Here's a Tony Schwartz political ad that still cracks me up

 

My guerrilla warfare mentor, the man who created the Daisy ad that destroyed Barry Goldwater in 1964, did an ad for a guy named Touhy who tried to unseat Erastus Corning for mayor of Albany, NY.

Remember, if you make people laugh, you put them into a state of mind to consider change. I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

That's me on the right and Tony on the left, in his NYC brownstone studio.

Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man

This is my model: THE GREATEST AD EVER CREATED

 

My guerrella warfare mentor created the greatest ad ever run, anytime, anywhere. The DAISY ad ran only once on one television network, and completely destroyed Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign. You see, no other network dared run it, but it became so newsworthy that all the news shows commented on it.

Hence my philosophy that "Any business problem can be solved with one ad, run one time, in one medium…if it's the right ad, at the right time, in the right media."

Tony and his wife are gone, now. And his son, Anton Schwartz, is a music prodigy who plays the saxaphone. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and I can't wait to see how Anton changes the world from another direction.

Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man

Back in 1976, I was on Alan Ludden's TV show TO TELL THE TRUTH.

 

I'd invented a voice stress analyzer that you could hook to your telephone and detect possible deception. PR insight: Get on one tv show, you'll become a celebrity and get on all of them. It's also great training for public appearances. I quit saying "Uh" in the middle of my public remarks.

Note also, that publicity generates a firestorm. Senator Birch Bayh introduced legislation to make covert voice stress analysis illegal. That experience paid off in spades when I created some Oracle ads that caused blowback. I conviced Larry Ellison that you always had to have a damage control plan. Things worked out well.

Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man

Here's an idea whose time is long past: "CLICK ME, I'M HUMAN"

 

My old buddy David Hsieh had a company called FaceTime (guess who bought that name from him?). Given the proliferation of complicated phone message chains and AI agents, what would you give to click and talk to a regular human being?

Interestingly, www.clickmeimhuman.com is available! My gift to some entrepreneur who wants to land big retail B2C accounts, like tiffany.clickmeimhuman.com, etc.

Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man

Back before I started guerrilla warfare, I produced this doodle during one of Data General's meetings. Years later, I found it framed in one of the HR guy's office.

 

I guess my artwork encapsulated all the failures of DG. I'm amazed the HR guy had guts enough to actually hang this in his office.

Sincerely,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man