Exploiting Hollywood 1980

"Mr. Ovitz..." The owner of Ivar's Restaurant was very satisfied with the visit of the president of the famous CAA. The person who later acquired the chain restaurant was from Hollywood and had a full understanding of Ovitz's power.

The restaurant was in trouble, and they were ready to spend money to make a big advertisement to save it because the restaurant had less and less traffic after the aquarium was closed. But they couldn't afford to hire a big advertising company.

At this time, a lady named Shelly Hochron took the initiative to contact them and said that she could tailor a marketing plan for them. Only after meeting did they know that Shelly was actually an employee of CAA.

Shelly Hochron kept silent about when CAA started to engage in advertising business, but introduced that they could do creative work for them first, as long as they paid the production cost of the advertisement. After that, they would talk about the creative cost after seeing the effect of the advertisement.

In this way, a new advertisement chasing the recent hot movie "Dances with Wolves" came out, and the effect was very good. There was a queue in their restaurant again. The shareholders who bought the restaurant from the founder Ivar contacted Shelly Hochron to prepare to pay the creative fee.

"Gentlemen, I think you are satisfied with the effect of the advertisement?" Ovitz sat down and ate some vegetable salad provided by the restaurant.

"Yes, this is the creative fee we prepared for CAA..." The boss did not expect that Ovitz would come in person this time. He took out a check, folded it and pushed it over.

"Hmm?" Ovitz opened the check elegantly, and the six-digit number on it stung his eyes. Then he picked up a pen, wrote "Void" on the front of the check, and pushed it back, "Gentlemen, I think we have to talk about it..."

...

Ovitz has a charming charm. In the eyes of those who don't know him, this is a kind of confidence that he knows his industry well, such as the owners of Ivar's restaurant. Under his well-reasoned explanation, they also felt that this check was too little. This advertisement is not a one-time thing, it can become one of the symbols of the restaurant, "Clam Man"!

They were especially lucky that the boss of the largest agency in Hollywood could choose a company like theirs as a client because he wanted to develop new business. Otherwise, they would not be able to hire such a master.

"Do you understand, Shelly? Business is done this way. Take advantage of information asymmetry and their ignorant worship of stars. First, give them something good that they have never seen, and then boldly ask for a price. Don't be afraid to ask for a high price. If they don't want to, you can pretend to call me and say that if I come, it will be more than this price."

Ovitz will personally train every novice once. If they can't do it in the future, it's their own business.

Moreover, he has to keep this advertising business secret from other partners in CAA, otherwise he will not come to such a small business.

"I understand, thank you." Shelly Hochron nodded continuously.

"I understand, then start your ass and prepare the materials." Ovitz waved his hand and asked his subordinates to quickly prepare the materials for the next customer. "Well... this clam is still quite delicious."

The car continued to move towards Microsoft, the darling of the capital market recently. This is the main reason why Ovitz came here.

Ovitz already felt that he had hit the ceiling of the industry. Even if he was the best in the agent industry and had obtained more than 50% of the star agency contracts, he still felt that his ability could do greater things.

Originally, he designed a career path for himself, which was to make a fortune through the acquisition of Panasonic, and then strive to become the CEO of the acquired company.

But that guy came out and messed up his business again. Not only did his consulting fee drop by half, but the chairman of Panasonic no longer mentioned inviting him to be a senior executive of the new company. These Japanese people are all the same. If they don’t want to do something, they will never mention it.

…

"I am so angry, this xx Ballmer"

Not long after, Ovitz returned to the car and began to vent his anger and curse.

Microsoft said it was a so-called high-tech company, but their senior vice president of marketing, Steve Ballmer, was simply the worst salesman, and his words were almost the same as those of Amway, a direct sales company.

This person is bald. Although he is in a high-tech company, he speaks vulgarly and has a thick neck like a boxer. If you say he is a debt collector for a loan company, people will believe it.

He rejected Ovitz's proposal after a few words. What celebrity endorsements, famous Hollywood directors shooting commercials, we at Microsoft don't need this.

"Boss, your phone number, the secretary has called you several times." Shelly Hochron handed over the car phone, she was also a little scared of Ovitz's angry look.

"Hello? This is Ovitz."

"There are three gentlemen from the FBI, they said they want to check with you..." The secretary on the other end of the phone looked a little nervous.

"FBI? What are they going to do?"

"They said it involves state secrets, and they have to wait for you to come back to the office for a meeting. Boss, you should come back soon, these people are still in the company, if the client sees it, it will be very troublesome."

"Okay, I'll be right back." A cloud of doubt arose in Ovitz's heart. What did he let the FBI know about him? Get them to come to the office? If this spreads out, what will your customers think of caa? "You ask a few gentlemen from law enforcement agencies to come to my office to rest, and then get me through the phone of my lawyer."

Ovitz rushed back to Los Angeles as quickly as possible and went directly into the office. He didn't want to bring a lawyer, as if he had done something, and he planned to check it out with the FBI first.

"Hello, Mr. Ovitz. I am..." Three people from the law enforcement unit, one wearing an ordinary jacket and slightly older, took the initiative to shake hands with him.

"Hello, I don't know what the three FBI gentlemen have to do with me." Ovitz looked at the other two employees. They were wearing suits and their temperaments looked different from the older one.

"Let me introduce, these two are CIA employees. Because they do not have domestic law enforcement rights, they need an FBI employee to participate..."

"Cia?" Ovitz's heart skipped a beat, how could it be them? All the preparations I had made with the lawyer on the road were in vain.

"Hello, Mr. Ovitz. We recently noticed some remarks you made in an interview."

"Remarks, what remarks?" Ovitz stood up as soon as he heard it. As long as it's not about Israel, I'm not afraid of these people at all. CIA is better. Anyway, you have no law enforcement power in the country. I am a citizen. What can you do to me?

"Please don't get excited. We want to ask you some questions about some of the services you provide to Japanese companies."

"I want my lawyer to be present. This is a business secret..." Ovitz became firm. America is a society governed by the rule of law. Can these people still mess around? I'll talk to a congressman, what else can you do?

"Are you sure? Very good, we will come back tomorrow..." The two CIA agents in suits stood up and left. The FBI detective wearing a jacket was not so tough and stepped forward to shake his hand. "This is just a normal procedure, Mr. Ovitz, sorry to bother you. If you think of anything, call me at any time."

Ovitz shook his hand and asked him out without any pretense.

"If someone reminds you, if you think of anything again..." The man said one more thing before going out.

Ovitz asked him out without even looking up.

Nothing happened all night, and Ovitz felt a little relieved.

Because of the interview with the Wall Street Journal that day, the IRS believed it was necessary to verify whether the consulting fees he received from Panasonic last year were properly reported in accordance with tax law requirements.

Just like this, all kinds of people came to visit the company. Even Ron Meyer, the partner who founded caa with him, couldn't help but talk to him about this matter.

"I'm pursuing Michael Douglas now, and it's time for Cher to renew her contract. Can you settle this matter as soon as possible? Don't fill the office with the power of law enforcement?"

"What should I settle? They don't know what they are here for. Just leave these matters to the lawyers." Ovitz also suspected that someone was targeting him, but he couldn't say anything now. As for the consulting fee, it was actually for him personally and had nothing to do with CAA. But it was hard for me to speak out, otherwise I would be blamed by Meyer and other senior partners.

"Why don't you ask our friend, Mr. Allen Cranston? Try to resolve this matter as soon as possible and get rid of him, Michael." Ron Meyer walked out of the office.

"Hmph..." Ovitz punched the table. Meyer has many key clients, but he is not very ambitious and timid. When he squeezed out several other entrepreneurial partners, he could only watch his actions obediently.

But just such a person actually wants to do it by himself early today... Those cutting-edge agents in the company are becoming more and more lawless now. These self-cultivated wolves have great ambitions and appetites. Of course Meyer is harmless to them, but they actually have a good relationship...

However, Meyer's proposal makes sense. He picked up the phone and asked his secretary to call Senator Allen Cranston's office and make an appointment with the senior senator from the Donkey Party.

"Michael, our state's other senator, Pete Wilson, is about to become governor. He has appointed a temporary senator, but he will soon face re-election. Can I expect your support?"

Senator Allen Cranston called Ovitz. The two senators in California are from the Donkey Party, but this temporary change will cause instability in the senatorial election. As a senior senator, Congressman, let Ovitz do something first before talking about it. His celebrity clients who came out to support the interim senator seeking re-election were all very effective campaign tactics.

"Of course, many of my clients support the progressive Donkey Party from the bottom of their hearts. They would stand up for it without my approval."

"Hahaha..." Allen Cranston smiled heartily. He is now the whip of the Donkey Party in the Senate. He has been a senator since 1968 and has been re-elected to this day. "You know, I I have always been interested in Hollywood. If I hadn’t been engaged in politics after retiring from World War II, maybe I would have tried acting.”

"Haha..." Ovitz could only pretend to agree.

Allen Cranston was no ordinary veteran. He had been a reporter before the war.

During World War II, he also worked in the predecessor of the CIA, the Strategic Intelligence Agency, on open information intelligence. After retiring, he never talked about this service experience.

"I..." Ovitz wanted to ask who he had offended.

"Listen, little guy. Your interview with the Wall Street Journal crossed the line. I only have one piece of advice for you, don't mess with the White House. The person now is not a Hollywood actor, you don't need me to remind you of his background, right? Take care of yourself!"

Senator Alan Cranston hung up the phone.

"White House? When did I mess with the White House?"

Ovitz quickly found the clip of his interview with the Wall Street Journal... Slowly looking down, he finally found the sentence they mentioned about him.

"Why don't you ask Ronald Lee?"

"Me?!..."

A chill ran up his spine from his back, and Ovitz felt himself shivering.

"Didn't they say Ronald had no connection with the White House? I also watched all the videos of the inauguration ceremony on purpose."

He immediately realized that he had made a mistake in a crucial factor. The reason why Ronald was able to snatch his consulting business was not because he knew any shitty Japanese culture, but because he knew the key people!

His talkativeness might have upset the big man behind the scenes.

Besides, he was not impeccable in the Israeli spy case.

Alan Cranston's reminder made him completely sober. The current president was not like his predecessor, who was a Hollywood actor and had a little affection for Hollywood. He might not use such private affairs to trouble the powerful departments.

The current president was a head of the powerful departments. The current directors and middle-level cadres of the FBI and CIA were all his subordinates.

"Fxck!" Ovitz broke out in a cold sweat. He read the report for a long time, and then asked his secretary to invite Ron Meyer.

"Ron, you have to do me a favor!"

"Oh?" Meyer was wearing a casual suit and looked harmless. It seemed that because Ovitz hadn't asked his old friend for help for a long time, he finally thought of his old friend and showed a happy smile on his face.

"The Wall Street Journal quoted me. I was in a hurry to attend Spielberg's party and said something casually. They may have misheard."

"What do you mean?" Mayer's smile was still very warm, with a hint of inquiry.

"It's here. I wanted them to ask you, because you are in an objective position, and it's difficult for me to comment on my other businesses outside CAA. As a result, they misheard."

As he said, Ovitz pointed to the name "Ronald Lee" above.

"Ronald Lee, Ronald Mayer... It's a bit like... I'll call them, do you want a new correction interview?"

"Oh? No, I'll tell you, and then you call them and make an errata, otherwise it will cause misunderstandings..." Ovitz didn't want Mayer to have the opportunity to be interviewed and show off. CAA is best remembered when it is only tied to Ovitz's name.

The crisis was solved in a few seconds, and Ovitz breathed a sigh of relief.

Sure enough, the next day, the Wall Street Journal published an errata in an inconspicuous place. And those people from the powerful departments stopped harassing him after that.

Only the poor Ivar restaurant was sued by "Dances with Wolves" and was struggling to respond to the lawsuit. Their boss also called and hoped to get back his millions of creative fees, but Ovitz refused.

If you have the guts, go and sue me? Advertising creativity is only responsible for some creative content. If the basic facts you provided are wrong, what does it have to do with me if you are sued?

Besides, this kind of small business is also used to train the team. Ovitz was thinking about the advertising business of Fortune 500 multinational companies.

For example: Coca-Cola.

Just when he thought of Coca-Cola, Ovitz received a call from the other party.

"I'm Ovitz."

"I'm Don (Keough, President of Coca-Cola)"

"Mr. Keough."

"There are many dissenting voices in our marketing team. They told me that we don't object to you separating advertising production from those advertising companies and giving it directly to creative personnel, but there is no need to go through an agency. You can go directly to directors and stars."

"Ah..." After planning for a long time and basically convincing the Coca-Cola board of directors to take over Coca-Cola's advertising business, Ovitz was suddenly hit.

"But I think Coca-Cola may not understand the situation in Hollywood."

"We had a pleasant partner before, Ronald Lee, a famous Hollywood director. I have seen the effect tracking of his film production. It can be said that our best advertisements since the 1980s and Pepsi's best advertisements were all shot by him.

If you want to play a bigger role here, you have to convince these marketing team members."

"Pah..." After the other party hung up the phone, Ovitz hung up the phone heavily.

"Ah..." He pounded the table a few times. Ronald, Ronald again!

"Please connect me to Niceta's call. I want to talk to him." Ovitz vented for a while, and then had to humble himself and call CAA's partner, Ronald's agent Niceta.