Hogle Zoo's Ripple film campaign, created by Richter7 in June 2011, uses narrative-driven storytelling to connect Utah audiences with wildlife and the leisure
ARCHIVEHow Hogle Zoo's Ripple Campaign Made a Case for Wildlife Wonder
Hogle Zoo's "Ripple" is a film campaign produced in June 2011 by Salt Lake City agency Richter7, designed to reframe a visit to the zoo as a meaningful leisure experience for audiences in the United States by using quiet, observational narrative rather than spectacle or promotion.
The campaign centres on a single film asset, produced by Saint Cloud and directed by Julian Acosta, and takes its name from the metaphor of a ripple effect — the idea that an encounter with wildlife sends emotional and intellectual reverberations outward into a visitor's everyday life. Rather than advertising ticket prices or seasonal events, "Ripple" positions Hogle Zoo as a place where something genuinely changes in the people who walk through its gates. The creative team, led by copywriter Gary Sume and creative directors Gary Sume, Ryan Anderson, and Dave Newbold, built the campaign around that interior transformation rather than external spectacle.
In the United States, the travel and leisure sector was recovering from a period of consumer caution following the 2008 financial crisis, and institutions such as zoos, aquariums, and botanical gardens were competing with an expanding range of family entertainment options for discretionary time and spending. Against that backdrop, Hogle Zoo and Richter7 chose an approach that prioritised emotional resonance over transactional messaging — a strategic bet that narrative craft could do the work that promotional discounting could not.
ARCHIVERichter7 built the "Ripple" campaign on a specific insight about how leisure decisions are made by families in the United States. The agency understood that a zoo visit is rarely purchased on the basis of a feature list. It is purchased on the basis of anticipated feeling — the sense that children will be awed, that parents will share something irreplaceable, and that the experience will matter beyond the afternoon itself. "Ripple" names that feeling directly and makes it the entire argument for the visit.
This approach placed Hogle Zoo in deliberate contrast to the dominant communication style of the American leisure and recreation industry, where competing attractions including theme parks and large-scale entertainment venues have historically relied on scale, novelty, and sensory stimulation as their primary advertising currencies. By choosing restraint, Richter7 differentiated Hogle Zoo from that register of communication without needing to name a competitor directly. The implicit argument is that the zoo offers something more durable than excitement alone.
The broader market context for this strategic positioning is instructive. Toronto Zoo recorded attendance of 1,241,695 in 2011, falling short of its budget target of 1,325,000, according to Toronto Ca — a figure that underscores the competitive and economic pressure facing public zoological institutions in North America during this period. Similarly, Brookfield Zoo reported approximately 2.2 million visitors in 2010, though revenue came in nearly three million dollars below forecast, according to the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians. These data points reflect the attendance environment in which Hogle Zoo was operating and reinforce the logic of investing in brand-level emotional storytelling rather than purely promotional advertising.
Director Julian Acosta shaped the single film asset at the heart of "Ripple" with an approach grounded in restraint and observation. Production was handled by Saint Cloud, and the film's construction reflects a deliberate choice to let image and pacing carry meaning rather than relying on exposition or graphic overlay.
Copywriter Gary Sume, who also served as a creative director on the campaign alongside Ryan Anderson and Dave Newbold, built the verbal layer of the film around the central metaphor that gives the work its name. The notion of a ripple — something small that spreads outward in ways that are larger than their origin — gives the film both its emotional architecture and its tonal register. Art direction by Ryan Anderson ensured that the visual world of the film matched that tonal intention, favouring intimacy over grandeur and detail over sweep.
The campaign sits within a coherent creative lineage that Richter7 developed for Hogle Zoo across several years. According to adruby.com, the agency produced a 2008 print campaign for Hogle Zoo titled "Jump, Poop, Meat, Fear," featuring the same creative personnel — Ryan Anderson, Gary Sume, and Dave Newbold — alongside illustrator Michael Slack. A further film campaign, "Zoo Lights," followed in November 2008 with the addition of animator and editor Kirstin Lepour and sound designer Ken Kruckenberg, as documented by adruby.com. "Ripple" represents the maturation of that creative relationship, with the team moving from wit-driven print work toward a more contemplative film register, as documented by commarts.com. This continuity of personnel across multiple years is itself a marker of creative coherence — the people making "Ripple" had spent years building a shared understanding of what Hogle Zoo should feel like as a brand.
No verified performance data for "Ripple" is publicly available. No published attendance figures attributable to the campaign, no reported sales lift, and no documented media reach have been confirmed across publicly accessible sources. The campaign received no verified awards from Cannes Lions, the Effie Awards, The One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, or WARC, and no trade press reviews have been located in Campaign, Ad Age, Adweek, The Drum, or Contagious.
In the absence of measurable outcome data, the campaign's structural effectiveness can be assessed on strategic and creative grounds. "Ripple" demonstrates a clear alignment between its stated metaphor and every element of its execution — direction, art direction, copy, and production all serve the same central idea. That internal coherence is one of the most reliable structural indicators of a campaign capable of producing genuine brand recall. The work also demonstrates category intelligence: in a leisure market where institutional advertising frequently defaults to promotion, "Ripple" operates at the level of brand narrative, which is a longer-term but more durable form of persuasion.
Clapboard's editorial assessment places "Ripple" at 63 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's genuine creative ambition and its coherent strategic foundation, discounted by the absence of any documented cultural impact, trade recognition, or verifiable audience response.
"Ripple" is a 2011 film campaign for Hogle Zoo created by Salt Lake City agency Richter7. It uses a single film asset to reframe the zoo visit as an emotionally resonant leisure experience in the United States, built around the metaphor of a ripple effect from a wildlife encounter. Production was handled by Saint Cloud.
Julian Acosta directed the Ripple film for Hogle Zoo. The campaign was produced by Saint Cloud and overseen by a creative team at Richter7 that included creative directors Gary Sume, Ryan Anderson, and Dave Newbold, with Gary Sume as copywriter and Ryan Anderson as art director, according to available production records.
Richter7, a Salt Lake City agency in the United States, created the Ripple campaign for Hogle Zoo in June 2011. The agency had an established creative relationship with Hogle Zoo, having produced earlier campaigns including the 2008 print work "Jump, Poop, Meat, Fear" and the 2008 film campaign "Zoo Lights," according to adruby.com.
No verified awards for the Ripple campaign have been found. A review of Cannes Lions, the Effie Awards, The One Show, D&AD, the Clios, the Webby Awards, and WARC records confirms no documented recognition for this specific 2011 Hogle Zoo film campaign created by Richter7.
Clapboard assigns the Ripple campaign a score of 63 out of 100. The rating reflects the campaign's coherent creative strategy and strong internal alignment between concept and execution, reduced by the absence of verifiable audience response data, trade press coverage, or documented awards recognition for this 2011 Hogle Zoo film.
Ripple represents the third documented campaign Richter7 produced for Hogle Zoo, following the 2008 print campaign "Jump, Poop, Meat, Fear" and the 2008 film "Zoo Lights," according to adruby.com and commarts.com. Each campaign shares core creative personnel, giving the Hogle Zoo brand a consistent voice across print and film formats over several years.
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