people into your house for consumption.

Image courtesy of Arnoooo.

Although Romeo and Juliet is now regarded by many as Prokofiev’s finest work, soon after it’s unveiling, critical carping began.  In the local press, his score was decried as odd, inadequate, and lacking sufficient feeling and melody to effectively portray the emotions of the story.  It was different.  And different was, well, bad.

Prokofiev retorted, “My own conviction is that there is plenty of all that [emotion] in it.  I have never shunned the expression of feeling and have always been intent on creating melody – new melody, which perhaps certain listeners do not recognize as such simply because it does not resemble enough the kind of melody to which they are accustomed.”

There in the proverbial nutshell is the world’s oft-repeated critique of creativity.

“If people find no melody and no emotion in this work, I shall be very sorry.  But I feel sooner or later they will,” Prokofiev opined.  And they did.

Later, one New York critic wrote, “Prokofiev has written music for the masses and at the same time has attained extraordinary nobility.”  About the score, Prokofiev’s biographer, Israel V. Nestyev declared, “Here we find no trace of surface inventiveness, grotesquerie or expressionistic hyperbole.  The music recreates with extraordinary power and compassion the passions and dramatic conflicts of Shakespeare’s immortal characters.”

“No trace of surface inventiveness.”  Few definitions of creativity are more accurate than that.

Was Prokofiev creating “art for art’s sake?”  He said, “ In Romeo and Juliet I have taken special pains to achieve a simplicity which will, I hope, reach the hearts of all listeners.”

There, in another nutshell, is what I believe to be the battle cry and the redeeming value of creativity.  “Reach the hearts.”  Loyalty and brand bias are built in your beating chest organ far more than in your cranial cavity.

That’s why, though you’ve decided to purchase a new car based on facts and figures, when you suddenly see an alternative that sets your heart aflutter, facts take a back seat.  (Hence, I personally bought the Saab 9-5 instead of the more logical Toyota.) It is my opinion that people buy with their emotions, and later justify the purchase intellectually.  Even many mundane purchases are generally the result of some previous or immediate emotional connection.

I propose there is a very crucial link between creativity in communication and consumer awareness, sales, and loyalty.  Creativity, of the intelligent, well-strategized sort, is all about the bottom line.

It’s not uncommon to hear so-called marketing experts snidely proclaim, “It isn’t creative unless it sells.”  I reply, “But it doesn’t sell unless it’s creative, because if your message is not interesting, entertaining and relevant in the first place, it will be ignored or despised.

Oh sure, leading brands must also rely on effective positioning.  But even the cleverest positioning must be communicated in fresh fashion if it’s to be noticed, remembered and acted upon.

Thankfully, there is now considerable industry research that confirms that premise.  I have a stack of it I’ll share with you if you’re interested.

Our work for the Utah Museum of Fine Arts was featured in the Nikkei Marketing Journal. The only “Nikkei” I’d ever heard of was this girl I was in a relationship with in junior high. (It didn’t end well and I don’t want to talk about it.) Apparently, they’re the equivalent of the Wall Street Journal, except in Japan. Or at least that’s what they told us.

My Japanese is a little rusty but here are some loosely translated snippets from the glowing review:

“This work makes my heart light and happy.”

“Go to the United State of Utah and look at this beautiful advertising (Ed. – or art, I’m not sure).”

“David Rathbun was a punk in seventh grade.”

“Craftsmanship of this caliber spans culture and results in many terrier dogs.”

“Gary Sume is a handsome man with many fingers.”

I told you my Japanese was rusty.

On Saturday I bought a $20 water bottle.

I also buy little 3×5 Moleskine notebooks and carry one with me everywhere I go. It costs $11.

Why does someone pay $20 for a hollow piece of metal with a lid or pay $11 for what essentially amounts to a stack of paper and a rubber band?

People pay a premium for brands for a number of reasons, but one of the main reasons is because they can drive people to act on their purchases. Allow me to explain.

I could jot down random thoughts and ideas on just about anything. Why pay $11 for a Moleskine notebook? It doesn’t make me a better writer – but the brand and story behind the notebooks makes me want to write.

I had plenty of water bottles sitting in my office that would have served the purpose of providing me with water that I never filled. Now that I have a nice, stainless steel water bottle I drain the thing probably three or four times a day.

Which is worth more: A spiral notebook that costs a dollar that I never write in, or an expensive notebook that I love filling with thoughts, notes, goals and lists? As a consumer, I’m willing to pay more for products/brands that inspire or engage me in some way or another.

If someone gets a pair of running shoes they’re excited about, they’re more likely to go running.

If someone gets the nicer paintbrushes, they may spend more time working at their painting.

If someone is excited about their water bottle, maybe they’ll drink more water.

The challenge for companies is to create brands and products that engage and inspire so people are willing to pay more.

What brands/products do you get excited about? Are there any that inspire you? Let me know in the comments.

Moleskine photo courtesy of Flickr.

Show up as a company spokesperson, brand representative, sales executive, or anything else other than simply showing up as a real human being

…If you are going to show up in the Web 2.0 community for business reasons, show up as a person first. People don’t want to connect with brands, companies, or products. People want to connect with people.

Yes, people do want to connect with people. However, I disagree that people don’t want to interact with brands or companies. I think people are fine following brands and companies through means of social media if they know that’s who they’re following. It’s all about expectations.

There are Four Levels of Social Media Involvement as far as businesses are concerned (I’m thinking mainly Twitter here, but I think the principles apply across the board):

1. The Deceiver – Mentioned in #3 of Ms. Piersall’s post, these are companies that know social media can be beneficial, but go about it in an entirely errant way by being deceptive about it. For example, hiring people to go out there and secretly promote the company. Bad CMO! These companies don’t grasp the point transparency, how crucial it is, and how when you screw it up it comes back to bite you. Hard.

2. The PR Printer - Their idea of using a blog, Twitter, digg, etc. is to pump out press releases. They are under the delusion that people want to hear their corporate speak. They are wrong. And while they may have a warm fuzzy feeling because they think they’re “using” social media, nobody is listening to them.

3. The Rep – This person is assigned to take on social media responsibilities. Perhaps it’s a PR team, brand rep…whatever. They know that content is king, produce good content and are open about who it’s coming from. Inherently this person isn’t as interesting as if he or she was the CEO, but their presence is still beneficial to followers/customers.

4. The Guru – This company has it down pat. They have someone in a position of real authority in their organization engaging personally in social media. This person provides relevant content on a regular basis and presents him or herself in a natural, likable manner. It’s not just their company that understands social media, but the person producing the content really gets it.

Ideally, you want your company or organization to be at Level 4, but many companies at Level 3 have people who are interested enough about their company/brand that they are happy to communicate with a brand rep or PR person. This is because I’m interested in, and want to connect with, the brand and/or company, not necessarily the person.

An example of this is the team that writes Google’s Gmail Blog. I don’t pay attention to who writes it, nor do I care. I love Gmail and I want to know what’s going on with its development, new features, etc..

That being said, no one should be ghost writing for the CEO, no matter how good the content is. And a company would be foolish to, say, try to buy diggs. However, if I know the blog I’m reading is:

1. From the PR team at X company
2. They tell me it’s from the PR team – not trying to be deceptive
3. Producing quality content (Level 3)

… then great! While they aren’t at a Level 4, they aren’t damaging their brand either. In fact, I’d argue that they’re building it.

As I said before, it’s all about expectations.

Engage people in real conversations and build relationships. Good relationships are emotional and so are great brands.