Marketing Pop Culture

links for 2007-01-31

• Do Agencies and Marketers Walk-the-Talk?
  Disturbing: Only 25% of 700+ senior marketers could clearly articulate their company's brand position.  Apparently, the answer to the title is "No!"
  (tags: branding)
• How to "shopdrop"
  Hint: It's the opposite of "shoplift", and here's a workshop to show you how.  Hat tip to Piers & co for the heads up.
  (tags: alternative+media subversive)
• From Book to Movie - Where Brand Names Fall Apart
  The folks at Strategic Name Development relate a film's poor showing to its poor choice of names.
  (tags: branding)
• Dune Records
  Great story about a new jazz label in the UK that focuses on providing opportunities for black jazz musicians
  (tags: music music+business)
• UK drum 'n' bass sees a resurgence
  And the names from the 90s are coming back for the ride.
  (tags: music)
• The New Media Mogul—You
  Business Week looks at companies that focus on helping you take charge of all of the disparate media you've generated.
  (tags: new+media user+generated+content)
• Why tech leaders think Second Life could be a gold mine. - Jan. 22, 2007
  How real revenue is generated in SL.  Why IBM and other brands are involved.  Read on.
  (tags: user+generated+content Secondlife)

NY Times notes the "Blipster's" rise

Apparently, black rock is gaining momentum as one of the many things moving across the cultural landscape that we should keep an eye on.  Yesterday’s NY Times Style section did a big, front-page piece on blacks who like rock: blipsters, or black hipsters.  We’re at a particular moment, the article points out:

But lately, rock music, and its accouterments, are being considered more stylish. Mainstream hip-hop artists like Kelis wear Mohawks, Lil Jon and Lupe Fiasco rap about skateboarding, and “all of the Southern rap stars are into the ’80s punk look, wearing big studded belts and shredded jeans,” said Anoma Whittaker, the fashion director of Complex magazine. At the same time, the hip-hop industry’s demand for new samples has increased the number of rock songs appearing on hip-hop tracks: Jay-Z’s latest album features contributions from Chris Martin of Coldplay and R & B artist Rihanna’s current single samples the New Wave band Soft Cell.

This made me finally watch James Spooner’s excellent documentary Afro Punk, which delves into the fans and musicians who are part of the punk/hardcore scene.  What’s interesting to me is that all of the people interviewed have developed highly complex and nuanced understandings of identity and race, due largely to the fact that they are outsiders in both the punk (largely white) scene and in their own (black) communities.  Both the article and the film speak to some of the same issues that I raised earlier, not least of which is that these artists want to perform for audiences who look like them, but find that attracting black audiences continues to be extremely difficult. 

Importantly, the film points out how the musicians and fans have carved out strong african american identities, while holding onto their love of, and participation in, the hardcore scene.  Also interesting to note that, in contrast to hip hop, these musicians have highly developed political views, which they're not afraid to share.

Hmm, let's see: Strong sense of self.  People pursuing their passion.  DIY mentality.  Moves easily between black and mainstream worlds.  I should've changed that earlier piece's title to "Only Black Rock Can Save Black Culture."

links for 2007-01-26

• Hip Hop Social Network RapSpace.TV
  Rapspace takes a key element of hip hop, the freestyle and the battle rhyme, in the digital space.  Hat tip to Clyde Smith for the heads up.
  (tags: hip+hop)

Listening Post: Robin Thicke

 

If you haven’t yet heard of singer Robin Thicke—son of actor Alan Thicke—that might change in short order.  This week, his album “The Evolution of Robin Thicke” jumped to number 16 from 35 on Billboard’s Top 200 albums chart and to number 2 on the R&B/Hip hop charts.  With tracks like “Would That Make U Love Me” and the current single “Lost Without You,” Thicke is certainly giving Justin Timberlake a run for his money in the falsetto singing, blue-eyed soul category.  The grooves have a light touch that underscores the message that he’s a sensitive guy.  In fact, the strongest tracks on the album tend to be the ones that are spare, quiet and give his voice plenty of room.  The the previous single, "Wanna Love U Girl" featuring Busta Rhymes, was a misstep.  It was a crass way to introduce a singer: pair him with a rapper.  On top of everything, the track is whack. 

All that said, the killer head nod comes from “Got 2 Be Down”, which features Faith Evans.  Only problem is, I doubt this will ever be released.  The song is structured in such a way that Robin is really only singing the hooks on this song.  So, if you were to poll listeners, they’d probably be talking about “that new Faith Evans”.  Not helpful if you’re trying to establish a singer, particularly if he’s a man.

Anyway, it’s in heavy rotation on my Zen Vision:M.  Give it a listen.


MP3 File

links for 2007-01-25

• Forrester Creates a Model to Measure Blogging ROI
  Steve Rubel gives a sneak peek at Forrester's latest report, which helps corporate bloggers engage in a substantive discussion re: blog accountability.  Highly recommended!
  (tags: Forrester blogging ROI)

Behavior and Expections

It’s become a truism that one of the big trend drivers is technology, specifically the fact that technology is putting the means of production and expression in the hands of regular people.  It’s not just the conglomerates that can create content or galvanize and attract an audience.

But how do we know for sure that this is having an impact on the overall culture?  To answer this, there has to be a discussion of what the anthropologists call the “formal properties of culture.”  According the Wikipedia definition, culture is generally understood to be comprised of four (4) elements: Values, norms, institutions and artifacts.  The entry further explains:

Values comprise ideas about what in life seems important. They guide the rest of the culture. Norms consist of expectations of how people will behave in various situations. Each culture has methods, called sanctions, of enforcing its norms. Sanctions vary with the importance of the norm; norms that a society enforces formally have the status of Law. Institutions are the structures of a society within which values and norms are transmitted. Artifacts—things, or aspects of material culture—derive from a culture's values and norms.

It’s the first two elements that strike me as most relevant here.  The accessibility of technology impacts our ideas and sense of what’s important, be it time or expression.  But that, I think, isn’t enough.  Key is that it changes our behavior, institutes new codes and expectations for how we and others can, and will, behave.  For example:

• If you’re of a certain age, the assumption is that you have access to the Internet.

• If you have an e-mail address, the assumption is that you check it regularly

• Those of us with digital cameras shoot more pictures because we’re no longer worried about wasting film.

In fact, noted under the definition for “technology” Wikipedia notes that the “implementation of technology influences the values of a society by changing expectations and realities.”

Certainly, these definitions could apply to other, non-technology  areas that are also impacting behavior and expections.

What are your thoughts on this?  If you have other examples, I’d love to hear them.

links for 2007-01-24

• Global Spending On Mobile Music To Top $32 Billion By 2010 - Yahoo! News
  Hat tip to Bruce Houghton (http://hypebot.typepad.com/hypebot/2007/01/mobile_music_sp.html) for the heads up.
  (tags: digital+music)
• Saying No
  Another way of saying that focus is critical
  (tags: management)
• Talk Outweighs Advertising
  Further confirmation on the value of word-of-mouth on purchase decisions
  (tags: word+of+mouth)
• McDonald's tests Coke competitors | ajc.com
  As David Polinchock points out: Are you giving your partners what their audience needs?  A chink in a 50+ year relationship. . .
  (tags: value+creation McDonald's Coke Pepsi)
• Openness, Generosity, and Accountability
  With information becoming ever more easily accessible, perhaps these are the 3 traits that will shape the new world of business.
  (tags: management)
• Yahoo's ad system is almost ready
  Yahoo finally takes a big step towards challenging Google, and it's a few weeks early
  (tags: Yahoo search)

links for 2007-01-23

• How Steve Jobs blew his iPhone keynote
  An opinion from Macworld magazine, and it's worth considering.
  (tags: iPhone Apple Steve+Jobs)
• More Data Emerges on Holiday Season Sales Slump — Digital Music News
  (tags: music+business)
• Social Retailing: "Is This Dress For Me?"
  You just need to make sure your best friend is near their cell phone in order to get this question answered.
  (tags: social+networks retail)
• Long Tail PR: how to do publicity without a press release (or the press)
  Chris Anderson's thoughts on how PR can be more effective in a conversational medium.
  (tags: PR social+media)
• The Era of Talent?
  I submit that the ability to recognize talent is closely linked to the ability to recognize cultural innovation: both require familiarity with a broad range of subjects.
  (tags: talent)

Hard[er] out here for a CMO

As reported in Adweek, CMO tenure is down:

the global nature of today's economy and the speed at which it moves has left many CEOs with unrealistic expectations, said Ian Beavis, vice president of marketing for Kia Motors America. Many chief executives, he said, are looking for a "magic bullet" to solve their bottom-line problems. "Marketing is a complex combination of art and science that requires ruthless pursuit of strategy and tremendous flexibility of execution depending on market conditions," he said. "There are a lot more CEOs from a financial background who don't know that."

One of those “market conditions” is culture. As Grant McCracken and I talked about, marketers will have to get better at reading culture’s Matrix-like code in order to get a better sense of what's coming at them across the landscape and what the landscape might look like when they launch their campaigns. Yes, they’ve got sophisticated marketing dashboards at their disposal. But these dashboards only give them a sense of what they can control and influence. A captain can only guide the ship, he/she has no control over the waters on which they sail. Therefore, an ability to understand what’s traveling through the medium of culture will become a competitive advantage.  Perhaps this tool would do something like this.

New Computer Interfaces

Rewind the calendar almost 12 months, and you could’ve seen Jeff Han, a research scientist at NYU, demo a multi-touch interface that gives a glimpse of the possibilities embodied in the iPhone’s touchscreen.  See the presentation he gave at the 2006 TED conference here.  It's pretty incredible.

Separately, John Moore over at Brand Autopsy points out a key difference between Apple and their friends in Redmond.  Microsoft is about fulfilling customers’ needs, whereas Apple focuses on their desires.  I guess Apple works hard to remind its employees that purchasing is not an entirely rational act.  Check it out here.

Hat tip to Chris Anderson at TED for both the post and for pulling this video out of the archives.