Hip-Hop's Shorthand Branding

How Luxury Brands Learn About Themselves Through Song Lyrics

Originally posted by Mike Tunnicliffe in Ad Age 'Songs For Soap' on 09.18.08 @ 10:57 AM

This week's Billboard celebrates the 50th anniversary of its legendary Hot 100 Chart, so if you want to know who's had the most number 1s, who's spent the most time on the charts, what the all-time top rock song was (you'd be surprised!) and you generally geek out for lists, check it out.

What also caught my eye, following our recent post about Chris Brown being paid by Wrigley's to write their product into his songs, was an article in the same issue that highlighted which brands and products were most frequently name-checked in hip-hop lyrics from 2003 to 2005. The original compiler of the report, Lucian James of Luxury Goods Consultancy Agenda, neatly summarizes why hip-hop and luxury brands fit so well together:

"The thing you notice [about] a lot of the main players that always get mentioned -- Hennessy, Mercedes-Benz, Cadillac -- is these brands always crop up because they are the best shorthand for success and material wealth," James says. "It's a poetic way to use language. When you say 'Benz' you're not just mentioning a product, you're connecting to a whole set of values and how you see yourself in just four letters."

... "They (key Hip-Hop artists) were wearing / using them and talking about them. It was the first wave of that and now it's kind of matured. Now it's a lot more structured. Luxury brands have learned more about themselves from their relationship with hip-hop in the past four to five years than in the past 10."

As we commented the other week, the hip-hop community has indeed learnt a lot from their early associations and is streets ahead, both commercially and culturally, in understanding the benefits of branding to their own businesses.

Hip-Hip-Hop You Don't Stop

Rappers Earn Top Dollar as True 360 Businesses Evolve

Posted by Mike Tunnicliffe in Ad Age 'Songs For Soap' on 08.21.08 @ 05:21 PM

Photo: AP

The perception that linking with brands was "selling out" has long vanished from the hip hop-world, and entertainers now have morphed into "enter-preneurs" that create new brands, businesses and revenues streams from the base of their core entertainment brand.

While Jay-Z has had significant press from his $150 million Live Nation deal, 50 cent has been accumulating his own pool of hip-hop cash. According to a recent Forbes hip-hop package, Fiddy has raked in over $150 million in the last 12 months, with at least $100 million of it coming from his stake in Glacéau, the parent company of Vitamin Water, which was sold to to Coca-Cola. He also has the G-Unit clothing line and record label, films, videogames and a stack of platinum albums, but perhaps most intriguing is a rumored partnership with South African mining billionaire Patrice Motsepe, who has been in discussions with 50 about a JV that will create 50-branded platinum for the necks and fingers of the bling crowd.

Whatever one thinks about the real value of these properties, the fact of the matter is that these types of 360 degree business models are ones that play to the strengths of the artist-brand and deliver products, services and content that is bang-on what the target audience wants. Whilst many traditional labels are talking a good 360 game, none have really managed to move beyond record sales, concert tickets and merchandising as a way of generating more revenue.

To quote from Paul Resnikoff's recent "Parting Shot" in Digital Music News, "the moneymaking possibilities are only limited by the creativity of the entrepreneurs involved."