This site went live in October 2010 to flesh out technology and legality of CYBER PRIVATEERING as I wrote DADDY'S LITTLE FELONS. The novel pays homage to my old friend Judge Pat Brian, who died of pancreatic cancer on June 28, 2010.To get updates as new articles are posted, enter your email below:
Making a former principal and school teacher into a Texas hero was a job meant for me. I loved killing ALL the competition with kindness!
Notice how I learned from Larry Ellison that three words beneath the logo encapsulate uniqueness. In Oracle's case it was "Compatibility • Portability • Connectibility." for School Improvement, it was "Practical • Scalable • Measurable."
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
Since I've never seen a porn site in my life, I always get a laugh out of these attempts. Gee, the price has gone up to $2200. You know, it's only a matter of time before someone uses AI to generate a fake video for such extortion. Heaven help us.
In the meantime, I have a favor to ask of any black hats out there: I think I know who this crook is. If you want to have some fun, I'll give you his email address and honeypot website. Have at it!
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
And by the way, their CEO Chet Linton is a powerhouse!
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
I'm fairly conservative on the political scale. My client had a partner who was off-the-charts liberal. Curtis Linton actually believed you could achieve equity in education, which meant that no matter what the socio-economic level of the students, they could achieve educational parity. In other words, poor ESL kids could achieve the same grade-level scores as white, affluent kids.
Admittedly, I'm a prep-school (Andover) snob, and have a strong bias for silver-spoon upbringing. Sure, I went to Andover on full scholarship, but boy did I stick my nose in the air. Then I met Curtis.
He wrote a book called EQUITY 101. Over the years I worked with School Improvement Network, I drank the Coolaid. Yes Curtis, my bomb-throwing liberal friend, you're right. Equity in education can be achieved.
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
Plus, you make your customers into celebrities.
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
I got this idea from an adventure I had with Oracle. My #2 son had gone to work for Oracle and they asked him to try and diffuse a big Oracle critic. I told him that they must want to fire him, because this guy was an enemy. So I suggested they pay him to be a spokesperson. Overnight, he became an Oracle booster and started a successful Oracle consulting business.
In education, there are a lot of value-added speakers, so I had School Improvement Network feature them in an ad.
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
"The world's largest community of verified educators" makes a gentle point.
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
A little boy playing baseball is a feel-good story. And my client absolutely took over the making-educators-better market with "the most educators and the broadest range of topics."
Yep, kill the competition with niceness!
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
I really love the work I did for School Improvement Network. And when I went to their annual customer events, I got to meet some really cool people who were proud to be in our ads. Sincerely yours, Rick Bennett Ad Hit Man
These guys were on a mission to do good. And they were local. I generally wanted to declare war on competition. And I never sought a local client. Why? How many of you remember the movie BONNIE AND CLYDE, with Warren Beaty and Fay Dunnaway? Near the end of their lives, Bonnie asked Clyde what he would do differently if they could do it all over again. I expected Clyde to say something about being a lawyer, or a banker. His answer surprised me. He said, "Well, I wouldn't pull jobs in my home state. That way, I wouldn't be wanted by the law at home." Words to live by. I never wanted a client in my home state because I didn't want to launch guerrilla warfare in my home state. In fact, few of my neighbors knew what that nice Rick Bennett did for a living. I'll be sharing a few more of my School Improvement Network ads over the next few days. Sincerely yours, Rick Bennett Ad Hit Man
This worked well when I had Salesforce attacking Siebel with "I will not give my lunch money to Siebel." I became friends with Gary Kennedy at Oracle University, and when he started Remedy we had some fun.
Yes, it's okay to plagiarize from yourself.
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
Linus was flattered and spent the afternoon at my client's booth signing copies of the ad. Marc Benioff, however, was irritated by this USA TODAY ad that had everyone at Dreamforce asking him about his presidential bid. Of course, it didn't help that the ad invited people to stop by Reachable's Dreamforce booth to get a copy of the ad for Marc to sign. Sincerely yours, Rick Bennett Ad Hit Man
I got a call one day from a fellow named Rick Bennett who found me by googling his own name. He was a preacher in Mineral Wells, Texas and wondered if I could help him promote his ministry. I asked him a few questions and determined that he didn't "pass the plate" to his congregation. I was impressed that he wasn't involved in what my own church calls "priestcraft," or charging for "the word." I suggested he run this billboard in Texas.
Helping him consider damage control, I told him that his competition in "The Bible Belt" would probably crucify him on some fence posts, but that it wouldn't kill him. Having recently had a bicycle accident myself, I told him his body would probably go in to shock when they drove the nails into his hands, and that some Good Samaritan would definitely find him and take him to a hospital. After which he could claim in his sermons that he knew how Jesus felt.
Alas, he never ran the ad, although he subsequently ran for mayor of Mineral Wells, TX. If you're ever driving through Texas, you might stop in his little town and look up Preacher Rick Bennett. Say, "Hi!"
Sincerley yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
Learn.com didn't get invited to the White House. They were acquired by Taleo which was then acquired by Oracle.
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
My client was Scott Smith, CEO of KIDZ MAGAZINE. He wanted automakers to advertise with him. Did you know Detroit has the cheapest billboards in the world? I got this on a major highway near the GM HQ. Result?
Not only did the the Saturn division of GM request a meeting, but so did Toyota. Evidently, they had teams snooping around Detroit, too.
Here's the link to the video we produced for the landing page: https://lnkd.in/gMjr9jCU
Sincerely yours,
Rick Bennett
Ad Hit Man
