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.

(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.

May I offer a delightful – okay, useful – array of advertising insights from the latest issue of the Journal of Advertising Research. These key points are the result of empirical studies done by a number of different teams who then submitted their findings to the publication.  Get ready, some of these will reinforce your thinking, and some may change your thinking.  Here goes:

1. The following strategies increase advertising effectiveness in terms of sales and profit performance:

a.  Focusing on “hard” objectives – campaigns that have “soft” objectives (e.g., to increase brand awareness or improve brand image) underperform compared to campaigns with a detailed strategy that links “soft” measures to business results (e.g., to increase market share to 11 percent by recruiting 14,500 new users via repositioning ourselves as the most authentic Italian brand);
b.  Influencing consumers on an emotional, rather than rational level – the most effective ads of all are those with little or no rational content, and emotional advertising appears particularly good at reducing price sensitivity which therefore leads to particularly large profit gains (for a personal experience on this from Dave Rathbun, see his post, “Why I spent $20 on a water bottle” here);
c.  Creating “talk” value – ask yourself, “would the press write about this?”;
d.  Including TV in the media mix; the data also suggests that the addition of online advertising to the mix increases the effectiveness of TV.

2. Even with no clicks or minimal clicks, online display ads (banners) can generate substantial lift in site visitation, trademark search queries, and both online and offline sales.

3. Approximately 20 percent of “Word-of-Mouth” mentions about brands refer to paid advertising in media.  The level of and effectiveness of WOM is substantially increased when stimulated, encouraged and/or supported by advertising – increasing the probability by about 20 percent that a consumer will make a strong recommendation to buy or try a product.

4. Spaced multiple exposures of messages (online and offline) produce greater learning than repeated exposures with short intervals.  Longer intervals between exposures result in better learning than shorter intervals.

5. Television still has very high reach.  Declining ratings are due to fragmentation (more channels) not to reduced TV viewing levels, which are remarkably resilient to social and technological changes and to the emergence of “new media.”

6. Over the past 15 years, TV has not declined in its effectiveness at generating sales lift and appears to be more effective than either online or print at generating brand awareness and recognition.

7. Fast forwarding TV commercials results in little difference in advertising recall and likability.  To fast forward, one must give keen attention to the screen.  By giving attention, people not only recognize the ad, but in the process they experience similar emotional memories as when they first noticed the ad at normal speed.

And there you have it.  If you’d like to view the deep, dark empirical evidence in its entirety, please send me an email (dnewbold@richter7.com). Excuse me now while I return to more comfortable territory – the right brain.

What’s unusual about that simple, seemingly mundane, statement is that it was spoken by the renowned Renaissance artist, Michelangelo – in his 87th year. (Technically, he said “ancoro imparo.”) Given the scope of his achievement in painting, sculpture, poetry and architecture, this humility is striking and strongly reminiscent of another quotation attributed to the Greek philosopher Socrates. He said, “The wise man knows that he knows nothing.”

Beside the Michelangelo quote is taped another gem, this one from the best-selling business book, Leading Quietly. It’s a three-word motto that I also try to keep top-of-mind. It reads, “Modesty. Restraint. Tenacity.” I don’t think Michelangelo would mind that the two sit side by side on the wall.

How much time do you set aside for learning? Since when did you know it all? Since when can you rest on your laurels? It’s a very competitive world, as you’ve no doubt discovered. Resting leads to losing. Skills at any level of the corporate hierarchy dull quickly without constant sharpening.

One of my neighbors is a successful, self-employed real estate salesman. He works primarily by himself. No one else is responsible to train him, teach him or motivate him. Recognizing that fact, he’s wise enough to take two, self-imposed “feed the fire” trips each year. He leaves home, kisses his family goodbye, and heads for a rented condo in Park City. He then focuses for several long days on learning how to improve his performance. Tapes, books, magazines, videos and fresh air are all part of his curriculum. He readily admits that those one-man, learning soirees contribute mightily to his annual success.

I heard the well-respected leader of an international organization once say, “Can we not appreciate that our very business is life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves? To break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our todays, to give as we have never given, to do our work with more force and a finer finish than ever – this is the true idea: to get ahead of ourselves.”

And somewhere, Michelangelo is still studying sculpture.