ProHipHop: Hip Hop Marketing & Business News

Jay-Z & Steve Stoute Form Translation Advertising

After the 2007 acquisition of Steve Stoute's Translation Consulting and Brand Imaging by the Interpublic Group, rumors that Stoute and Jay-Z were forming an independent marketing venture of some sort seemed kind of strange.

Like Stoute told Black Enterprise:

"When you step up to the plate and become a part of a public company, it requires a change in financial reporting. This puts me in a space now that is very heavy in terms of scrutiny and responsibility to financial partners who are very serious about their business."

Beyond the issue of financial reports, a lot would be expected of Stoute in such an operation, so the news from the NY Times that Jay-Z and Steve Stoute's newly formed Translation Advertising "will be part of Translation Consultation and Brand Imaging" makes a lot more sense than an independent project.

More details from the NY Times:

"Interpublic will own 49 percent of Translation Advertising. The majority stake will be owned by Mr. Stoute, 37, and Jay-Z, 38, who will be the co-chairmen."

Concerning Jay-Z's role:

"Mr. Carter said his role at Translation Advertising would be to offer his creative and entrepreneurial ideas. Mr. Stoute described it as not "day-to-day operations" but rather "using his eye, his taste, his understanding of the culture."...Mr. Carter's work as an endorser in ads will be independent of what he does for Translation Advertising."

The great thing about these guys is, depending on the setting, they can claim the ability to reach African-Americans, youth or a more general mass market and essentially do the same kinds of things they're already doing.

On a side note, I find the use of multicultural as a synonym for non-white kind of annoying since the concept of whiteness is itself an awkward umbrella for multiple cultures and ethnicities.  If you want to get multicultural, explore the diversity of all cultures and subcultures, don't just find a new label for market segmentation and/or targeting by race and ethnicity.

Over at HustleKnockin':
HustleKnockin' asks Nina DiSesa, McCann Erickson chairman some pointed questions including:

"How many GM agencies still treat their 'sister' ethnic shops as assistants forcing them to simply translate GM ideas for ethnic consumers?"

Wait, there's more:
Hustle Knockin' on Translation Advertising

Interpublic Acquires Steve Stoute's Translation Consulting

AllHipHop.com is reporting that the Interpublic Group has acquired Steve Stoute's Translation Consulting and Brand Imaging.

A topic of discussion since last spring, the impending deal recently got a quick look from Advertising Age.

Steve Stoute & Carol's Daughter In Forbes

Forbes does a follow up on last year's announcement that Steve Stoute was gathering celeb investors together to invest in Carol's Daughter, a cosmetics company with which he has become closely involved.  In fact, though he is described as having "half the business", the Forbes article presents him as the defacto owner and founder Lisa Price as the "back-story".

Making Music In The Beauty Aisle:

"After five months of negotiations, Stoute ponied up a reported $1 million for half the business. . . he recruited Clarisa Wilson, a vice president at L'Oreal USA who had managed a hair-care line called Mizani, aimed at African American women. Combing through reams of sales data, Stoute and Wilson whittled Carol's catalogue to a manageable 185 products."

"As for distribution, Stoute settled on a three-pronged attack: national chains, his own stores and the Internet. In February, Stoute inked a deal with Sephora, which now carries Carol's in 28 stores. Now he plans to take on $15 million in debt to build 20 Carol's stores--to go with his flagship store in Harlem and another in Brooklyn--in seven states on the east coast over the next three years. Other operating capital will come from friends Will Smith . . . his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, Interscope chief Jimmy Iovine, former Sony . . . music chief Tommy Mottola and, of course, Jay-Z--all of whom have invested a combined $10 million in exchange for 30% of the company's equity. (Price stays involved, providing a back-story a la Estee Lauder, another outfit that started on someone's stovetop.)"

There's also an accompanying slide show of Stoute's Greatest Marketing Hits accessible via the article.

I'm not sure why I didn't develop a Steve Stoute category sooner but I have one now.  I'll be adding previous ProHipHop posts regarding Steve Stoute to that category any day now.

Steve Stoute's Firm To Provide Guidance To General Motors

As a commenter on my post critiquing Steve Stoute's Online Self-Marketing reminds me, Steve Stoute and General Motors are in bed together, so to speak:

Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging, a New York City-based brand marketing firm headed by founder and Chief Creative Officer Steve Stoute, has aligned with General Motors Corp.

The company will provide strategic counsel and marketing communications guidance for Chevrolet and other GM vehicle brands in the U.S. on key projects as it helps expand GM's appeal to young, diverse, well-educated consumers living in key metropolitan markets in the US, particularly coastal markets.

ProHipHop wants to honestly congratulate Steve Stoute and his hard working staff at Translation Consulting & Brand Imaging on this impressive accomplishment.  I may give you a hard time on occasion, but your achievements in the face of great obstacles have been a driving force in the legitimisation of hip hop marketing, a force that has not only pushed hip hop to mature but has also helped create the context for ProHipHop's very existence.  Thanks!

A Geek On Steve Stoute's Online Self-Marketing

There's an odd gap I'm encountering between many successful folks in hip hop and their online marketing strategies.  Actually, I've encountered the gap in other fields as well, so I don't think it's unique to hip hop.  But discovering how difficult it is to find a website for Steve Stoute's company Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging seemed especially strange to me.

Of course, I regular encounter comments from Mr. Stoute about his activities in media outlets like The New York Times and other major sources.  Yet, I'd never been able to find a website or any information from the company itself online.  But I did not have a strong need for the information and never pursued it.

Recently a representative of American Apparel wrote me hoping to get contact information for Stoute's company.  Although I couldn't help him, he made some guesses at a possible domain and came up with translationmarketing.com.  Later, a management representative for country musician Tim McGraw also contacted me seeking this information and so I passed on the website.

In the last couple of days I've contacted a couple of folks with Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging and eventually got the response from Hannah, apparently Stoute's assistant who would not give her last name, that the site was under construction and would launch fully at the end of September and that their business was mostly word of mouth.

I suppose I could have pushed to talk to the big guy but I guess I was just thrown off by the fact that I was corresponding with and talking to marketing people who didn't seem to understand what I was asking them when bringing up the issue of not being able to find their company's website or any contact information online.

Peep the site, there's nothing that would allow you to find the company via a websearch.  Actually, part of the problem may be that the company may have had a different name in the past that's still used on the site.  The site itself is headed "TRANSLATION MARKETING" and the relevant metatags follow:
meta name="description" content="Translation is a marketing and brand imaging firm that ignites contagious behavior for Client brands."
meta name="keywords" content="Translation Marketing, Steve Stoute, Entertainment Marketing, Branded Entertainment, Consulting, Advertising, Marketing, S. Carter, Harajuku Lovers, Translation, RBK"

But the current name of the company, as I understand it from press accounts, is Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging which is only revealed in a graphic image, i.e. search engines won't pick it up, especially with the absence of an alt tag.  And, since there clearly is no linking strategy for the site, the use of metatags is pretty useless because one gets other sites, including mine, when searching for terms directly related to the company.

Prior to being contacted by folks representing American Apparel and Tim McGraw, I would have assumed that such people had ways of finding somebody like Steve Stoute.  But I guess that's not the case.  You know, it really is strange to see such a well known marketer without an Internet self-marketing strategy.  As one person wrote me, "who's ever heard of a marketing firm you can't find?"

Steve Stoute: Connecting Stars and Brands

Steve Stoute is incredibly successful at connecting high profile musicians with high profile corporations, such as the Gwen Stefani/Hewlett Packard pairing for a digital camera or Jay-Z and Reebok for a sneaker collection.  With high praise from both the artists and corporate figures, part of Stoute's secret is his ability to generate new and surprising marketing ideas that fit both sides rather than just relying on his Rolodex to hook people up.

Stoute was profiled in September in the New York Times (reg req).