FINANCE
If you're a new online company looking to catch the eye of a venture capitalist, you could try squeezing another billboard ad over San Francisco's Highway 101 or blow the budget on a prime-time spot no one will remember. Adman Michael Dweck insists there's a better way: Become a VC stalker. Dweck, who runs his own New York ad agency, is presenting his Net clients with a chart detailing a day in the life of a venture capitalist, along with tips on how to assault the prey with propaganda each step of the way. "Every dot-com is looking to get at these guys, so we figured we'd be tactical about it," says Dweck, who interviewed a dozen VCs about their daily routines. "If you know where a VC is at any given time, you can come up with all kinds of guerrilla approaches to reach him."
Dweck learned there are certain delicatessens on San Francisco's California Street that cater to the VC crowd, so he arranged to plaster client advertising on the lunch delivery bags. He found out which bars were frequented by financiers, and planted actors there to yak on cell phones and mention the client's name a lot. Discovering that VCs take certain taxi routes, Dweck left printed messages in the backseats of cabs. And just in case all this was too subtle, he also turned loose in the offices of one VC a bunch of T-shirt-clad trained chimpanzees bearing ads. Is any of it working? Dweck says one client got a $35 million investment as a result of his stunts. So far, no restraining orders have been issued.
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