Campaigns | ProHipHop

October 13, 2011

VH1’s Hip-Hop and the L.A. Riots

In April 2012, 20 years after the Los Angeles riots, VH1 will unveil a currently working-titled documentary called “Uprising: Hip-Hop and the L.A. Riots,” part of the network’s Emmy award winning series “Rock Docs.”

According to AllHipHop.com, the special will explore hip-hop’s involvement during the April, 1992 L.A. riots. It will “examine the Los Angeles riots from a diverse perspective of individuals, who witness the chaos firsthand,” wrote the site.

“VH1 continues to explore hip-hop’s impact to major societal events through documentaries,” wrote Nanci O on nancioishiphop.com. “In [the] new special, the network will focus on a combination of race relations and pop culture.”

VH1 has interviewed an eclectic mix of police officers, rappers, victims and musicians who lived through the riots and will discuss the events from their perspectives. Some of the interviewees include Rodney King, John Singleton, Arsenio Hall, Too $hort, Nas, Big Boi, KRS-One, DJ Yella and Sir Jinx, reported AllHipHop.com.

The Los Angeles Riot of 1992 lasted “four fiery days” and left 53 people dead, over 12,000 arrested, and “put a searing spotlight on race relations and American pop culture,” wrote TheFoutonCritic.com of the riots that inspired VH1’s documentary. “Viewers will also hear never-before-heard stories from hip-hop artists who were affected by, or actual participants in the riots.”

The Los Angeles Riot was in response to the acquittal of ex-LAPD officers Koon, Powell, Briseno, and Wind on April 29, 1992. These men were the main players in the brutal assault of Rodney King on March 3, 1991. The incident was caught on camera by a passerby, George Holliday, which brought to light racial tensions, social inequalities and police brutality in the City of Angels.

“Viewed from outside the trial, it was hard to understand how the verdict could possibly square with the video,” former president George H W Bush said about the Rodney King trial. “Those civil rights leaders with whom I met were stunned. And so was I and so was Barbara and so were my kids.”

Posted by yodee on October 13, 2011 in Campaigns, Events, Race, Violence | Permalink

October 03, 2011

Pitbull Goes to the Movies

Sheets™ Energy Strips, “the new way to do energy,” will energize audiences in movie theaters across the country beginning September 30 with a new cinema advertising campaign in NCM Media Networks’ FirstLook pre-feature program.

Launching on the big screen with the brand’s funny, original “Take A Sheet™” creative campaign, Sheets™ will use the high-impact medium of cinema to premiere a new spot starring international recording artist Pitbull in an entertaining red carpet interview. Pitbull and his team spearhead the brand’s Hispanic marketing efforts, working together to create innovative advertising, marketing and promotional initiatives to reach Latino consumers worldwide.

The new Sheets™ Energy Strips cinema campaign is timed to support the brand’s expansion into leading national retailers including Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Duane Reade and GNC.

Unlike “energy drinks,” Sheets™ Energy Strips are distinctive because they are paper-thin, individually wrapped, dissolvable pocket-sized strips. When placed on your tongue, the strips begin to dissolve instantly and are easily swallowed and digested, delivering hours of energy. With multiple flavors, Sheets™ won’t spill or melt, have no calories, no carbohydrates, no sugar and require no water. Sheets™ uses proprietary technology that provides a breakthrough delivery system enabling consumers to get fast-acting energy – anytime, anywhere.

“Sheets™ is always looking for groundbreaking ways to elevate and distinguish itself from the traditional advertising campaigns,” said Warren Struhl, CEO of PureBrands, the owner of Sheets™ Energy Strips. “We are thrilled to partner with National CineMedia and have our Sheets™ ads reach consumers through a new and exciting channel.”

“There is no better place than the movies for Sheets™ Energy Strips to reach an engaged audience of active, on-the-go adults,” said Cliff Marks, president of sales and marketing with NCM Media Networks, a leading integrated media company reaching U.S. consumers in movie theaters, online and through mobile technology. “It is especially energizing to be working together because NCM has not only become a marketing partner, but also a Sheets™ shareholder. I look forward to launching this innovative consumer packaged goods product and establishing a new national brand through the power of cinema.”

Posted by yodee on October 03, 2011 in Campaigns, Marketing | Permalink

July 16, 2011

Jesse Abraham Nominated For 2 Underground Music Awards and Only YOU Can Help Him Win

Fresh off the release of his critically acclaimed debut album, NYC’s Jesse Abraham rubs shoulders with hip-hop legends in two categories at the 2011 UMA’s.

The Underground Music Awards, presented by Urban Threshold, are considered to be the Grammy’s of the independent urban music world. The nominees are carefully chosen by a committee and are recognized on a national level, as the world of American independent music ranges from the unknown to the renowned. The winners, however, are decided based on online votes.

Jesse is up for Lyricist Of The Year (vote here: http://bit.ly/oJkTw0) as well as for Album Of The Year (vote here: http://bit.ly/nXNyRq), two of the awards show’s more prestigious categories.

Voting is free and does not require a subscription or sign-up.
Fans can vote once every 24 hours up until August 11^th.

Jesse Abraham was born in Manhattan as the first child to two public school teachers, and he now resides in Brooklyn where he runs a tutoring company while continuing his ascension as a hip-hop artist. His debut full-length project, One Day, was released in June 2011, but it was in the summer of 2009 when Abraham began to attract considerable attention on the open-mic circuit for his freestyle abilities and live stage show.

The project’s lead single, ‘Spiderman on Vitamins’, made major waves throughout the online world of music, peaking at #3 on DJBooth’s Top 10 Singles chart and #7 on the nationwide college hip-hop charts. The album itself debuted at #5 on DJBooth’s Top 10 Charts, and features the single ‘Always & Forever ft. Homeboy Sandman’, which premiered on XXLMag.com.

Known throughout the indie hip-hop scene in New York as a tireless beacon of creativity, Abraham has expressed his feelings of citywide unity towards his accomplishments. “One of the things I value most about making music is the community of which I am fortunate enough to be a part,” Jesse explains. “When I found out I was nominated in two categories at the UMA’s this year, I immediately viewed it as a victory for the NYC hip-hop scene and all indie artists such as myself. I am humbled & grateful (if not mystified & confused) to be recognized amongst the ranks of true hip-hop legends.”

Jesse’s album can be downloaded for free at http://www.djbooth.net/index/mixtapes/entry/jesse-abraham-one-day.

For more info on Jesse and his music visit http://jesseabraham.com/

Posted by yodee on July 16, 2011 in Campaigns, DJs/Producers, Events | Permalink

May 25, 2011

Cormega & Various Hip-Hop Artists Team Up to Record “I Made a Difference” Benefit Song in Support of Sean Penn’s Organization, JPRO

After a successful coat drive this past winter and performing at the Hip-Hop For Haiti concert at S.O.B.’s in New York, Cormega continues to use his talent to make positive contributions to the devastated island. His new song, “I Made A Difference,” featuring Redman, General Steele from Cocoa Brovaz, Stic Man from Dead Prez, Lil Fame from MOP, live band The Revelations, singer/songwriter Maya Azucena andmusician Jazimoto (who played keyboard) will be distributed digitally by Sony/RED Distribution, in conjunction with Whatevaok Entertainment, to online retailers with proceeds benefiting J/P Haiti Relief Organization. The J/P Haitian Relief Organization is a registered non-profit charitable foundation established by actor, Sean Penn, to help the people of Haiti recover from the earthquake on January 12, 2010 that nearly wiped out the entire capital of Port-Au-Prince leaving over 300,000 dead and millions homeless.

While a version of the song hosted by Haitian DJ Whoo Kidd has been leaked by Legal Hustle Records, the official song will be distributed digitally through Sony/RED Distribution on June 14^th, 2011. “I decided to donate the proceeds from digital sales of ‘I Made A Difference,’ directly to Sean Penn’s earthquake relief efforts because when I was in Haiti, I heard directly from the people and saw for myself the work that his organization was doing. I gained a lot of respect for Sean Penn while I was in Haiti. Here you have an A-list actor who was out there wading through water, putting up tents helping the people. The media attention has shifted, yet the suffering still continues. His organization still continues to service those displaced by the earthquake, living in refugee camps. This song is dedicated to him and all the unsung heroes who continue to make a difference even when it seems like the world has moved on.”

The song was originally scheduled for release on May 18^th, Haitian Flag Day, a major holiday in Haiti, but the opportunity to distribute through SONY/RED came through. But if you think about it, the release date for the song doesn’t really matter. The suffering still continues and we need to send a message to the Haitian people that we still remember them and some of us are still trying to make a difference.” “I Made A Difference,” will be digitally released with all proceeds going toward JPHRO. To make your donation directly to the organization and for more information on Sean Penn’s efforts in Haiti and JPHRO.

Posted by yodee on May 25, 2011 in Campaigns, Singles | Permalink

February 16, 2011

Hip-Hop Word Count Gets Funded

If Google had to raise fund for the maintenance of its continuous operation, Hip-Hop Word Count has been raising money since December through Kickstarter.com. The main objective of this fund raising project is to pay programmers who have been coding the custom PHP to get the website finished and running smoothly, consultants who have been helping to design the interfaces, and some of the money will go to data acquisition and data clean up while part of it will go to the hosting bills.

The Hip-Hop Word Count is an application comprised of 50,000 rap songs spanning from 1979 up to present. Aside from counting the words in each song, the Hip-Hop Word Count also provides a method to analyze the education level needed to understand each song, the artistic level of each verse as it provides insight to the cultural approach to the music that has established itself as a global phenomenon.

As per the latest update, Hip-Hop Word Count has raised a total amount of nearly $9,000, and still accepting donations to fund for additional expenses such as beta website access, behind the scenes footage and an invitation to their New York fundraiser.

Posted by yodee on February 16, 2011 in Campaigns | Permalink

May 19, 2009

AdAge Twitter Hype Overshadows Actual Eminem Marketing

I'm definitely not a big Eminem fan but his return is a huge event, his album should do well based on such early indicators as Amazon preorders and I'm certainly trying to get my share of the action with multiple posts even as I question some of the ethics of the marketing campaign.

That said, I think his marketing has mostly followed now traditional forms from tv to magazines to the web, with some fun twists thrown in and, since his return is such an event, there's been a firestorm of coverage. So when I was contacted for responses to his campaign for an AdAge article ultimately titled How Eminem's Marketing Team Is Using Twitter to Build Buzz, I downplayed the Twitter angle in my response.

However other bloggers took a different angle and were included. Elliott Wilson did a particularly nice job on the Stan/Twitter connection while Scott Yeti related the wider campaign to movie marketing. I became background as in "some in the hip-hop-marketing world downplay the impact of the messaging service."

And that's cool. Not everybody makes it in to anything and Wilson, in particular, is very good at providing soundbites that feed the expectations of other members of the media. But looking at the article now, I have to say that the current hype about Twitter has clearly oversahdowed what's actually working in the Relapse campaign:

"According to Compete, Eminem.com reached 113,868 unique visitors during April, while the most popular of his tweets — which linked to Therelapse.com on May 7 — reached at least 41,704 people within just one week, according to an analysis of data provided to Ad Age by Tweetreach. And data provided by Native Digital, the start-up behind music-buzz tracker We Are Hunted, suggest that Eminem was the most-talked-about artist on Twitter last week, the week before the album's release."

I'm assuming the mention of Eminem.com stats compared to Twitter stats makes the 41k people in one week for a single tweet look good but are those "impressive results"?

I've never gone to Eminem.com before but I have written multiple posts and embedded videos such as We Made You which, in an apparently official version, has already received 1,964,277 views and has, no doubt, been shown via all sorts of other channels of distribution.

Now that's not to say that the occasional posts, 20 in total, to Eminem's Twitter account haven't had an impact but the real impact has come from the fact that Twitter is a hottie, everybody wants to cover her like they used to cover Paris Hilton and so Eminem's use of Twitter has received far more coverage online reaching what I would argue is a much bigger audience than the 83,646 followers of his skimpy Twitter stream or the 40k "within just one week" that surely included nonfollowers who clicked through from other sites to a highly publicized tweet.

That's not to say that there's anything wrong with looking at Twitter but this article plays into the use of Twitter as a hook because it's hot right now when it's the overall campaign supporting the return of a much loved individual after a multiyear absence that is the compelling story.

I guess if it ~~bleeds~~ tweets, it leads. But don't let such hype drive your marketing decisions unless you're going for coverage of your campaign. Clearly a somewhat effective Twitter effort can currently receive much more coverage than more successful efforts in other venues. And that's probably the biggest takeway from this AdAge article.

Update:
Had a brief email exchange with Charlie Moran, author of the AdAge piece, and he was quite nice about my rather harsh take on his article. Very thoughtful guy and I see more clearly what he was up to though I think some points of disagreement remain.

However, I have been following Charlie for a bit. In addition to periodic features at AdAge, you can check for his blog posts at Songs For Soap focusing on music and advertising.

Posted by Clyde Smith on May 19, 2009 in Campaigns, Hip Hop 2.0, Marketing | Permalink

May 11, 2009

Tanya Morgan: Brooklynati Album Cover Art & Passive-Aggressive Promotional Campaign

Tanya Morgan – Brooklynati

Tanya Morgan's Brooklynati is due May 12th on Interdependent Media.

A somewhat elusive group, Tanya Morgan's Brooklynati site is fairly subtle and not especially engaging, they seem to have lost tanyamorgan.com and their MySpace page states:

"THE NAME MEANS NOTHING…AND EVERYTHING. JUST ENJOY THE MUSIC! THATS AN OLD QUESTION PLEASE DONT ASK IT ANYMORE! LOL….THANKS!"

This is the most passive-aggressive promotional campaign I've seen in quite a while but it does help explain their sour expressions on the album cover. If they weren't getting buzz from the promotions they've done, they'd just disappear. No disrespect but I think they're going a bit overboard with this strategy.

On the other hand, maybe they're going for a hardcore insider following on which to build and this is the way to do it. They do seem to have decent online sales at Amazon but we'll see how things go as they go.

Update: That said, I'm seeing a lot of solid promo material this week from Audible Treats that quotes the wide-ranging positive response from "tastemakers" as well as dropping some interesting promo videos. The choice of Audible Treats also bodes well for Brooklynati.

Over at Hip Hop Press:
Tanya Morgan To Be Honored At Brooklynati Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony

Posted by Clyde Smith on May 11, 2009 in Album Cover Artwork, Campaigns, Marketing | Permalink

December 15, 2008

B-Real’s Smoke N Mirrors: Duck Down Promotional Campaign

"B-Real Print Ads confirmed in XXL, Murder Dog, Fader Magazine"

Here are a few examples of the graphics Duck Down is using in their promotional campaign for B-Real’s Smoke N Mirrors from their B-Real page under "Press".

Leaderboard Web Ad for "Tier 1 Sites"

These are all based on the album cover art for Smoke N Mirrors due in late February.

"Custom B-Real Street Team Costume"

I have to admit I’m pretty burned out on the skull thing but I like these street team outfits.

Posted by Clyde Smith on December 15, 2008 in Campaigns, Marketing | Permalink

March 25, 2008

Scion Speak: Create Your Own Crest Campaign

Scion Speak Trailer

Lynnley Browning of the NY Times looks at the Scion Speak campaign that allows Scion fans to create their own crest or coat of arms:

"In making their personalized crests, Scion owners can choose from among hundreds of symbols, all designed by a professional graffiti artist [Tristan Eaton]. The symbols range from an eagle, a jester, a king’s crown and a worker’s fist to Japanese anime-style flowers, a three-person family and a yin-yang circle. Customers can download their designs and have them made into window decals or take them to an auto airbrushing shop to have them professionally painted onto their cars."

Scion Speak – Enthusiast Workshop

The campaign was created by StrawberryFrog:

"an advertising and marketing agency based in New York and Amsterdam that is known for its quirkiness and for representing new or hipster brands. The agency spent six months last year escorting a graffiti artist, Tristan Eaton [of Thunderdog Studios], around New York, Los Angeles and other cities to talk to Scion owners about their lifestyles. Based on those conversations, Mr. Eaton designed the symbols."

Though Scion Speak isn’t really a "hip hop" campaign it is part of the larger terrain opened up, in part, by hip hop marketing.

Scion does a lot of interesting stuff on an ongoing basis and they’re worth taking a close look at if you’re interested in reaching and becoming a part of multiple networks of tastemakers.

For example:
Scion Presents the Fourth Installment of its National Art Tour – INSTALLATION 4: It’s A Beautiful World

Biz Markie Tours Stomping Grounds in a Scion

SCION DEBUTS CD SAMPLER v. 14 MIXED BY DJ MONK ONE IN COLLABORATION WITH WAX POETICS

Graf Artists Paint Little Scion Model Cars

Jeri Yoshizu on Scion’s Hip Hop Marketing

Toyota’s Scion and Alt/Indie/Underground Hip Hop

Official Sites:
Scion

Scion Speak

StrawberryFrog

Thunderdog Studios

Posted by Clyde Smith on March 25, 2008 in Campaigns, Marketing | Permalink

December 22, 2007

10) Belvedere Vodka: Luxury Reborn, Music by RZA

Belvedere Vodka Dinner With Terry Richardson

The above photo from Belvedere Vodka’s Luxury Reborn campaign is by Terry Richardson who also directed the campaign from print to television.

The tv spots feature Vincent Gallo with music by RZA.

The press release has the campaign overview:

Totaling upwards of $20 million, the new ad campaign cost is nearly triple Belvedere’s previous advertising campaign, which last appeared in December 2006…

Berlin Cameron United, the advertising agency behind the campaign, also enlisted world-renowned stylists Christopher Niquet for the print shoot and Arianne Phillips for the TV spot. Models were dressed in fashions from Fendi, Christian Dior, Celine, and Donna Karan, among others…

Belvedere is also re-launching its website as a virtual palace, which will give consumers an inside look at the Belvedere ad campaign. The website will also feature outtakes from the print and broadcast shoot by Terry Richardson, and interviews with Vincent Gallo and RZA.

The Belvedere print ads can be seen in national and local publications including GQ, Vogue, Surface, Travel & Leisure, Robb Report, Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone, LA Confidential, Chicago Social, Atlantan, Ocean Drive, Wine Spectator, MarketWatch, Cigar Aficionado, Nightclub and Bar. Broadcast ads can be seen on networks including Bravo, Comedy Central, Discovery, E!, FX, Spike, TBS, TNT, National Geographic, Travel, Mojo, RSN, VH1 Classic and VH1 Soul.

Check the Belvedere Vodka website for the redesign and more from the campaign. Usually I hate these kinds of sites, they take too long to load and the graphics get old quickly but this is a beautiful and well-done site which loads easily and even has a stylish educational component!

Big ups to everybody on the team for what I’ve seen to date, especially the masterminds behind this website who brought together content and functionality so successfully.

At GRANDGOOD:
Behind The Scenes Interviews With Rza And Vincent Gallo From Belvedere Vodka Campaign

Posted by Clyde Smith on December 22, 2007 in Campaigns, Marketing | Permalink