​Sometimes you’ve got to make the audience uneasy. Here’s how.
 
Halloween is the one time each year when it’s appropriate to give your audience a good, safe scare. Right? 
 
Wrong. You can do it all year!
 
Sure, it’s fun to get scared for fun at Halloween (and, as the old joke goes, to get scared for real a week later on Election Day), but there’s only so much business you can build around, well, a pumpkin. 
 
In this article, we’re going to explore numerous ways to generate unease in your audience, using multiple techniques in various media. But first, let’s explore the important premise, namely: Why on earth would you ever want to scare your audience?
 
Enter FUD
 
A better question, arguably, is: Why on earth would you not want to scare your audience? 
 
Look at it this way: If your prospects are content to the point of being smug, what do they lack? What do they need? Answer: Nothing. 
 
First off, that’s unrealistic. No one has 100 percent of their needs met, 100 percent of the time; just ask Maslow. So that’s an audience of zero. When you’re looking to sell your goods or services, you want to focus in on the ones who are, well, suffering. The people whose lives just can’t wait to be improved by what you’re proposing to offer them. 
 
We learned a great acronym while working on projects in aerospace and defense. If you haven’t learned it before, you should. It’s called FUD. It stands for Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. Let’s say you’re a well-entrenched incumbent with a fat defense contract that’s due for a re-compete. And now all these “young upstarts” are trying their best to unseat you. What’s your defense? Well, you can do worse than to employ FUD in your proposal. Something like: “Would you really feel secure with a company that lacks our proven expertise? Can you imagine the catastrophic consequences of failure? Do you think they’ll really come through for you when the mission, national security, and lives are on the line?” That’s FUD in a nutshell. 
 
FUD. It applies to everything from insurance (“Are you covered?”) to professional services (“Are you sure you’re getting the best settlement?”) to consumer packaged goods (“Do you want anything less for your children?”). You think those are only sold at Halloween? 
 
What is spooky?
 
This is one of those questions that’s easier to answer when posed in reverse. What’s the opposite of spooky? Peaceful. Tranquil. Serene. How do those sensations translate to creative media? Pretty obviously: Without our even telling you, we know you’re picturing bright light, pastel colors, and airy fonts. You’re hearing sweet music played on a harp, acoustic guitar, or piano, perhaps with an angelic choir behind it. You’re picturing people glowingly illuminated by high-key lighting, with everything clear and in focus. And the people are, of course, smiling. 
 
Now let’s “evil twin” all that; this should be fun. You’re picturing darkness. Things are obscure and blurry. The music is dissonant. The expressions are nervous and worried. It’s a world of unease. 
 
More to the point, you’re seeing heavier fonts. You’re hearing minor chord progressions and dissonant strings. You’re seeing broken rules of composition (see our entire article about breaking creative rules), with the “breathing room” choked off. 
 
That is all good. But it can be misleading. Never forget contrast and context. If you render something all black, it’s meaningless. You can’t have shadow without light; those minor chords don’t sound spooky unless they’ve transitioned from major ones. It’s a matter of balance. And finding and striking that balance may well be what we could call “the art of FUD.” 
 
And don’t forget the power of what you don’t reveal. Just as the scariest movies don’t show the monster (think of the first half of Jaws, or Val Lewton classics like Cat People or The Leopard Man), but rather leave its awful presence to your imagination, the mere suggestion of something lurking, something just out of sight or reach, can be truly unnerving. This can be accomplished in images, via video editing, and even in copy. If you’re using it to well-planned effect, the results can be memorable and powerful. 
 
We recently worked on a piece which used, very simply, images of busy, modern offices… all devoid of people. The images, which we sourced from stock libraries, weren’t hard to find. But taken together, one after another, one huge empty office with desks that appear to have been occupied just minutes ago, all totally empty, reinforced with copy about the prospect’s “missing workforce,” was wholly unnerving. It had a Twilight Zone-like quality to it. You see a busy modern office; you expect to see it teeming with people. You see it empty: it’s unsettling. The execution couldn’t have been simpler. The budget couldn’t have been lower. But the effect was priceless. 
 
Need help with that next creative challenge, whether it’s a spooky one or not? Contact us. We’d be delighted to scare up some good results for you. 

Three top tricks for making more money
 
Quick: How much of your college education do you put to use at work each day? 
 
Second question: By contrast, how much of your career experience do you put to use at work each day? 
 
We’ll guess your answer to the second question outweighs the first one, mightily. 
 
We’re not going to spend this article dinging a college education. Rather, we’re going to focus on that education you got—and continue to get—while earning a living, and how to leverage it to your advantage. To make it pay, even more. 
 
The Man From Infinity
 
Years ago, we were working at an ad agency in New York, and were tasked with our first “color separation” for a full-page newspaper ad. Back then, this was a complex assignment that involved a high-tech vendor, a considerable budget, and special skills. (Today, it’s not even done anymore. If you create a newspaper ad on your computer, the file automatically includes the “CMYK” [cyan, magenta, yellow, and black] “plates” that are “separated out” for the different inks on the printing press, hence the term “color separation.”) 
 
This was new to us. Daunting, even. Because it’s one thing to get the funds for the separation and call in the vendor—but that’s only after you’ve applied these “special skills” to create the input artwork in the first place… skills which we didn’t have. 
 
A senior art director at the time gave us the magic tip: “Ask the vendor to show you.”
 
Simple as that. 
 
The company that did the “sep’s” for us was called Infinity. And the guy who worked there was named Steve. Steve From Infinity! Sounds like a super-hero. And in this case, he was: he swooped in and taught us all we needed to know. 
 
Was he being nice? Sure. Was he “cultivating a new client to boost his income”? Absolutely. 
 
Did we get an education? Indeed. Did we pay for it? No. In fact, we were on the company payroll at the time. Paid education. Put another way: Free food tastes better. 
 
The joys of email
 
There are a few guidelines you can apply toward bolstering your paid education: 
 
1. Pay attention.  

2. Be humble.  

3. Build. 
​ 
“Paying attention” is easier today than ever, thanks to email. If you’re cc’ed on the latest iteration of a deep thread from a client or a higher-up within your own organization, read the entire thread, from the bottom up.It’s amazing what you can learn from the depths of a conversation that was sent to you only for the benefit of the last addition. You can see how other functions function. You can see who the players are. You can get a handle on protocol: what’s accepted, and what isn’t. You can pick up on useful terminology or jargon. You can discern important strata of politics among stakeholders, sponsors, and customers. You can even pick up the timing of events and correspondence, based on the meta-data. In short, it’s a trove. Don’t pass it up. 
 
“Be humble” is another way of saying “Ask.” Think of it this way: Whenever you need to ask someone something, the tacit implication is that they know more than you. So when you ask someone—when you request to tap their expertise and experience—you’re complimenting them. It’s such a win/win: You look great for expressing humility, interest, and curiosity. The “teacher” feels great for being respected and valued. And you come away with new knowledge that’s valuable to your career. Would you gain any of these benefits if you cop an attitude or are afraid to admit your ignorance? Of course not. 
 
“Build” means that you can find synergies that aren’t handed to you as such. If you’re serving several clients in various verticals, you can apply the lessons of one to the business of another. And Business B will be all the more impressed that you did, simply because they lack the visibility into Business A’s industry that you possess. 
 
And take advantage of all venues. We’d mentioned email as one simple example. But there are optional meetings that could pay off handsomely, if the attendee list looks ripe. Ditto for conference calls, webinars, vendor presentations…. don’t look at them as “chores.” Look at them as “opportunities to learn.”
 
Making it pay
 
Each new skill set you add to your quiver is valuable. It’s as much “breadth” as it is “depth”; indeed, your paid education will often yield you more of the former than the latter. 
 
Of course, there are times when you simply need to tap the services of people who have been there, done that. Like us. For your next creative or communication challenge, we’d love to help—and put our hard-earned education to work for you. Contact us today for a no-obligation consultation.