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When Canadian rap
star Choclair and his manager Lee “Day” Fredericks went to marketers looking
to leverage the hip-hop artist’s popularity, they didn’t have to introduce
themselves. Choclair’s debut album, 1999’s Ice Cold, had already
yielded two hit singles, videos and coast-to-coast radio airplay.
“We didn’t have to
do any selling,” Mr. Fredericks said. “The demand was already there, and the
success of the record proved it.”
Marketers could see
how that demand offered a platform for getting their messages to a coveted
demographic: skeptical, hard-to-impress 18-to 24-year-olds.
Marketing
executives may not understand hip-hop. But they understand sales, and
Choclair’s numbers demonstrate that.
“When their kids
love Choclair, it becomes very apparent what’s hip and what’s not,” said Mr.
Fredericks.
“It’s unfortunate
that it’s only been in the last two years in Canada, but that is the
reality, and advertising agencies are only just starting to become
comfortable.”
Choclair featured
Microsoft’s X-Box gaming unit in a video before it was available publicly.
His image was enhanced because he had an anticipated gadget before anybody
else; Microsoft got its game unit associated with an eagerly emulated
style-setter.
Hip-hop accounts
for more than 20% of music sales in urban areas in the United States,
according to the Soundscan music retail measuring service. It’s been a
pillar of pop culture for more than 20 years. But advertisers are just
starting to notice, and to look for ways to capitalize on its popularity.
Reebok wanted to
forge relationships with home-grown hip-hop stars when it launched its
Mustang shoe. Choclair was launching a CD at the same time. “So we launched
our shoe and his CD the same day,” said Micki Rivers, Reebok Canada’s
marketing manager.
A cardboard
stand-up of Choclair was in every Athlete’s World store across the country.
He rapped in a Reebok commercial, and Reebok helped stretch Virgin Music’s
promotional budget to push his album.
“All of a sudden
Reebok’s got a Canadian face,” Ms. Rivers said.
The campaign won
Reebok Canada the corporation’s global marketing award for 2002. “It was a
mutual thing,” Ms. Rivers said. “Good for him, good for us”
Reebok is currently
crafting a campaign that brings together Canadian artist Jully Black with
its shoes as well as National Basketball Association and National Football
League apparel, for which Reebok is the sole licensee — something that gets
it a lot of cachet and credibility in the hip-hop community.
Rap’s relationship
with marketing has existed for years, but on an informal basis — rappers
named products in their lyrics without the urging of the products’
manufacturers. It started in 1979, with the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s
Delight” (“Hotel, motel, Holiday Inn”), and continued through Busta Rhymes
and Sean “P Diddy” Combs’s “Pass The Courvoisier” this year, which helped
accelerate the cognac’s sales to a double-digit pace.
“But we didn’t pay
Busta to write the song,” said Jack Shea, spokesman for Allied Domecq
Spirits North America, which imports and distributes the drink. He said the
song was an unexpected result of a marketing campaign Allied Domecq launched
months earlier, which included sponsoring shows by emerging artists at
parties in bars, aimed at getting what he calls “young urban tastemakers” to
try Courvoisier in cocktails.
“We’re flattered by
the song,” said Mr. Shea. And grateful: The company now has an agreement
with Busta Rhymes’s handler, Violator Management, to supply Courvoisier for
his current tour’s post-concert parties.
Similarly,
Cadillac’s Escalade sport-utility vehicle is a favored ride among hip-hop
artists, and a four-wheeled star in a lot of hip-hop videos. General Motors
doesn’t have any product placement deals to ensure the Escalade is featured;
individual dealers lend demo models for video shoots. One Escalade booster,
the Atlanta-based rapper Ludacris, made Cadillac part of the rhyme scheme in
his song “Southern Hospitality”: “Cadillac grills, Cadillac mills, check out
the oil my Cadillac spills.” That refrain didn’t cost General Motors a dime.
But Ludacris also
illustrates the trouble marketers can stumble into trying to ally themselves
with a culture they don’t know much about. Pepsi-Cola recently dropped
commercials featuring Ludacris after Fox News Channel commentator Bill
O’Reilly decried his explicit lyrics and consumers complained.
Mr. Fredericks
remains wary, too. He said Reebok’s Ms. Rivers is one of the few marketing
people who “gets it,” along with a couple of people at ad agency MacLaren
McCann. Other marketers have noticed the success and want some for
themselves, he said “Choclair’s image fits; he’s not the crazy guy, and he
doesn’t promote violence, but he’s not soft, either. When a sponsor puts
their name behind the tour and the tour goes smoothly, and that’s coupled
with a lot of press, that’s just great.” |
