Richter7 was lucky enough to take home more awards than any other agency this year (for the 9th time in 10 years!) From a total of 132 awards distributed, we were awarded 39, including 14 gold, 25 silver and one judges’ choice award for our Apple Beer campaign.

As one of our fearless leaders, Dave Newbold, puts it, “The awards are a bonus for doing our job right in the first place – that is, to sell our clients’ products and services.”

A big congrats to all of the Richter7 team members involved in creating this year’s winning campaigns. You inspire us each day! Can’t wait to see what’s in store for next year’s ADDY’s.

The web application uses Google Maps to estimate the visitors closest airport, the flight time from departure and destination, and the drive time to Park City. The results page displays a Google map showing the travel path.

Thank you to the Richter7 team who concepted and developed this tool: Frank Imler, interactive art director; Gary Sume, writer; Dave Newbold, executive creative director; Brett Winklesky, technologist, Teri Gibson, account supervisor and Evin Catlett, social media director.

In a July 12, 2010, ADWEEK article about the internationally prestigious Cannes awards festival, writer Noreen O’Leary reported the following:

“Mark Tutssel, Leo Burnett’s global CCO and a Cannes judge, said that despite the occasional exception, Cannes winners tend to be solid business successes.  In previous years, Burnett has conducted surveys tracking award-winning ads with business performance.  In the most recent survey, Burnett found an 86 percent correlation between award-winning work and effectiveness, up from 78 percent in 1997, the first year of the study.

Now for a specific example.

The Old Spice campaign featuring the buff, bare-chested Old Spice guy in the shower has certainly garnered attention (and won every major ad award), but has it sold product?

Here’s what Eleftheria Parpis reported in the July 26, 2010 issue of ADWEEK.

According to Nielsen data provided by Old Spice, overall sales for Old Spice bodywash products are up 11 percent in the last 12 months; up 27 percent in the last six months; up 55 percent in the last three months; and in the last month, with two new TV spots and the online response videos, up a whopping 107 percent.

“Our business is on fire,” says James Moorhead, brand manager of Old Spice.  “We’ve seen strong results over all of our portfolio.   That is the reward for the great work. The “Smell like a man, man” campaign, which by mid-July had become a pop-culture sensation, with videos from the series accounting for eight of the top 11 most popular videos on YouTube, went on to win a Grand Prix at Cannes.

Peter takes his job very seriously…

Introducing: PETER BROWN, Public Relations Intern

Want to know what a week in the life of a Richter7 public relations intern is like?

Nonstop.

My week started by working on a giant client project where we’re revamping their entire website. For two other team members and me, this means reviewing every page, paragraph and word of their site to delete filler info, and ensure it’s grammatically correct and carries a consistent tone throughout the massive, 300+ page website. It has taken a great deal of focus, understanding of our client’s vision and attention to detail – all very rewarding because we’re helping craft their online image.

Tuesday morning we staged an event for our Dairy Council of Utah client and spent several hours at the Gallivan Plaza taking pictures of children wearing milk moustache stickers in front of our ‘Got Milk?’ banner. Honestly, I think I corralled something like 30,000 kids at our booth. Yeah, it got a little crazy! I thought they were coming to chill with our smiling team of two women and two guys, but I think they really wanted the free Creamies (smart kids). We directed them to the Dairy’s Facebook page and  encouraged them to become a Facebook fan of the Dairy and download their pictures. You should too.

Back in the office, I’ve been involved in social media projects for different clients – outdoor recreation and food industries – one isn’t even located near Utah. Our efforts are to track any and all types of online postings about our clients, answer customer questions, encourage them to visit our clients and build a strong customer loyalty for our clients.

This morning I was with another PR team that zipped down to Maple Mountain High School with our Highway Safety client and presented motorcycle safety tips to a driver’s ed class. It’s all part of our ‘Drive Aware. Ride Aware’ campaign. Seriously, don’t ride motorcycles in flip-flops (can’t stress that enough).

These and other projects have carried on just after our ‘No Pants’ policy 2010 kick-off. Last Friday, Richter7 mandated a ‘No Pants’ policy from July 16 to Aug. 20, for the third consecutive year. In order to combat the heat, Richter7 has encouraged us to wear only shorts, skirts, kilts, lava lavas, anything but pants, to work. And if the “knickerbocker police” see pants, we’re fined. A quarter! Hey, I’m an intern! Money don’t grow on trees. (‘Course that will be another quarter for bad grammar.) It has really energized my coworkers here; I feel like I’m being rewarded for enjoying summertime! And that’s pretty sweet.

And I’ve had the fun task of tracking and documenting all of the businesses, newspapers and websites, like USA Today, CNBC and Yahoo! Finance, that have published stories about our ‘No Pants’ tradition. 233 articles so far – from New York to Hawaii.

And my week is only half over. All in all, to survive within the Richter7 environment, in MY opinion, you have to be a big time multi-tasker, an effective communicator, in speech and on paper, an ideas person and, of course, have a healthy sense of humor (with or without pants).

Spam Complaints

Email services (Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) are getting more spam-adverse every day. If the people you send emails to mark your message as spam, the email services will take notice.

Email services put up with a certain level of users being spam-button-happy. But if they get too many spam complaints from your email recipients, then they’re not only going to stop sending your emails through to those people–they’ll stop delivering your emails to everyone.

Furthermore, you won’t just get your email address flagged as spam, but they will reject anything coming from your IP address. All the major servers will do this: Yahoo, Gmail, MSN/Hotmail, etc.

Email Content No-No’s

It all starts with the content of your email. Some words and phrases will potentially get your email rejected, regardless of whether it’s actually spam or not. Things to avoid in the subject line and content of your email:

1. FREE. The word “free”, especially in all caps, is a BIG RED FLAG. That’s one reason you see emails break up the word “FREE” into F*R*E*E and FR-EE. Email providers have caught on to this trick. The word “free” isn’t necessarily bad, but phrases like “free membership,” “free money” and “financial freedom” are BIG RED FLAGS as well.

2. Punctuation. More than two !! in a row is going to get you marked as a spammer.

3. ALL CAPS. Sometimes you want to put a little emphasis in your message. Occasionally using ALL

4. CAPITAL LETTERS is not bad. Just don’t leave the “caps lock” key engaged all the time. Take a step back, and then type your message using lower-case letters just like you would do in any other normal communication.

5. MLM. It’s unfortunate, but mentioning “MLM,” “multi-level marketing,” “network marketing” or “business opportunity” will get you marked as spam.

6. Flagged Terms. Terms like “make money,” “make millions,” and multiple “$$$” are all red flags. Any mention of cheap medication, erectile drugs and other common spam fodder will definitely get you thrown into the spam category.

7. Images. If a significant portion of your message is built from images, then providers are going to assume you are trying to slip something past them; spammers often try to hide the content of their message using words in an image.

Pick the Right Email Provider

Often, users will sign up with what looks to be a perfectly legitimate email provider, only to find out that all their messages go straight to spam. Is this because the user is a spammer? No. It’s because they use an email provider that has been flagged as producing a lot of spam. For example, if you manage your email list through a paid service that sends a lot of spam (somebody else’s spam), there is a high degree of likelihood that everything coming from that provider will be marked as spam (including your emails).

1. Make sure your email marketing manager or partner requires (or at least highly encourages) double opt-ins. This will cut down on spam significantly.

2. Ask how they deal with too many spam complaints. For example, the strategic partners used by Richter7 are all very good about keeping spammers out of their systems. They will actually call somebody if they get more than .1% spam complaints over several emails.

3. Ask what is being done to keep in good graces with email services like Yahoo and Gmail. For example, one of Richter7’s main partners actively maintains a good relationship with all the email services to keep any emails sent through them “whitelisted”. Because of this relationship, our clients get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to accepting or rejecting emails.

It’s Easy to Get Your Email Delivered

This may all seem like a lot, but the main thing to remember is to write valuable, relevant emails, send them to people who want to hear from you and use a reputable partner.