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.
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.
I haven't sorted out all the details of the Pepsi-Doritos/Black Eyed Peas campaign but it's a "multi-year, multi-brand partnership" that began with the single More, written by the Black Eyed Peas for Pepsi, and used in the above commercial, Jump.
I assume you can keep up with things at the PepsiMore.com site after agreeing to Conditions of Use laid out in an extensive document that no one will read but to which all will agree.
With all sorts of rap related social issue discussions breaking out, it will be interesting to see what that does for hip hop artists who are already addressing such things. One new artist I've been watching is NYOIL whose debut album, Hood Treason, came out on Tuesday.
NYOIL - Y'all Should All Get Lynched
NYOIL broke into a lot of folks' consciousness last fall with the release of the video Y'all Should All Get Lynched that takes an exceptionally hardline stance against what he considers the deficiencies of much contemporary rap. Not everybody appreciates what he tries to do as revealed in the extensive yet frustrating discussion involving NYOIL at bla(k)ademic:
what do you think about this? from NYOIL–creator of “ya’ll should all get lynched” nyoil revisited
NYOIL - What Up My Wigger
NYOIL clearly comes from a strong spoken word background as shown at the beginning of the What Up My Wigger video. A shorter version is labeled n*gga PSA and reveals some involvement in marketing [or in playing off forms of marketing] as do the Sweething QP Doll commercial and the Ghetto Metal PSA's.
NYOIL is taking a hardcore niche approach with both his art and his interactions with the public. Such an ideals and issues based emphasis should ultimately build a committed base of support that will be with him whether or not he ever drops hits.
Hood Treason seems to be doing well on Amazon but it will be interesting to see how well it does overall since I get the impression that it doesn't have a lot of infrastructural support. However, combining local promotion in the NY area with online promotion can be a pretty potent combination, especially when focused on a niche market, so he may surprise some folks.
The Black Eyed Peas' Fergie will be the star of Candie's Spring 2007 marketing campaign for the junior fashion brand that is, in fact, available only at Kohl's: Fergie will appear in Candie's only at Kohl's print advertising campaign, which will debut in March issues of fashion, entertainment and lifestyle magazines, online at teen dominated websites, and star in a television campaign to be aired on major networks nationwide beginning in February. The TV commercial will debut on the Grammy's(R) on February 11th in select markets...The soundtrack for the television commercial is Fergie's, "Glamorous" from her solo debut album, The Dutchess.
The campaign will also include tour sponsorship and online activities at the Candie's website: Candie's and Kohl's will be a sponsor of Fergie's "The Dutchess" tour this spring/summer...Fergie will make personal appearances on behalf of the brand as well as participate in campaign launch events. The campaign will be integrated into Kohl's spring marketing plans.
The Candie's website will feature "That Is So Candie's" theme. Users can log on to www.candies.com and upload their real life Candie's moments to "C- tube" via video, photos or stories and also enter to win a sweepstakes to be a "Dutchess for a day". One lucky winner will be flown to Los Angeles for the next Candie's and Fergie photo shoot to have lunch with the star.
Credits: The campaign was created by Iconix's in-house marketing team. The print campaign was shot by famed celebrity photographer, Matthew Rolston and the television commercial was directed by Chris Appelbaum, who is known for his MTV music videos.
I'm working on a longer piece on Russell Simmons' efforts on behalf of the diamond industry to counter the effects of the movie Blood Diamond, which I'm calling the Blood Diamond Campaign.
If you've written or read something that you think is relevant to the topic at hand, drop a comment with the link or email me at: clyde(at)prohiphop(dot)com
aka Jay-Z: The Humanitarian, Member of the MTV Family, Man of the People, Man of the Streets, Business & Music Man
[aka: I'll never write another blog post this long again. Since I started it Friday some of the tenses are now wacker than usual but I've got to move on with my life.]
Young Hov Project - Tribute to Jay-Z
If we assume that everything Jay-Z's been doing in the public eye of late is publicity for Kingdom Come, which we always should with such an individual/institution, this has to be one of the more complex campaigns of recent times. And it's fitting that the campaign is complex since it must address serious questions of positioning and demographics that face this major brand in transition.
Like Lynne d Johnson, I find this campaign a lot to wrap my head around but I also find that by simply going through various aspects of the campaign and looking at each part in relationship to the whole, it all seems clearly related. Whether or not each part is successful, taken as a whole, we find a campaign that both promotes a new album and addresses longer term issues of Jay-Z's changing public identity.
Without going into every detail or even every major aspect of what Lynne has described as a "year-long marketing play", I believe we can trace enough of the contours to get the bigger picture. Let's start with a new twist in Jay-Z's career, Jay-Z the Humanitarian.
Jay-Z - The Humanitarian
Publicity Photo from Diary of JAY-Z: Water for Life
During the Cristal episode we got brief glimpses of what it would mean if Jay-Z was able to take an activist role in society. The man moves people. But we (and I include myself) should remember that Jay-Z is not an activist and is unlikely to become one because that's just not what big stars generally do. Jay-Z has embarked upon and seems most likely to continue on the celebrity awareness route whereby his visibility can bring attention to a serious issue.
Jay-Z wants to be bigger, richer and more important than he is now and in order to move to even loftier heights, he has to add a public service angle to his identity.
Jay-Z said he was "looking for a cause to attach myself to" and he found water. That's a damn good cause because it's an extremely serious issue that already affects the poor worldwide, so Jay-Z can have safe photo opps with poor people, and that will eventually affect the rich, especially when water wars begin to break out.
Being Jay-Z, he can link up with MTV and the UN to create a documentary of his efforts called Diary of JAY-Z: Water for Life that provided lots of publicity during the tour and was probably a great part of this weekend's MTV promotional activities for Kingdom Come.
Follow that up with an anti-Semitism campaign and you've got the makings for both short and long term benefits.
ProHipHop's Take: Jay-Z's learning in public on this one. When the questions about water turned political, he dodged by labeling them bureaucratic issues with which he had no expertise. But he'll get better at this game quickly and will probably do just fine next time out.
Perhaps more importantly, folks are feeling his efforts which also fill a major gap in Jay-Z's public identity. In addition, MTV's participation in the water tour illustrates how having strong relationships with such a media outlet can benefit all aspects of a marketing campaign.
Jay-Z - A Member of the MTV Family
"Jay-Z Hangar Tour" hits 7 cities in less than 24 hours as part of the Cingular Sounds Live series. (PRNewsFoto/Cingular Wireless)
MTV's support has gone far beyond the water tour. The most recent efforts involving MTV and MTV2 include coverage of Jay-Z's Hangar Tour (see below), MTV2's Jay-Z Day on Sunday, the documentary Diary of JAY-Z: Water for Life shot by MTV during Jay's world tour, appearances on TRL and a contest operated by MTV.
That's an incredible range of appearances on MTV properties appearing over the weekend and then reappearing throughout the Christmas shopping season.
One of the newest developments is the creation at MTV.com of the Jay-Z Video Vault offering videos from each of Jay's albums with related interviews and so forth. Though I have some reservations about the implementation, I think it got the Eskay seal of approval for its ability to satisfy Jay-Z's true Stans.
Part of the strength of MTV's multiplatform approach, beyond simple saturation, is MTV's ability to tie together the artist and other brands. In addition to helping tie Jay-Z to the UN, a brand of colossal dimensions, MTV is helping to make Cingular's Hangar Tour resonate far beyond the limited audience that will actually attend without having to count on them to spread the word, which I don't think worked so well for MySpace's The List.
On a Hangar Tour related note, the Associated Press has a nice example of worshipful coverage practically designed to sell albums.
ProHipHop's Take: MTV love is like getting straight A's, it's all good!
To be able to get this amount of attention at all would be amazing. To get so much of it on the weekend prior to one's album release speaks to the amount of work and preparation that has gone into this whole campaign.
Jay-Z - Man of the Streets
Cingular Wireless and Island Def Jam team to celebrate the release of Jay-Z's new album, Kingdom Come. (PRNewsFoto/Cingular Wireless)
Though I am impressed by the thoroughness of the Kingdom Come campaign, I think it faltered in relationship to Jay-Z's past identity as a hustler, a man of the streets, an individual with street cred, who got rich and avoided going Hollywood, etc., etc.
As Jay-Z made the shift to President of Def Jam, he was also making the shift from jerseys to button ups, from street kid to grown man. The shift was so pronounced that even recently he was characterized as the "Throwback Killer" who, according to Jay-Z himself, NBA Commish David Stern described as ruining the NBA's jersey business.
Yet, beginning with the Water tour, I felt like I was suddenly seeing Jay-Z playing dress up to the degree that the only suit I've noticed him in for a major promotional opportunity is on GQ's cover.
I know I've seen other photos of him in suits recently but it also looks like a clear choice was made to present Jay in youthful streetwear whenever possible. Since hardly anyone seems to be that interested in my take on Jay-Z's tweaking of his fashion image, I'd say that tactic is going well but not due to sublety of any kind.
The bigger question is whether or not Jay-Z will get a pass on his dealings with Jim Jones who he seems to have recently responded to for questionable reasons that could only be related to street cred (I'll leave the question open as to whether that credibility is aimed at the streets or the suburbs).
As you may recall, an earlier Dipset battle was waged between Jay-Z and Cam'ron that Jay-Z won with a minimal response. However, one can only give Jay-Z so much credit for that victory since Cam'Ron found little support and rapidly descended into bizarre schemes to remain in the public eye. Cam defeated himself but Jim Jones has stayed with his street oriented approach and managed to go from being the "ninth man off the bench" to exploiting Jay-Z's campaign for his own gain.
ProHipHop's Take: The beauty of being widely loved is that folks will accept your costume changes as authentic gear but this Jim Jones thing is disturbing. Jay-Z's diss track was weak and seemed to attack Brooklyn as well as assorted individuals depending on which lines you take to mean what. Jim Jones flipped it like a master and barring something really bright on Jay-Z's part, he just lost a very public battle at the supposed height of his power.
If one considers the Jim Jones stumble in light of Jay's questionable dealings with Armand de Brignac Champagne, one has to consider questioning Jay-Z & co.'s tactical genius, though not their thoroughness.
Jay-Z - Man of the People
Budweiser Select Logo Courtesy of Anheuser-Busch
The public response to Jay-Z's Cristal boycott gave us a sense of how much people power Jay-Z really has and it also gave him quite a bit of social capital. Unfortunately, while Jim Jones remains a question mark, so does Armand de Brignac. Jay-Z's incredibly ill advised choice to become involved with Armand's half-assed stealth campaign may or may not end up biting him, depending on his future involvement, but it certainly blows his Cristal capital.
However, as Dan Zarella helped me recognize, Armand champagne, which is essentially a new blend from a not very special champagne producer with a tarted up package and Jay-Z's blessings, is also an example of the attractions of conspicuous consumption (as a display of wealth and status) as well as invidious consumption (designed to inspired envy). In a sense, that means that my assumption that people who buy Armand in the future are suckers is problematic in that they actually do receive value in the exchange apart from the actual quality of the product.
My own obsession with mere facts about Armand's true identity blinded me to the obvious in this case.
While Jay-Z failed to go upscale with a downscale champagne producer, he successfully went downscale with Budweiser Select and made a profitable move to broaden his fanbase with a man of the people brand endorsement. The fact that it tied in with Dale Earnhardt, Jr., leading to additional shared appearances, sweetened the deal incredibly by connecting Jay-Z to the Nascar demographic at a time when Nascar is working hard to expand that demographic.
And even folks that find Nascar a bit corny often have respect for the drivers themselves and so the Earnhardt, Jr. alliance broadens Jay's base without necessarily alienating his current fans and the whole package, Earnhardt, Armand and Budweiser, was neatly tied together with a music video.
ProHipHop's Take: Jay-Z should get a D, at best, for his involvement with Armand but may end up on the honor roll for helping create a product that satisfies showoffs without the added burden and expense of high quality.
Jay-Z gets an A+ for Budweiser Select everywhere but Europe, where they recognize the difference between beer and weak tasting alcoholic water with carbonation. In the States he gets extra credit for hitting a broad demographic stroke not typically associated with hip hop.
Jay-Z - Business & Music Man
Jay-Z - Kingdom Come
I initially assumed that the Kingdom Come album cover would be the first image in this post but it has become the last, perhaps symbolic of the fact that it seems to have underwhelmed many long term fans and there seems to be a general sense that Kingdom Come will do quite well but the wait is now on to see if Nas will bring the aesthetic heat.
Though it's a separate issue from this campaign, part of Jay-Z's aura is his rise from street hustler to corporate boardroom and the fact that the jury is still out on his efforts at Def Jam means that we aren't hearing a lot of rhymes about his executive accomplishments.
ProHipHop's Take: What's disturbing about this situation for Jay-Z is that the two main poles of his identity, musician and business man, now seem incomplete and somewhat neglected. That's a problem since we all recognize that the Kingdom Come campaign is also the Jay-Z in transition campaign.
In Closing
The problem with looking at all this activity as simply a Kingdom Come marketing campaign is that it's also a Jay-Z comeback campaign that tries to tie the old Jay-Z with the new Jay-Z producing mixed results. Nevertheless, such attempts are crucial to Jay-Z's ability to age gracefully and maintain a career closer to that of U2 or the Rolling Stones than to anyone we've seen in hip hop to date. And I can recall some Rolling Stones albums along the way that were quite lackluster.
What fascinates me about this campaign is that it is so well designed to exploit multiple aspects of Jay-Z's public identity and the folks involved with putting this all together did an excellent job of addressing the complexity of that identity. Unfortunately, the choices of how to address that complexity sometimes fell flat.
Jay-Z shows his "humanitarian, moving up into the world of big players" side by teaming with the UN and simultaneously undermines that image by getting tied up in Armand's penny ante brand creation tactics.
Jay-Z tries to give people the old Jay-Z, hoodies, beefs and lyrics about still being a hustler, but we know he's heading elsewhere.
Then again, the UN connect was a huge stroke of PR, the rollout of Armand may end up adding to Jay's hustler credentials, his next year at Def Jam may be filled with success and so forth.
The reality is that when a brand as big as Jay-Z's has to make a major transition, one sees mistakes and errors and they don't necessarily indicate failure, particularly if they lead to adjustments in tactics in keeping with the larger strategy of taking Jay-Z to whatever the next level might be. In fact, it would be far worse if Jay-Z and co. weren't attempting to address so much and take so many chances.
Then again, it would be far better if I could hear one, just one track off Kingdom Come that made me as happy as any of the 5 or 6 best tracks off The Black Album. Just one, dude, was that too much to ask?
Snakes on a Plane: The Guide to the Internet Ssssssensation
I was going to call this post, Motherf*cking Snakes on a Motherf*cking Plane but, thankfully, did a Google search on that phrase and realized that territory's pretty well fleshed out.
Even though Snakes on a Plane is not a hip hop movie, I wanted to do a roundup of some of the marketing coverage because there's lots to consider here for entertainment marketers more generally and because it allows me to get caught up on some blogs I claim to be following. In fact, I'll let them do most of the work!
I hadn't paid close attention to the blog & fan buildup for Snakes on a Plane until I read about the unique licensing approach created with CafePress.com that led to so many nutty items being created related to SOAP and that has great significance for marketing entertainment.
In addition to the Movie Marketing Madness post I mention there, Chris has pointed to some of the more significant and/or fun marketing developments here and here.
You may also find the Wikipedia entry surprisingly informative regarding the marketing campaign and related events. Also worth a long look is the Snakes on a Blog weblog.
One thing I'm noticing as I check out bloggers and news sources is the tension between the grassroots campaign and the more corporate efforts of New Line Cinema. I think it has to be acknowledged that it was Samuel L. Jackson's star power combined with bloggers' initial response to his interview comments that kicked things off. In fact, I can't imagine anyone more perfect than Jackson for this movie or this campaign. So I consider it a useful example of combining star power with the strength of the longtail represented by bloggers, fans, CafePress entrepreneurs and whoever else fits that category.
On that note, let me mention a blogger that I don't follow who misses the mark on what can be learned from SoaP.
Kevin Kelly's New Rules for the New Economy
While I agree with Tom Ehrenfeld that it's a combination of factors fueling the buildup of buzz and that a lot of inaccurate lessons will be taken from this event, I also think his belief that nothing much can be learned from this movie is way off the mark.
A lot of what we're seeing in relationship to the buzz building could be considered network effects as Kevin Kelly discusses in the quite accessible New Rules for the New Economy from the late 90s.
For example, in attempting to debunk the hype about the hype, Ehrenfeld states: Here’s what I consider the takeaways from SoaP. When it comes to buzz, things that have buzz are the things that get more buzz.
That's a network effect, as Kelly and others have discussed, and it suggests that learning from the SoaP phenomenon it not about replicating what was done with this movie, but examining the underlying dynamics and looking for ways to exploit those dynamics. Ehrenfeld seems to think he will be vindicated if people take up his challenge: I defy one person to extrapolate from this film and reproduce the dynamics a second time. Not gonna happen.
But that statement is a setup. Attempting to reproduce the SoaP phenomenon will lead to failure. Part of the current shift in understanding suggests that one shouldn't look for templates but should explore relevant possibilities based on underlying principles.
Sure, lots of "half-baked articles and books" will come out of this phenomenon but that's nothing new and doesn't invalidate any particular approach or else all approaches would be invalidated since I can find you a half-baked article and maybe even a book on any topic.
I think the real winners in marketing will be those who can understand and act on the following: nonlinear phenomenon such as network effects can be studied and leveraged; drinking kool-aid is ok in moderation; and, combining old and new methods in flexible mixtures will be a more productive path than all or nothing approaches.
Snakes On A Plane: The Album
That out of the way, I think I'll let Mack at The Viral Garden do the heavy lifting on the roundup. I'll mention a high point from each post but please don't take them all as summaries, i.e. there's more within.
Snakes in the Garden! Mack kicks off a snake focused week of SoaP posts with a mention of the personalized yet automated message he got from Samuel L. Jackson.
Snakes in the community New Line drops the ball and decides not to encourage "dress-up parties" by rapid fans.
Breaking News: Chris is smart Since SoaP's success will cause even more movie companies to pay attention to bloggers, Movie Marketing Madness's addition of an editorial calendar is labeled a winner.
By the way, I think it's a mistake to judge the overall success of the campaign on the first weekend's take alone but I'll update this post with the figures, even though everyone will be reading about them, since they will be used as a measure of success for SoaP for better or for worse.
Cheeseburger Royale Bra for Samuel L. Jackson by Costume Works
In closing, it wasn't just Samuel L. Jackson's star power that helped this movie, it's those great lines he drops that get picked up by mainstream media and bloggers, like his response to questions regarding why the movie wasn't prescreened for reviewers:
"Snakes are biting people — and they're biting them right on screen. There's nothing to review. It's not 'Snakes on the Waterfront.' You don't have snakes going, 'I coulda been a constrictor.' No. Hell no. It's 'Snakes on a Plane.'"
In terms of box office take, I'm more interested in seeing if it has staying power over the next few weeks, though I think it's off to a good start. I would definitely expect it to do well on DVD and internationally so the longer view looks good from here.
AdRants reported a while back that Pharrell will be one of the next individuals featured in HP's The Computer is Personal Again campaign that began, in part, with a Jay-Z ad. AdRants also describes some of the personalization features being developed at the site.
In "Back to My Roots," Wayans explains how his decision to host the BET AWARDS was driven by his desire to reconnect with Black culture -- but he's shown doing the exact opposite.
Valued at $8 million, the multi-platform strategy includes national television ads on BET and other Viacom-owned networks featuring first-time BET AWARDS host Damon Wayans in a series of hilarious spots, radio buys and print ads in top African American publications, as well as outdoor and transit advertising; local cable; online promos; network contests; an extensive media relations campaign involving high-profile celebrity honorees and nominees; a mobile fan promotion; exclusive broadband programming; a grassroots effort utilizing movie theaters, beauty and barber shops and dance clubs; and several new innovative initiatives for national advertisers and sponsors.
I love this press release because it really lays out everything that I'd want to know in detail about a massive campaign, given the inherent limits of a release.
BET Mobile looks interesting:
Viewer's Choice voting also has a BET Mobile tie-in sponsored by Verizon Wireless and began on June 1. Artists will be interacting with the BET AWARDS '06 Mobile Fan Club community by sending text messages, real-time show updates, and pictures of their BET AWARDS preparations such as rehearsals, practicing their acceptance speech and wardrobe selection. Artists such as T.I., Chris Brown, Yung Joc and LeToya will be communicating with fans while preparing for the Awards and hanging out in LA.
I'm especially glad they included their plans for "Grassroots Marketing". Highlights include but are not limited to:
The BET AWARDS '06 Ice Cream Truck will feature celebrities handing out free "ROCKET POPS" and other promotional items in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles from June 22-26.
Barber shops and beauty salons nationwide will showcase BET AWARDS branded capes, aprons and promo reels for their shops beginning June 15. These salons are cultural centers known to be 'ground zero' when it comes to generating buzz and word-of-mouth awareness about what's hip and relevant to the African American community.
BET's Grassroots Marketing efforts also include in-store promotions and partnerships with retailers:
Wal-Mart is featuring BET Awards promos on Walmart-TV, banners on WalMart.com, and an insert in newspapers in over 40 million newspapers nationwide.
Footlocker, Footaction and Champs stores are running promo spots and showcasing the shows' nominees with graphics that run during their music videos. Shoppers will also receive various BET promotional items from May 26 to June 27.
And street teams are part of the mix:
BET Awards street teams will infiltrate local hotspots and large gatherings around the country with picket signs, t-shirts and other giveaways from June 24-27.
I hope I'm not the only one that feels like $8 million is an obscene figure, even when put to such a variety of interesting uses, or that the promo shot with Damon Wayans is not even funny, though he can be a pretty funny guy. I assume BET sees a reasonable ROI. I'd love to see that broken down.
You can tell Gnarls Barkley is not your normal hip hop act just by checking out their graphics (some people would dispute calling them hip hop but I haven't heard enough to say). They're a nice example of how graphics, from pr photos to album covers to music videos, can support each other in marketing by honestly expressing the artists' aesthetic rather than attempting to communicate a coherent theme.
I first heard about their new project when the single Crazytopped the UK charts totally on digital downloads. Along with that article was a cropped version of the following photo that was featured on a variety of sites.
I didn't immediately catch the Clockwork Orange reference from the cropped online versions but the following less popular shot helped clue me in.
I should note that I have absolutely no idea why they're dressed like a couple of rejected oddballs from a Clockwork Orange reunion party but, somehow, it fits. The next image I saw most in circulation was of the cover art for St. Elsewhere, the album for which Crazy is the lead single.
Already you can see that this is not a coherent series of images yet the message that these guys are a bit different but are also creative and not standing on convention is coming through loud and clear. If you didn't get that yet, the following quite wonderful video for Crazy will clue you in.
To some degree, Gnarls Barkley comes across visually with much more of an indie rock aesthetic than most anything that might be described as a hip hop aesthetic, though the nuttiness in their pr photos really places them in that category of genius/weirdos that tends to cross and/or bend genres, just as their music seems to be doing. From my impression to date, their fans are the type of people who are comfortable with such nuttiness while recognizing that Gnarls Barkley is neither a novelty act nor a comic routine, though they're certainly novel and funny.
While doing this little graphic roundup I ran into a bunch of earlier pr photos and they would make for an even more enjoyable look at communicating what a group is about. But I'll save that for another day. It's almost time for me to go drinking with my redneck brother to celebrate his recent birthday. See you tomorrow.
Here's an account and a couple of pics of a recent Mobb Deep in-store at an FYE in New York. Although I've had my doubts, SOHH NYC claims: According to early projections, Hav and P are on track to move a little over 100,000 units their first week and will probably land somewhere around number 2 or 3 on Billoard next week.
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