Fun Facts to give you a sense of Ray:
- He’s had a short story published in a literary collection and an article published in a college textbook.
- He owns an actual cow branding iron, which belonged to — and had been used by — his father.
- In high school, he was Texas’ state champion in public speaking his junior year. He would no doubt have been a repeat champion, except he failed an elective class Senior Year and was rendered ineligible under Texas’ State House Bill 72.
- He’s run a record label, an award-winning independent radio show, and a weekly newspaper.
- He got his start in business selling cinnamon toothpicks on the playground in 1977.
- He’s been to the Super Bowl, taken in a Dodgers game in Steven Spielberg’s box and attended the Hollywood red-carpet premiere of the X-Files movie.
Basically, Ray makes stuff happen. And his philosophy is: if an ad guy can’t make things happen for himself, why would you expect him to make things happen for your business?
Ray’s Promotional and Advertising “Lineage”:
Ray’s friend and mentor, Jim Ramsey, was a notorious concert promoter and took Ray under his wing at a fairly early age. Jim taught Ray the concert business from the inside and the two of them partnered to produce the first Austin shows by Rage Against The Machine, Tool, Pearl Jam, 311, Public Enemy, and Jane’s Addiction (and hundreds of others). When Jim died, he left Ray his Rolex.
It’s fair to say Ray was born as a natural showman, but Jim taught him how to be a world-class promoter. Not just for concerts, either, but for anything and everything. Then Roy Williams — AKA, The Wizard of Ads — built on that foundation and taught Roy how to harness the power of mass media to promote businesses and brands.
Ray apprenticed with Roy at Williams Marketing for 7 years before signing on to become a Wizard of Ads Partner and has just as many crazy stories from his days learning from Roy as he does from his concert promoting years.
So Ray’s advertising philosophy IS the Wizard of Ads philosophy, but if there’s one thing that sets him apart it’s this: at the end of the day, you gotta be able to put on a show and PROMOTE, PROMOTE, PROMOTE!