Let me elaborate.

I am of the belief that today’s most purposeful marketing (that which satisfies the near-or-long term “bottom line”) is that finds unique ways/methods to embrace/reference/dance around culture. In a landscape ridden by unorganized noise where it’s always rush hour, paired with unlimited interpretations of pounds and pounds of data, it’s often difficult to navigate where to push, where to pull, and quite frankly, where the hell to rest your hat (this is especially true of national/global brands).

Fear not. (And keep reading after the jump.)

To add some perspective to my earlier comparison, I cringe whenever I hear the term “they won’t get it” when discussing campaign/project creative that is perceived to fall short with the “masses” (as if we’re talking to one, singularly-conscious general market). Not so much because it isn’t true, but because it implies that it’s a bad thing (it isn’t). In fact, the moment the argument is even entertained, I’d argue the authoritative tendency of said brand erodes, even if immediately unnoticeable.

Your product or service isn’t going anywhere (at least I hope not), and neither is its fundamental raison d’être. However, keep in mind that culture is the most ethereal variable in your quest for supremacy. No matter how much we as brand stewards think we do, we don’t “own” culture- no one does. Culture is a free-flowing, evolving/devolving phenomenon that we can, at best, permeate or predict-  never fully control.

In my opinion, not making a point is of greater consequence than one’s audience/community/tribe not “getting it”. Because if you’re truly positioned the right way and equipped with an unwavering sense of self (that whole meme of “brands having personalities”), your audience is guaranteed to eventually get “it” because you (and your narrative/creative) will shepherd them there. People know when their intelligence is put on trial. There is nothing more boring or of less impact than a prefabricated, fly-by-night attempt at attention in this era where differentiation is the holy grail. Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week, and engagement takes a leap of faith in looking passed the LCD (lowest common denominator) to achieve true suspension of disbelief.

suits suck!

(DISCLAIMER: This post contains the thoughts of the individual author, and in no way reflects the opinions of his employer or its affiliates.)

We believe that, at its core, culture always wants to change- especially pop culture. In fact, change it its whole job. Cultural change is imminent, waiting for random events, either large or small, that will push it over the edge.

In the end, cultural change is the product of an alchemy of events and individual influence. As the cultural conditions change, the change is expressed in particular events; influencers become early detectors of this change and communicate it to the rest of the community.

-Alex Bogusky, “Baked In”

Welcome back, smart hip-hop promotional marketing. And have a nice weekend.

I love the part in the beginning of Ocean’s 13 where Reuben tells Bank (played by Al Pacino) that there was a code amongst “guys that shook Sinatra’s hand.” While that ritualistic sensibility might’ve originated with the “friends of mine/friends of ours” sets of old, is has somehow trickled down and made evident again through the likes of Diddy, Jigga, and most recently as part of a promotional campaign for this years VMAs, Drake.

I’m interested not by the reasoning behind the stark, overall gravitation towards Old Blue Eyes- we can all only wish that we embodied an ounce the eternal cool that he was portrayed as having- but more at the fact that hip-hop’s fetishistic transparent obsession with his persona is so recurring. Last week, I had an opportunity to view Drake’s TVC on MTV.com, and the first thing that came to mind (before I could mentally complement it, because it is a dope spot) was “wait, isn’t being Sinatra Jay’s thing?” It’s been less than a year since “Empire State of Mind” hit full swing and the critical mass and mainstream media were obsessed daily with his self-pronouncement of being the “new Sinatra”, creating a storm of rumors that “Empire” would now, or soon, replace “New York, New York” as the city’s consummate psalm.

The funny thing is upon hearing “Empire State of Mind” for the first time last year, I thought, “wait, isn’t that Diddy’s thing?” (I also thought “wait, isn’t the ‘state of mind’ thing Nas’s thing? But from that, I digress.) Out of all the pioneers in Sinatra-ization of hip-hop, Puff is definitely the groundbreaker; we all remember in 2003 when he, Ashton Kutcher, and a finally- recognized-for-his-celebrity Jamie Foxx touted themselves the “new Rat Pack”, socially portraying themselves as Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr, respectively.  Then, in 2008, he famously reprised that character, copiously, and successfully channeling Sinatra in his campaign for Ciroc:

So, with all these examples having mainstream implications, why has is been acceptable to style jack so transparently (and I mean this in the most non-critical way possible)? Remember on “Big Brother” where Kanye was rhyming about his quiet dispute with Jay-Z because he told Jay he did a song with Coldplay and the next thing he knew, Jay had a song with Coldplay? I would’ve expected that same agitation to appear somewhere in this circumstance, especially since they oft share the same stage. I guess that ultimately, Sinatra has become a caricature to our culture in some capacity; we celebrate the “idea” of Sinatra rather than his artistic achievement. More Halloween than homage.

In closing, and in my humble opinion, I’d most certainly take Puff Daddy, Jaÿ-Z, and Drake over Sinatra 1, Sinatra 2, and Sinatra 3 anyday. Admiration is cool, but let’s not sweat dude.

On Wednesday of last week, I moderated a panel entitled “Making Your Mark” at this year’s Latin Mixx Conference.

The conference, now in its 5th year, is half entertainment summit, half information session and attracts a pretty varied audience of DJs, artists, and industry folk. To kick off the panel, I delivered a presentation (available below) covering a few areas of interest including: personal branding, the marketing and publishing landscape, and the role that today’s public-facing entertainer must play to thrive in the modern information economy.

To be successful in today’s business climate and attract the attention of brands and marketers, artists must fulfill the role of “Culture Creator.”

Establishing a dominant position in today’s entertainment and marketing environment requires one to vision going above and beyond the traditional, formulaic processes that comprise the bulk of today’s vapid, cookie-cutter landscape. Here are a few traits that the Culture Creator must embody, and inherently value:

Sometimes it feels like there is nothing new under the sun, but make something your own. Make it unique to you and your values. Revisit emotional territory that your FFF (friends/followers/fans) had once been emotionally invested in and reinterpret it. As Mark Pollard puts it in a brilliant blog post titled, “Why Strategists Should Make Stuff”, stories are currency; building a construct in which your content manifests values that are important to you and your community is a very important aspect to the process that cannot be ignored.

There will always be the idealists that can apply a prophetic eye towards culture and assist in the ushering in of “what’s next” by creating the mechanisms for those things to happen. This can include content platforms that begin digitally and then extend into the analog world. These people might not make total sense at first, and run the risk of being labeled disruptive, but, over time, their position shifts from the ‘idea advocate’ to the conduit through which the subsequent content, ideas, and themes are realized. To quote Jay-Z (as I frequently do), “I used to beat that block…. now I BE the block.” Fluidity is also very key to advancing one’s brand, as avoiding volatility and progression is an exercise in futility.

Remember the classic scene at the end of the first Matrix, where Neo realizes he’s “The One” and proceeds to predict the karate moves of the agents because he visualized everything? We can do that now. The ability to navigate, and qualitatively extract patterns has become a phenomenon that is available to everyone with the advent of the open web. There isn’t a specific formula for developing those sensibilities- it is simply a function of paying attention and digging deeper (at ANET, we preach “the why before the what”) into the things that are relative to what you want to create. Those who work to develop a second-nature mastery will advance, those who bypass will fall to the wayside.

One of the more powerful examples of this phenomenon is Kanye West’s rise to prominence.  In the early 2000’s, a pre-iconic Kanye West took the hip-hop world by storm, ultimately driving urban culture towards its current incarnation by aggressively and holistically embodying his vision of where hip-hop was going — not just musically — but philosophically, aesthetically and materialistically as well.

Cognizant of the fact that he could better disrupt the status quo from the inside, Kanye leveraged his position as Jay-Z’s go-to producer to establish himself by trading on his credibility and changing the perception of his role in Jay-Z’s success. “I brought back the soul,” he eloquently raps on The Blueprint 2’s ‘The Bounce.’

By the time Kanye was able to tell his story on his first album in 2004 it was, essentially, already told. Every celebrated hip-hop artist at the time had either already collaborated with Kanye (Ludacris, Lil’ Kim, 50 Cent) or otherwise revived their career by leveraging his distinctive sound (Common, Twista).

His transformation from hip-hop musician to “culture creator” was a byproduct of the fact that he (and his platforms) embody everything that is of value to him.  His has successfully leveraged his curatorial voice to actively shape the urban cultural landscape. Be it sartorially (through his collaborative efforts with some of the world’s most influential personal and luxury product brands), materially, or musically (through his G.O.O.D. Music label), Kanye has created the blueprint for the modern “culture creator” role that today’s most successful icon’s embody.

Sure, not everyone has been afforded the marquee opportunities to the same magnitude that Kanye has, but that isn’t to say that artists and entertainment figures (and marketers, to an extent) can’t embody those guiding principles, and bring this weird culture thing to its next chapter.

KEAPHOPE INTRO

It’s funny how times have changed. As music has gone to a mostly digital world we’ve lost a lot of the importance of cover art and overall branding that used to go into making a project stand out. We’ve seen some recent examples of good work here and there, and its those exceptions that inspired this conversation to start. While distracting myself on twitter from the growing mountain of work for the day job I checked the homie Richie Cruz’s twitter update talking about a release with something special, Curren$y’s upcoming, Pilot Talk. Richie was praising the originality of the artwork, and reading his statement, I found myself nodding in agreement and immediately emailed Richie to talk about getting this conversation going. After a quick lunch, we found ourselves on the same page with music art. We will be sharing these musing both here on KeapHope and on Richie’s personal blog,Suits Is Watching.

Over the coming weeks Richie and I will take some time to present one upcoming project a week and dig into the details that round out these releases creatively, beyond the music, to make them standout among the seemingly thousands of free downloads, mixtape, torrent searches and classic releases that fill our itunes daily. We begin with the project that launched the discussion, Curren$y’s, Pilot Talk.

After the jump, intro thoughts from Suits Is Watching and our conversation on Pilot Talk

SUITS IS WATCHING INTRO

Honestly, album art and inserts are (were) the reason I’m such a hip-hop snob. The thing about hip-hop is that we don’t always require the most incredible, thought-provoking Canibusesque rhymes or photoshoots with million dollar budgets- those things are great at surface value, but usually don’t pay dividends in the grand scheme of things. All I ask for is honesty and some type of artistic integrity (sounds like a pipe dream, but I have faith that it exists somewhere…) Ultimately, the demise of the CD has led to something interesting… and great. Music is everywhere. Google a song name, it pops up in mp3 format with the associated artwork transfixed neatly next to it. The problem is that its about 5 pixels tall by 5 pixels wide.

Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but you get my point.

More music being downloaded means more artwork needs to be produced. Standards need to be established for digital single/mixtape/album art…so they can be broken and surpassed by another. The amazing thing is that we’re living in a time where access to tools like Photoshop enable everyone to create. The problem is, every one shouldn’t (even if they can). Hopefully through the subsequent posts, Jamie and I can figure out what the hell is going on, and make sense to what should be applauded and frowned upon as artwork battles for the blog, the iTunes corner, and most importantly, the iPhone screen.

THE CONVERSATION

KEAPHOPE:

Before we even get too deep into this project, I just wanted to comment on your email notes for the project. You made a great point on the size relationship to music, with all of our current relationship to music art being limited to the lower corner of itunes and maybe the screen on an iphone/ipod. How much do you think this is changing the work? Is it becoming something that requires readability at a super small scale? Talk about a big change from the 12×12 world of vinyl covers.

I remember reading something about Kanye’s cover art for 808’s, about how its simplicity translated in the modern space. Clean lines, no photo, just text. It worked great for the mood of the album but more importantly was a strong visual cue to what was actually being listened to. Lets start with this point as jump off point for the Curren$y project. First off what makes this work great? For me it starts simply with getting away from the played out BIG ASS HEADSHOT cover that so many new artists use. Here we have illustration, down to the text.

How readable is it small? Well, maybe not super readable but it think its clearly Spitta. The color alone is a cue that Curren$y has embraced, from his love of herb to his JETS logo use. That alone give a nice visual reference to the listener when glancing down at that ipod.

Illustration. How great is this? DD172 has done a couple pieces in this style, and there is a good crew poster with headshots of all of the memebers in this similar free flowing look. To me it evokes the clouds of smoke you think of when picturing a Curren$y show and you’ve got to love the New York to New Orleans elements from the skyline to the Super Dome.

SUITS IS WATCHING:

Well, as someone who appreciates depth, dualities, and metaphors, it was fresh to see a contemporary rapper incorporate a “look beneath the surface” approach to illustration while maintaining some universal elements that won’t box out the masses that refuse to think. I’m not a creative director by any stretch of the imagination, but I work with the best of ‘em (ha!), and I’m pretty sure that they’d appreciate the boldness (not to mention the symbolic significance) implied with the heavy use of green. It immediately reminds me of how purple was used as the dominant color in Big Boi’s first installment of “Got Purp?” (ironic how weed references define the hues…)

Another interesting thing worth noting is the absence of Curren$y’s likeness in the cover. The classically-trained marketer in me is screaming, “It’s his debut album! People need to see him!”, but the culturally-aware marketer in me feels the opposite and recognizes that this is actually a blessing in disguise. The artwork for “King Kong” and “The Hangover” are consistent in aesthetic, setting up this final “big reveal”. Also, as self-assured and cocky as his rhymes are, he isn’t arrogant or narcissistic- his rhymes are his identity, and he chooses to define himself through his words- which, in the attention-starved landscape, is admirable.

All in all, I think your man is onto something. In linking with an “art collective” in DD172, he’s engineering both mystique and artistic credibility at the same time, setting a foundation for himself while setting himself apart from the status quo.

Regardless of performance, he’s already won a victory in my book.

KEAPHOPE:

You make some great points. Is the weed thing too much sometimes? Maybe, but this dude is playing perfectly into his audience. He knows who is buying his music and why. The kids need something to ride to and from what I’ve heard, this won’t dissapoint. I can easily picture this cover up front in a video with Curren$y and Wiz Khalifa breaking up bud on the top of the jewel case. It has a bit of a timelessness to it that I think you may have hit on with the no photo setup. There is a tactic we don’t see much. It seems way to easy to go ahead and throw an artists mug on the front a CD with some of-the-moment type treatment and call it a day. This steps enough away from that system to really make its mark.

I like that you brought up the single cover art for “King Kong” and “The Hangover.” Here we have three different treatments, each with their own style that make them standout on their own, but we have some similarities through out. First on “King Kong” we actually get a glimpse of a Spitta character, still illustrated, but perched over the destruction below. All black/white/grey and looking like a foot in the door, “I’m here now pay attention” message to the hip-hop community. This is a dude who has been aligned with No Limit, Cash Money and now sort-of-Roc-a-fella, but def Dame Dash and this is him being presented like his first true release. While most will sort of snicker at the idea of a dude with a near thousand+ song catalog calling this his debut, I agree with Richie on this being an introduction to the masses. Fitting for the cover art on “King Kong,” the firs single for the project.

Next we look at the Mikey Rocks assisted cut, “The Hangover.” Again illustrated ties to the other content, though this time with a slightly more colorful setting. Funny if you were too consider this the results of a night full of, Pilot Talk, infused fun. I like the almost Art Deco inspired treatment to Curren$y’s name on the “King Kong” cover that seems to be revisited here in the color palette and comic’d treatment to this cover. At first glance one might not see that the pool scene is completely trashed from a night of debauchery, but to me that ties in perfectly with the idea of a hangover, like the movie, its not always clear till you start piecing together the details. The type treatment here ties in well being almost an after thought, scrawled in to the cover like a name and number on a napkin. To me this looks like a sample sketch that was refined and left a bit loose and compliments the more detailed refinement we see on the albums true cover.

I think its important we at least mention the artist involved in the illustration of the cover. Pilot Talk, was illustrated by David Barnett, the Creative Director for DD172. I haven’t been able to find out too much information on the artist, but lets hope his work continues to influence the direction of the DD172 collective and rings out among other new projects from the rest of the hip-hop community. Mr Barnett, if you ever want to get down on the next conversation be sure to drop me a line.

Till the next Covered Conversation go out and cop, Pilot Talk, in store today.

#cmonlebron.

ABSOLUT BROOKLYN is a Limited Edition flavored Vodka created in collaboration with Spike Lee.
It is a blend of Red Apple and Ginger that captures the vibrancy and uniqueness of Brooklyn and the creativity it inspires.

“Brooklyn wins again.” – Jean Grae (and damn near everyone I know from the borough…)

You KNOW I’m happy about this one.

Happier to find out that the 750ml 1L bottle (their 4th in the “American City” collection” is in collaboration with Spike Lee.

Enthused at the fact that the homie Lemon provided this prose that will be located in the recipe flyer:

Sitting on the tenement stoops
Brownsville steps
crown heights flights
funky medina repetoire
5 star borough
tree lined blocks
somewhere in the world
Brooklyn’s in the house
and you know we won’t stop
spreading love
cause that’s our way

From the small morsels of information that I’ve read, it’ll be released in 2 months. All the brand buzzword banter that I hear on a daily basis about the importance of “community” and “culture” can be accomplished simply by doing it and committing. Thank you, Pernod-Ricard USA for giving this humble Brooklynite more fodder for my geocentric rants.

Catch me at the launch party.

SUITS!

Before Steve Jobs & Apple addressed the issue of clutter by announcing the advent of “app folders” at his Keynote for iPhone OS4, a lot (a lot meaning most) of my ADD-riddled homies were victim to a phenomenon that plagues most iPhone users: downloading apps left and right, but actually using very few of them (some none at all).

This is probably a result of users not finding utilities that are essential to their lifestyle; first-use irrelevance is a death sentence for these apps. My homie Louis Colon, who in a former life was the founder/owner of Laces Boutique and Kicksclusive Magazine, has looked to change that with his iPhone app called MySneakers (available in the App Store starting today). We’ve already seen sneaker magazines and blogs make their content available in the form of an iPhone app, which, for better or worse, provides the users with information that they need to stay in tune with every release date, rumors of collabs, and what designers are doing in Beaverton. Perfect timing as the industry begins shifting it’s product delivery strategies wholly towards the digital landscape.

My Sneakers 1.0 delivers release date information, store details, aggregates popular blog content, and a offers a robust look at an almost infinite amount of kicks (all the information one would need to influence purchase decision) in an easy-to-navigate user interface. It also allows users to post their discoveries to their respective Facebook or Twitter friends/followers. Not bad.

If you’re an iPhone/iPod Touch user reading this, and have an insatiable appetite for Mikes, Foams, Chucks, Uptowns, or whatever, I implore you be the early adopter that you think you are, and check out the application.

Last week, a few of my homies and I were talking about HBO’s “How To Make It In America”, specificly about how we would consult Cam, Ben, and René on their respective business ventures (if the show was real, of course) given the events that have transpired by the end of the first season.

In the real world, their brands- the scrappy, upstart denim line Crisp and brilliantly-named energy drink Rasta Monsta- would both be considered “challengers” (if considered at all) in their respective categories. To add some context, I think it’s fair to say that both the streetwear apparell and functional beverage industries are hyper-competitive, riddled with high barriers to entry, and, for lack of a better word, cluttered.

Nonetheless, below (click to enlarge!) is a very basic, straightforward analysis of both brands that I’d apply to clients during early project phases. Based on the exercise (which was solely based on my individual knowledge of the category’s landscapes along with what I’ve gathered from watching the show) I wouldn’t say one is better than the other, but it IS interesting how both Crisp and Rasta Monsta have unique traits that could benefit them in the long run.

I’ll say this much though: you’ll be surprised at the magic that a wrapped stepvan and free samples can make! (HA!)

HBO get at me!

…trash in the form of advertising that is. Seen on the R train this morning. *womp*

“Ivana Bowlmor”? Shame on you!

I guess if I saw the ad, it counts as an impression, but ironically, being impressed would be the last thing I’d describe my experience as.

In terms of appealing to us  natives using motifs that reflect their sensibility, FlatRate still wears the crown:

SUITS!