http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 7 Jul 2005 06:22:47 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. 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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/07/07/062247.php Clyde SmithSummary: McDonald's continues its attempt to use hip hop to update their brand, this time via a uniform redesign.It looks like everybody and their cousins/brothers/mothers are discussing McDonald's plans to hiphopify their uniforms based on a piece at AdAge.com that can be viewed via free registration and a piece from the Associated Press. The big news is that Translation Consulting's Steve Stout is helping McDonald's connect with and consider such design sources as "Tommy Hilfiger . . . Russell Simmons' Phat Farm label, Ralph Lauren, Giorgio Armani, American Eagle and P. Diddy's Sean John label."Mary Jo Feldstein focused in on what this could mean for Russell Simmons and Phat Farm owner Kellwood and quoted numerous statements from McDonald's spokesperson Bill Whitman who said that "McDonald's probably would choose more than one designer and then allow franchisees and employees to determine the right look for their locations."Whitman also made the interesting statement that, "The look that we're trying to capture is not something we think belongs only to one particular designer . . . It's a style that does not yet exist." However, Stoute said that designers "will be asked to add some modern touches to the McDonald's uniforms of old, from the days of founder Ray Kroc." All I can visualize at the moment is some kind of old school Star Trek knockoff so I guess they won't be turning to ProHipHop for advice.Feldstein also talked to "George Pace, managing director of Drive Agency, a marketing and advertising agency in St. Louis" who apparently feels that such a project might "hurt a brand's more upscale image" and that "Phat Farm has made a tremendous brand on edgy, urban design . . . I hope they don't have to make too many compromises." You know, upscale and edgy have never been terms I've associated with Phat Farm's Classic American Flava, whose lack of flavor would suit McDonald's just fine.Brad Stephens, an "industry analyst with Morgan Keegan & Co. in Memphis" was also concerned for Kellwood and Phat Farm stating: "What happens if only Phat Farm does it and everyone else says, 'That's not authentic; that's selling out to the man'? . . . I'd be concerned that dressing McDonald's workers doesn't leave it the credibility it was trying to obtain."Though I'm really trying to keep my sarcasm in check, I do honestly appreciate the fact that Mary Jo chose the high road and actually interviewed people rather than simply rewriting AdAge's article.Eric Herman relates that Bill Whitman's wishful thinking includes the notion that, "It would be pretty cool if our employees liked their uniforms so much that they would also want to wear them while they were not working." Which makes me envison McDonald's managers pressuring workers into showing up and leaving in their uniforms, cynic that I am.The AdAge.com article quotes Steve Stoute in a similar vein: "It's very important to take [uniforms] from what they have to wear to what they want to wear. . . It's a very important aspect of employee pride. McDonald's has evolved and become a lifestyle brand ... since it now is relevant to our lifestyle, let's go one step further and make its employees relevant to our lifestyle as well." But Business Week's David Kiley questions the idea that McDonald's is a lifestyle brand, pointing out that lifestyle brands are the "ones people want to wear and be identified with," like RocaWear and Harley Davidson, and he wonders whether or not "people by and large want to be identified with eating fast food day-to-day as a brand badge."As usual, Kiley makes sense to me, just as he did when he revealed that Russell Simmons wanted to keep Big Mac rap lyric placements secret. Personally I think it's a great idea for McDonald's to redesign their uniforms using popular designers but a comment from Tracey, one of my readers raises something to consider: "Will this attract kids of color to work at McDonalds for minimum wage? If so, is that a good thing?"I don't really know, but I think it's a really interesting point. What immediately comes to mind is the U.S. military push to get more low-income young people to volunteer. I wonder if McDonald's is facing problems recruiting young workers. I also wonder when we'll hear about plans to get hip hop related designers to redesign military uniforms. Thanks, Tracey, for helping me make that connection.Originally posted at ProHipHop. Culture32170@blogcritics.org Thu, 7 Jul 2005 06:22:47 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/03/22/161943.php Clyde SmithPepsi's plan to use DJs to market their sodas and Reebok's "I Am What I Am" campaign featuring a controversial spot with 50 Cent are especially interesting recent examples of the use of hip hop in advertising.While following hip hop business news at ProHipHop, I've been especially interested in the use of hip hop for marketing purposes. As hip hop has gone mainstream, rap music is increasingly used to market products not directly associated with the genre. Pepsi and niche marketing agency RPM recently announced a campaign in which club and radio djs will promote Pepsi. The three-month summer campaign sounds really smart and is "expected to include New York's DJ Enuff and L.A.'s Eric Cubiche. They will serve as 'soda ambassadors,' touting the soda via on-air mentions, club events, photo shoots, block parties, Pepsi-sponsored mix tapes and cross-promotions with brands such as Launch and T-Mobile."The use of mixtapes is especially interesting given that mixtapes are crossing over from an underground marketing technique to a mainstream approach, with releases from major artists being touted as mixtapes and artists' backstories including mixtapes as a base for career building, as in the case of 50 Cent. RPM is headed by Rene McLean who previously worked for Elektra and Interscope. They're responsible for the Mixshow Power Summit that gathers major players in hip hop, most recently in San Juan, Puerto Rico where Lyor Cohen gave the keynote.The Mixshow Summit press release describes the RPM Group as an "innovator in the field of urban lifestyle, marketing, radio promotions, product placement, event planning and creative services for companies targeting the urban market." They also have serious connections with the artists which is key to succeeding in the use of hip hop for marketing purposes. However, they need to consider search engine optimization cause I gave up on finding their site after searching and discovering multiple marketing groups with RPM in the title, none of them connected with Rene McLean, and a company called the RPM Group that's focused on auto parts. Very weak online strategy but surprisingly commonplace.Pepsi didn't do so well with the Ludacris/O'Reilly incident, a major misstep in which they dropped Ludacris and picked up Ozzy Osbourne, whose drug addled behavior on "reality" television show somehow made him a better candidate, and then were pressured into a big payout for the non-profit Ludacris Foundation. But they certainly weren't scared off from the use of hip hop to market their still no. 2 product and ran a P. Diddy Superbowl spot that tied for popularity with a cat killer ad among 14 to 24 year olds. Note that the ad was for Diet Pepsi at a time when both Coke and Pepsi are focusing more on diet drinks, i.e. hip hop is being featured in a Pepsi campaign that is crucial to their future.Not everyone grasps what's up with hip hop and marketing. Adrants, one of my favorite business blogs, made fun of the upcoming Pepsi dj campaign using a parody of African-American slang and speech patterns that will only anger me if I discuss it more fully. Let's just say I've seen it many times by people that just can't believe that hip hop has crossed over to the mainstream and don't seem to be able to keep up with such developments, though that's not necessarily the situation with Adrants. In any case, I'm trying to learn to not share my anger so freely. That's right, you'll have to pay for pure expressions of my righteous anger from now on!In related hip hop marketing news, Reebok's UK ad featuring 50 Cent taking an unapologetic stance for his past has been attacked for glorifying violence. It's difficult to argue with such concerns at a time when those of us who feel a part of hip hop culture beyond simple consumption of merchandise are debating the same issues. However, Chairman Bill Brown of the Disarm Trust "described the campaign as 'irresponsible and despicable' and added: 'It is preying on young impressionable black males.'" Not being familiar with UK hip hop demographics, I can only say that, in the U.S., young impressionable white males might be a big concern as well, given that there are so many of the young critters and they buy so much hip hop merch. I won't even get into the fact that it's a condescending statement about young black males.The 50 Cent spot is one of many in Reebok's huge I Am What I Am Campaign that launched in February and, though Popeye was unavailable, features multiple stars including Jay-Z, Allen Iverson, Yao Ming and Lucy Liu. Adrants links to an online video of 50's spot and, though I am deeply concerned about violence in hip hop, I think it's a great ad. Of course, I'm concerned about violence in general, yet I'm a huge fan of Clint Eastwood and tv shows like Deadwood, so go figure.Oddly enough, as I listened to the string of numbers indicating the number of times 50 Cent was shot, I flashed on the Rodney King incident and a Senator, I think, counting off numbers using pencil taps to illustrate how many times King was hit by those cops with their batons. I'm not saying this spot is great art, but it's certainly both provocative and evocative and that's what I look for in art and advertising.I'm currently working on a piece that expands on my previous posts related to 50 Cent and recent news, Hip Hop Shooting: Follow the Money, Not the Macho and a Part 2. So I'm finding a lot of great stuff on 50 Cent the businessman as well as his comments on media obsession with the fact that he was shot 9 times, an obsession that initially went far beyond his own use of the past as marketing fodder.He states: "As an artist, you write about where you come from and who you are . . . The fact that I was shot nine times almost overshadowed the fact that I could make a hit record. I said to them over and over that the hardest thing to deal with was not being shot, but having to deal with what I was going to do with my life after I was shot." Music27113@blogcritics.org Tue, 22 Mar 2005 16:19:43 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/02/07/030056.php Clyde SmithAt ProHipHop, the possibility of Suge Knight's involvement in the assaults at the taping of the 2004 Vibe Awards is a recurring theme invoked most recently with Sunday's arrest of the volatile owner of hip hop label Death Row Records. In searching for news accounts of yesterday's arrest, I was reminded of prior observations regarding the lack of attribution to sources of news in the online hip hop press which I failed to address at the time. But now that Suge's back in the news, a discussion of such issues is again timely.Shoddy Practices at Online Hip Hop News ServicesIn addition to news of Suge Knight's arrest, a Google News search for "suge knight" currently returns earlier accounts of rumors that Jimmy James Johnson, the man accused of assaulting Dr. Dre at the Vibe Awards show taping, claimed that Suge Knight paid him to undertake the assault. As previously reported at ProHipHop, this report began at the New York Post based upon one of their "sources". However, having worked it's way through the online hip hop press, the story was picked up by Yahoo! Launch who reported that it came from AllHipHop.com.I meant to address this issue at the time, because it illuminates the sometimes shoddy standards of online reportage. I have a lot of respect for AllHipHop.com. They do more original reporting than most hip hop news sites and I frequently link to them. However, they are often unclear about the source of their articles and will often bury the fact that it's a wire report or from another publication a few paragraphs down. While that's better than some websites, it makes it appear as if they are doing original reporting and then quoting an additional source.Let's break it down. The Jimmy James Johnson story was initiated at the New York Post. Examination of the AllHipHop.com version shows that it's a rewrite of the NY Post version, plus some closing lines taken from other services, and was posted a day later. Since AllHipHop.com simply ran Nolan Strong's byline, rather than clarifying that the whole article was from the NY Post, as they should have done by basic and longstanding journalistic practices, some sloppy somebody over at Yahoo! Launch or Yahoo! News took that at face value and attributed it to AllHipHop.com. But the screwup at Yahoo! illuminates worse issues in the online hip hop press.While this is the first example I've seen of a story getting picked up by a major online news source and being misattributed in this way, the underlying practice is quite common on hip hop news sites. Actually, much worse things are going on elsewhere. Of course, hip hop bloggers like Hashim Warren have long pointed to such shoddy practices. Hip hop news services need to recognize that it's time to step up their game. Hungry young professionals are on the move and old guys like me are also trying to break in. Not only are we bringing higher standards to the game, but we're going to be reporting on your lack of professionalism.In the case of AllHipHop.com, the problem could be alleviated fairly easily but it would reveal how much of their news (like most news) is based on newswire reports and press releases, plus stuff written elsewhere. But a newspaper would state that in the byline and an article such as the one attributed to Nolan Strong would probably not even list his name. Although I dig the way blogging and online publishing in general has opened up the news game, the shakeout that will occur in the next five years will reveal that old school professionalism is a still necessary foundation for real news gathering and reporting. Music25203@blogcritics.org Mon, 7 Feb 2005 03:00:56 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/02/02/054332.php Clyde SmithAlthough I've intended to post hip hop related entries to Blogcritics, this week's installment focuses on the growing practice of marketers trying to influence public opinion through the use of online "ambassadors" and street teams who interact and pretend to be everyday people while pushing a product. Apparently, this practice backfired in the case of Ashlee Simpson, who seems to have an incredible appetite for public humiliation.Marketing Ambassadors Paid to MisrepresentRecently I was checking out writing jobs at Craigslist and, while wandering through the site, found an ad from Guerilla PR with the heading "Chatter - Online Marketing Ambassador." The ad said:"We are looking to hire 30 Online Marketing Ambassadors to Chat and Write Message Board Messages. Multiple Shifts available from 8am - 3am. Talk about video games, movies, sports and much more. We are also looking to hire 2 Online Marketing Managers."I briefly considered applying for the job as a form of research but just couldn't bring myself to do it. However, I poked around the Guerilla PR website and, in addition to seeing the prominent names of many large corporations, found the bio for Paddy Taber, V.P. Online Marketing who "sets the tone for the viral campaigns that deliver individually tailored messages and dialogue to highly targeted segments."Paddy's online biography goes on to explain that he, "recruits, trains and certifies the online Marketing Associates with the Online Campaign Managers. Under his instruction and management, they learn how to use guerillaPR's Proprietary Technology that allows them to be in 2 Chat Rooms and 10 Instant Messenger sessions at the same moment in time, while also learning the 7 techniques of human engagement to maximize communication impact and conversation effectiveness. When certified each Marketing Associate can seamlessly blend into an assigned target market to engage them in conversations that result in increased traffic, awareness and branding."I hope I don't have to explain the implications of this information but I do want to say that I'm not picking on Guerilla PR because this kind of thing is much more commonplace than people realize. But it is the first time I've found a website by one of these companies that lays out so clearly the fact that people are getting paid to shill for corporations by going in and acting like everyday people.I was thinking about doing a short piece on these guys when I ran into various references to such posts for Ashlee Simpson and traced them back to a mini-exposé on Metafilter. The post may seem confusing but when you take part of the quote from "mandyc19": "I just read about Ashlee in us weekly. Those guys at the football game were total jerks." And put it into Google, you'll see that miss mandy was all over the place, as if she was paid to cut and paste the same phrase everywhere she could.Now I'm not picking on Ashlee Simpson either, she has enough problems. Although I think she should take a break and start studying music more seriously and come back, not anytime soon, but when she's ready to be something similar to a real musician.Guerilla PR? I bet they would have done a much more sophisticated job with this campaign of lies and falsehoods. Sci/Tech25010@blogcritics.org Wed, 2 Feb 2005 05:43:32 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/28/014211.php Clyde SmithI'd like to introduce myself with a post that clarifies my interests at ProHipHop, the blog that is attempting to consume my life. ProHipHop focuses on hip hop business news, including issues of social responsibility, and I started it in November. Not long after, an incident occurred at the taping of the Vibe Music Awards in which Dr. Dre was punched and the alleged assailant was stabbed. Many of us involved in hip hop were extremely disturbed by this event and I was one of those who took Vibe President Kenard Gibbs' statements regarding Vibe's plans to address the incident in their January issue to heart. When I went back to find his statements, they were no longer readily available on line, but I've since found them in the Dec. 4th issue of Billboard in an article by Gail Mitchell:Gibbs adds . . . "All of us within the culture have to look at this and develop some means of accountability." Vibe's accountability hits newsstands shortly. The magazine's January issue will examine not only the awards-night incident but attitudes within hip-hop culture that may bear some responsibility. "This is paramount in terms of understanding what allows things to get to that point," Gibbs says. "That night took from the whole spirit of what the show is about: the best in urban music. We still have faith in the culture. We will rise above and endure." What follows is an excerpt from a recent post in which I discuss the January issue of Vibe and its approach to "accountability."Vibe Drops the BallI finally got a look at the January issue of Vibe magazine and I'll have to say I was extremely disappointed by their weak response to the Vibe Awards incident involving an assault on Dr. Dre followed by a stabbing. At the time, Vibe President Kenard Gibbs stated that the January issue would address not only the incident but underlying issues within the hip hop community as well. Although the links from that post have expired and none of the articles readily available online include the quotes to which I refer, SOHH did discuss some of what Gibbs promised in the wake of the incident.But the January issue, whose cover announces "The Truth Behind The Fight," actually gives only a two page account which could have easily been taken from wire sources, although two people assisted the author with "additional reporting." In the editor's corner, Editor-In-Chief Mimi Valdés does state that she was "heartbroken" and that "we need to say clearly and firmly that violence is unacceptable." So my question is, why don't you?The brief account of the incident is subtitled, "The news outlets can say what they want about the VIBE Awards fracas, but this is what it was like to be there." Actually the account doesn't give you that either. A far better description of the scene was given by Lee Baily who raises important details like the fact that the video feed of the auditorium to the press room was cut off during the incident and that publicists did their best to keep reporters from finding out anything of substance.And what about the underlying issues that are to be addressed? Did you outsource that to Essence, whose Take Back the Music campaign is addressing issues of women's representation in hip hop art and media? Or were those issues displaced by the much needed five page spread "Tempted To Touch" in which five scantily clad video vixens "show us their goodies"?Now that's addressing the issues and keeping it real, y'all. Music24796@blogcritics.org Fri, 28 Jan 2005 01:42:11 EST