“Want a sample? Well, here’s an example.” (Stetsasonic, 1989)
ON YOUTH MARKETING...
I have a younger brother, some nieces and nephews, too. While spending nights and weekends warning them against materialism, I spent my days developing marketing campaigns to convince masses (often not much older than them) that a $70,000 German automobile (with American parts, Asian and Mexican labor) is the ultimate status symbol. Upfront I touched on the amount of weight I gained mainly due to my sedentary corporate lifestyle. Maybe it was deserved given that I spent some time convincing young adults that McWings were a valid in-between meal snack. I had no cavities up until I was about 22, but after last few years you can just call me “Yuckmouth”. And maybe it’s poetic justice given that I spent that same stretch attaching coolness to everything from Wrigley’s Gum to Sprite. Looking back, I was quite the little pied piper.
Under the umbrella of Youth Marketing, I gave kids what they wanted while conditioning them to want, not what they needed, but to want what I needed to sell them. Through the images and ideas I crafted for cars, soft drinks, fast foods, etc. I encouraged behaviors in youth that I now criticize and despise. And now that I’m older, I’m starting to see the fruits of the seeds I helped sow.
ON BOSSES...
Corporate America has too many bosses and not enough leaders. Being a boss is easy; all you need is a title and big mouth; and if there are 2 things business is full of, it’s titles and bigmouths. But leaders? Not enough of ‘em. Not by a long-shot. In fact, I’ve only known a couple genuine leaders myself; the rest were just bosses with big offices and matching egos.
While the Boss says, “My door is always open,” the leader comes out from behind the desk, gets out of the office and stops you with a “How’s everything going? You need any help?” Leaders engage. Whether their workforce is 50, 500, or 5, a leader gets involved and stays involved. Leaders understand that they’re as important to their workers’ productivity as the workers themselves. (By the way: saying, “My door is always open,” is like saying, “I’m in the Mafia.” If you really are, you don’t have to say it. People know if your door is “open” based on how you run things.)
I’m stone-cold runnin’ thangs.
—Busy Bee
ON BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS...
In business, you have to be equally yoked. You can’t work for a company whose practices or ideologies aren’t inline with yours. You can’t go into business with people if you don’t have the same goals and beliefs about how to achieve those goals. You just can’t ride with people if you’re not all on the same level. It’s just that simple.
I also learned that being Equally Yoked doesn’t mean being clones, suffering from codependency, or being mutual sycophants. It doesn’t mean rolling lockstep just to avoid friction or conflict, either. Equally Yoked means that you have enough common ground that your differences become assets and strengths, not liabilities or barriers. Equally Yoked means that you both recognize the same starting point and destination and realize that if you don’t get there together you won’t get there at all.
You see this a lot in bad relationships: A woman gets down with a man who’s totally not on her level but all she sees is what she might be able to turn him into or the one or two things she really likes about him. Next thing you know, after a few months (or years) of back ‘n’ forth he’s still not where she’s at, she can’t bring herself to go where he is, and now they want to kill each other.
ON OFFICE LIFE:
Next to talking, trust is the biggest thing missing in business today. No one trusts their boss. Bosses don’t trust employees. Clients don’t trust agencies. Consumers don’t trust marketers. Voters don’t trust politicians or governments. Nobody trusts the average lawyer, stock analyst or accountant. Some days in business aren’t much different from a typical drug deal: watch the money and watch your back.
But more so than mutual trust, most folks don’t trust themselves. People are afraid to trust their own instincts and talents. Some people don’t trust themselves even when everyone else says they’re right. Lack of trust is often inbred into a company’s culture from the top down. Many companies teach employees to be drones: follow protocol, stick to the script, and make the boss/client/consumer happy. It’s pretty sad.
TECHNOLOGY IS A TALKING CRUTCH.
We’re emailing, faxing, paging, IM’ing, PDA’ing, 2-waying, and blue-toothing each other to death. We’re spellchecking without learning how to spell. I think we expect all this stuff to do our talking for us.
Technology is just a tool. Technology can’t talk. Technology can’t listen. Technology can’t understand. Technology doesn’t have common sense, instincts, or insights. So less tech, more talk.
LEARN TO WRITE.
Unless your name is Shawn Carter you’d better learn how to properly put pen to paper. I’m still amazed by the number of businesspeople who can’t write a decent document. (I swear I’ve gotten memos and “white papers” that read like Aramaic in Braille.) Writing is talking in print. If you can’t write, you have no voice.
Also, writing is a muscle—work out often and yours’ll get stronger. Read more, too. Strong writers tend to be strong readers. If your employees are poor writers, help them improve.
Bait ‘n’ Switch
Most modern diversity initiatives are fueled by political correctness, liberal guilt, greed, and fear of lawsuits. Enter one of the hottest crop circles going, the Bait ‘n’ Switch.
A classic BS tactic is tokenism: Hire a couple minorities. Stick ‘em in key visible positions. Keep the rest of your staff as white as sack of cotton balls. Get folks hyped about your new “minority initiatives.” Then when you want those minority set-asides, earmarked loans and contracts, and other financial/political goodies, put on your minority-face, step ‘n’ fetch for the camera and get that paper. And when no one’s looking, simply shelve your select colored folks and get back to business as usual.
By the late 90s I was at a major company, which at its height, had over 175 employees, about 165 of which were white. What few minorities we had were mainly support staffers. But because over half the staff, including the CEO and the top 3 VPs, were white females the company listed itself as “minority owned.” Why? To be eligible for a slew of minority-based set asides. It was smooth. But the best part of it was witnessing the systemic self-denial that came with it.
By 2001 I was at another firm that had claimed “minority status” even though most everyone there was white. Why? Many of the staffers including the president were openly gay. (Gay + white = disenfranchised minority, you know.) I’ve seen this hustle run at dozens of companies in the ad industry and have heard of it being run at countless more.
Today, many businesses have added a twist to the Bait ‘n’ Switch and it goes a little something like this: Let’s say Mainstream Company Y wants their cut of the “koombya dollar” (minority contracts, ethnic marketing budgets, etc.). They do what’s called a “minority joint venture”: Offer a minority person or group a stake in what will be a highly publicized “strategic alliance” or “minority joint venture.” The minority gets a little juice plus some public shine. The (white) “silent partner” supplies the (white) labor and infrastructure in exchange for an ungodly share of the revenues. It’s like a vanilla sundae—a little chocolate up top but white everywhere else.
Many looking to help minorities support these ventures thinking they’re doing the right thing. Government agencies hand ‘em minority contracts thinking they’re a minority company. And of course many consumers buy in thinking they’re helping a minority business. But while the money and mostly artificial goodwill flows, black professionals by and large, stay shut out of true equity and opportunities. Plus, there’s little, if any, investment in those communities. It’s called having your cake and eating it, too. But on the low, most industry and regulatory agencies have been hip to this hustle for years. They’re just rolling with it for the good PR (and probably some well-placed kickbacks).
And anyone who followed the 2006 congressional hearings where Senator Kerry et al subpoenaed 13 major New York agencies for their whitewashed hiring practices… well, that’s a book somebody else has to write. (But listing your top janitor as an executive because he’s the only black person on staff and you don’t wanna hire any other black folks is just the tip of the iceberg.)
Anyway, besides Madison Ave, where’s bait ‘n’ switch being run most? From what I’ve seen firsthand and heard from professionals I’ve talked to, the marketing, advertising, and PR industries are infested with it. Most so-called “minority firms” have become fronts for general market firms looking to fatten their bottom-lines with minority revenues. Bait ‘n’ Switch is also commonplace in the music and entertainment game. Most all of the top “Black-owned” record labels are actually boutiques fronting for larger mainstream conglomerates who control the music and reap most of the profits. Oh, let’s not forget the Native American gaming industry: It’s an estimated $13 billion industry yet it’s “outside investors,” management companies, and tribal elites that are benefiting most, leaving the average Native out in the cold. It’s bait ‘n’ switch run to perfection.
On Marketing...
One of the first rules in the marketing hustle is to remind the consumer that the products they buy are more than just purchases. We have to convince folks that they’re buying “an experience,” that they’re participants in a brand’s growth. We have to convince them that being a consumer entitles them to judge, shape, and even destroy that which they pay to consume. If we don’t they won’t buy as much stuff; and as marketers, we ain’t havin’ that.
This is a major reason why they’re so many fights at sporting events. Sports fans have been hustled into believing that their ticket entitles them to be more important to the game than they really are. Sports fans are just observers who pay to observe an event. Their $100 tickets don’t give them ownership over any player, team or venue. Truth is they’re just renting a view until the game clock hits zero. Period.
But for the last 25 years or so The Hustle has hooked fans into believing that their ticket/merchandise purchase entitles them to moon players, throw stuff at players, sling slurs and expletives at players, spread rumors about players, live out their dreams thru players, etc. And the players, who’ve long since been repackaged as entertainment product, should just shut up and take it. After all, it’s the tickets, merchandising and cable packages and media coverage that pay player salaries. Sports fans are really minority owners (pun intended); and as such they deserve to use their product purchases as they see fit. Right?
Again, if the game were just a game, throwbacks wouldn’t have gone for $300 and new shoes wouldn’t cost $150. If the game was just a game, advertisers wouldn’t sponsor it, and 45 year white men wouldn’t worship 22-year-old black boys with 40-inch verticals, .350 batting averages or 4.25 speed. If the game was just a game, it wouldn’t sell. And sports is a business and business is all about doing what sells, no matter what sells.
You see this in hiphop where people buy a CD, some Lugz or DJ equipment and suddenly decide that they’re co-owners of the culture. This is why we hawk Hollywood stars… After all, we bought their movies, watched their TV shows, etc. They owe us the autograph and intimate details of their lives. We’re consumers—we paid good money to star-worship; they owe us. And the luxury brand we just overpaid for makes us part of the upscale crowd, doesn’t it? I buy the symbol therefore I own what it symbolizes, right? Right.
In the end, it’s all just sugar water, it was probably made in Taiwan or Indonesia, and it will eventually end up in a dollar store or on one of those tired “What were we thinking?!” pop culture TV lists. The most revolutionary thing a consumer can do is to buy what you need first, question why you want what you want and always recognize when you’re being hustled.
You’re only a customer—
you’re walking in the presence of hustlers…
—LL Cool J
