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the Free CMSWire NewsletterDreamforce, the annual Salesforce conference, took place in San Francisco last week. But if you were thinking it was another one of those boring user conferences, think again.
I couldn’t help but think of Yogurt. No not tasty-delight, Pinkberry or Fage — but other Yogurt, the Star Wars Yoda parody from the classic 80s comedy Spaceballs.
And who reminds me of Yogurt? None other than Marc Benioff, CEO and Chairman of SAAS vendor Salesforce, who proved to be a savant marketer and salesman with this week’s Salesforce conference. Benioff has created an immersive product in the annual user conference Dreamforce that took place last week in San Francisco at Moscone Center, December 6-9. Dreamforce can be likened to what a more sophisticated burning man might be.
This week Moscone center featured a Salesforce store, celebrity guest appearances, and resident dj’s spinning throughout the day for foot traffic. Salesforce at times felt like a tailgate party — but Benioff understands his attendees want to be surprised and delighted. Attendance was up 60 percent this year from 19,000 in 2009 to 30,000.
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Spaceballs is a parody of the film Star Wars which got a cameo at the event. Or at least character Darth Vader’s theme song 'Empire Strikes Back'.
Corporate Chutzpah
During the day two keynote Benioff presented examples of Microsoft's anti-salesforce.com advertising. The entire audience sat in shock as the actor "Bernard" — featured in the anti-SFDC ads — joined Benioff on stage to Darth Vader’s melody from Star Wars.
In front of 15,000 people Benioff asked Bernard to "come back" to Salesforce.com. And of course, he, Bernard the actor, said yes as the audience hooted & hollered.
Microsoft was present at Salesforce in spirit (or Segways). Microsoft had a cameo in Benioff’s keynote wherein he said, “there are forces out there trying to stop our fun.” Microsoft was possibly hanging around Salesforce competitors who were too busy fighting over stolen software to pay attention to Dreamforce.
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