Four Legacies Mortgage customers don't work with a loan officer. Instead, they are connected with the company's chief motivation officer or its wealth creation specialist.

"We wanted to be creative with our titles," said Brent Rauch, chief inspiration officer at Four Legacies in West Des Moines, Iowa. "And I help inspire financial freedom for customers."

A growing number of companies are looking at clever job titles to create a buzz and set themselves apart from competitors. And it's not just the technology and advertising firms that are ditching traditional titles in favor of fun and funky ones.

Companies sometimes use nontraditional titles to mix things up at a company, said Paula Morrow, marketing professor at Iowa State University. Or it signals a change in leadership in which executives are trying "to show they are different than what's been in the past," Morrow said.

Computer repair chain the Geek Squad, a division of Best Buy Inc., hires special agents, field marshals and mission controllers to operate on the front lines, while back-office operations still are conducted by the chief executive and a bevy of presidents and vice presidents.

Des Moines -based Meredith, the media giant that publishes the grand dame of home and decorating, Better Homes and Gardens, isn't hiring editors anymore. Instead, Meredith is looking for content strategists, Jack Griffin, the company's publishing president, said during a recent speech.

While no formal change in job titles has occurred at Meredith, the company is looking at better matching job duties to titles, spokesman Art Slusark said.

"We are looking at what role editors have now," said Slusark. Meredith editors not only consider how stories and pictures will look in their magazines, but how the same material will play on the company's growing number of Web sites or on its television stations.

Even folks at the Cedar Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce have tapped into the trend. Its director of first impressions is the first contact most people have with the agency.

"I am at the front desk and I am the first person people deal with when they call the chamber," said Cindy Klein, who also acts as the chamber's office manager. Klein said she did not create the title but inherited it when she joined the chamber staff 17 months ago.

Drew McLellan has been the top dog at his advertising firm for 13 years. Unusual job titles already were common among artistic and creative companies a decade or more ago when he started using them.

New employees at McLellan Marketing Group have two weeks to come up with a title that explains their job, McLellan said. Employees have fun with the assignment, he said.

McLellan Marketing's duchess of details is a project manager. And the warden is the company's accountant who "keeps us all in line," McLellan said.

The funky titles always are conversation starters, McLellan said. They also give customers an immediate flavor of the company.

"We don't have quirky titles just to be quirky," he said. "We do it to get people interested in the company. It lets them know right away what we do and what we're about."

What about those potential clients who are bristle at the informal titles?

"That means they probably aren't a good client for us anyway," McLellan said. "If our titles amuse or interest you, that's the first sign we're compatible."

Mike Sansone said he endorses unusual job titles as long as they fit the culture of the industry they are targeting.

"You have to know your audience," Sansone said. "If it's traditional and conservative, you have to respect that."

He is the conversation conductor and social mediatician at his company, ConverStations, a Clive, Iowa-based company that helps businesses blog. He assists companies in setting up blogs and connects businesses with other businesses.

He encourages any business that is considering jazzing up job titles to give it a shot.

"But the title needs to convey right away what it is you do."

AP Video