My Israeli Client Had to Buy a New Office Door for a CEO

 

Remember, if you get people laughing, they bypass their rational mind! And after they get done laughing, if they really need to get their CEO's attention, they just might…

My client CEO was a former Israeli tank commander. Yep, not everyone would have the guts to do this ad. Hey, in the first line of copy, we offer to repari the door. Alas, one CEO insisted his door be replaced! But we did close the deal.

Monday, I'll show you another 4D use of my swell Rambo knife. These guys had guts and a great sense of humor. Please God, give me another Israeli client.

Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man

Marc Benioff was the only Oracle exec to be granted full autonomy by Larry Ellison

 

Larry Ellison saw something special in Marc Benioff when he hired the strapping youth right out of Apple and school. Every other Oracle executive obeyed, yea even worshipped, the chain of command. But not Marc. He ran his own show and never asked for Larry's approval. He ignored direction from all other departments, marketing, PR, finance, etc. No one to my knowledge has ever achieved this level of independence in Oracle.

I remember arriving for one of my Wednesday meetings with Ellison, and was met in the lobby by his CFO and his head of development. They asked, "You here to see Larry?" I answered in the affirmative, and they then said, "Will you ask Larry if he's approved our budgets and staffing?"

When I went upstairs to his office, I commented, "I saw (I named his VPs) and they asked if you'd acted on their budgets and staffing?"

He just laughed and said, "They can hang in the wind for a while. Let's do some ads."

Benioff, on the other hand, never asked permission to do anything. When Larry made him head of the Oracle-for-Macintosh project, I suggested we do a take-off on the Siskel and Hebert movie review show to announce the Mac product. Marc like the idea, so we got two prominent Mac superstars to pose in a theatre: Dan Shafer and Mac evangelist Guy Kawasaki. I don't believe Larry ever saw this ad before it ran.

Yep, Marc was special. Is it any wonder that I didn't think twice about doing his pre-IPO ads when he started Salesforce?

Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man

The Strange and Wonderful Story of A Guy Who Wanted to Sell Printers

 

Earlier this week, I was talking to a potential customer and the story of Dave Lester came to mind. Just after I'd started my own guerrilla warfare ad agency in Silicon Valley, this guy came to me and wanted to run an ad in one of the trade magazines for printers. I spent the last two days looking through my ad archives, because I "thought" I'd kept a copy of every ad I'd ever written. Alas, Dave old buddy, I don't have yours.

Even then, I asked him why anyone would call him. His answer: "I know everything about anything involved with printers." Good answer. That was my ad theme.

Dave called me a month after the ad ran, and said he'd sold a quarter-million dollars worth of printers to Hertz Car Rental. And he told me the story.

Hertz called him and said they wanted to get to printers for their rental kiosks, but nobody could give them a product that would eject extra paper so they could tear off the rental contract from the top slot of their kiosk. Dave, who really did know everything about printers, told them he could modify the EPROM in the printer to eject the form just where they wanted it. Which he subsequently did.

Lessons learned here?

1. Save all your stuff. ALL your stuff. Especially the early ads.
2. Give people a compelling reason to call you.
3. Hey Dave Lester, wherever you are. Did you keep a copy of the ad. If so, DM me and let's catch up. I'ld like to post a follow-on account of that adventure.

Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man

What happened when Oracle sales reps were to busy to return phone calls?

 

I got my sons jobs at Oracle when they were in high school. My eldest was answering the phones for Anneke Sealy's incoming-call group. He was the last gun in the "hunt loop," which meant that when everyone else was too busy to take calls, he got the call. He asked me what he should do if the frustrated caller said he had a million dollars to spend and couldn't get a sales rep to return his call. I said, "Simple. Transfer the call directly to Larry Ellison."

He took this advice three times. In each case, he'd tell the client to hold while he found The Right Guy. He'd then call Ellison's office and tell the secretary someone wanted to spend a million bucks and couldn't get a sales rep. In every case, he was given the okay to transfer the call to Larry. Then he'd get back with the caller, who was still on hold, and tell them he was transferring the call directly to Larry Ellison.

Larry got a kick out of it, and so did the caller. Like I said, Oracle's secret was getting butts in seminar seats. It kept the sales force quite busy with qualified leads.

Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man

Your Five Audiences and Why They Care You Are Number One

 

There are five audiences who care that Oracle was number one:

1. Potential customers. You've heard the old adage, "You can't get fired for going with IBM." Well, you can't get fired for dealing with the winner.

2. Your existing customers, who you don't want getting BUYERS REMORSE.

3. Your sales force, who enable to "strut" into meetings.

4. Your investors, who you don't want to think their race horse has started barking.

5. And your competition. Knock down the ladders for potential new competitors, and cause existing competition's hair to catch on fire.

Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man

Oracle secret to success was getting bodies into seminar seats

 

One of the Oracle sales reps came to me and related the story of a request he got from a major company. They wanted the price of an IBM 3090 Oracle license. He responded by inviting them to the next seminar in their area. They answered, "Oh, no. We've been to a seminar and want to buy Oracle. Give us a price."

I don't see a lot of butts-in-seats high-tech strategies playing out these days. Oracle's just listing all the seminars implied we were ubiquitous and successful. And, as this ad copy states, "a pillar" of the commuity.

Selah.

Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man

Part II: Building "Damage Control" Into Your Guerrilla Warfare Campaign

 

Back around 1986, I ran an ad for Oracle saying something to the effect that "The Top-10 Companies All Use Oracle." And I put each of their logos in the headline. Sure, the footnote acknowledged their trademarks, but Larry was set to handle any blowback. Boy did we get blowback.

Not only did IBM and the four oil companies' legal departments contact us, but Atlantic Richfield challenged us to show them where the hell they were using Oracle.

As planned, Larry had our legal department assure them that "We thought that crazy ad man got your permission. We will cease and desist ever again running this ad." But we had another problem with Atlantic Richfield.

Gulp. Being the tech whiz that I was, I'd queried our customer database and came to Larry Ellison with the news that the top ten companies were customers. What I didn't account for was that Atlantic Richfield had tried a $199 copy of Oracle for the PC and then returned it for a refund.

Gary Kennedy was head of Oracle sales in Chicago, and he was livid, saying we were well and totally ruined at ARCO. I said "Relax guys and see what happens."

What happend was spectacular. Within six months, ARCO bought a multi-million dollar site license for Oracle. You see, all their execs were suddenly aware of Oracle and started asking, "Why aren't we using them?" Turns out, our ad got the attention of all their C-level execs.

Like I always council my clients, "Damage control can yield big results." Oh, and FYI. Neither me nor any of my clients have ever been sued.

Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man