"I don't battle anymore! I uplift motherfuckers!" - GZA
Tuesday, September 23, 2008,7:02 AM
The Mining of Hip-Hop’s Golden Age
By JON CARAMANICA
DURING a show at the Knitting Factory in TriBeCa this summer, the Cool Kids took the stage dressed like extras in “Do the Right Thing.” Mikey Rocks, 20, and the duo’s main rapper, wore a baggy, bright red tank top with silver lettering, and Chuck Inglish, 23, sported a striped Polo shirt; both wore fitted baseball caps with brims flying high. Midshow, the two slid into the signature song “88,” a carefully constructed burst of reminiscence with spare, crisp drums backing a fusillade of era-appropriate references: Cuban-link gold chains, Cazal eyeglass frames, stone-washed Guess jeans. In the crowd, some fans waved gold ropes and vintage sneakers, and a young woman in a floral-print dress did the high-stepping Kid ’n Play dance from the 1990 film “House Party.”
Released in May, the Cool Kids’ debut EP, “The Bake Sale” (C.A.K.E./Chocolate Industries), is a vivid and unusually potent revisiting of what is commonly referred to as hip-hop’s golden age (spanning the late 1980s and early ’90s), both in its spare, drum-heavy production values and in its neatly structured rhyme patterns. Never mind that the two performers aren’t old enough to have experienced the scene firsthand.
“That’s what we sound like; I can’t help it,” said Chuck Inglish, who produces the Cool Kids’ music with a meticulous ear. “But I’m into emulation, not imitation.”
Increasingly, the Cool Kids are not alone. They are part of a small but newly influential hip-hop subculture — call it meta-rap — created by a generation of artists raised wholly within hip-hop culture, making music that is a commentary on what came before it. In hip-hop, which can be ruthlessly forward-looking, this is a novel development, and it has made for compelling and diverse music from acts like the Cool Kids, Pacific Division, the Knux, Kidz in the Hall and Plastic Little.
Not all these artists are as committed to a specific sound as the Cool Kids are, but they express their nostalgia in other ways: in lyrical references and rhyme patterns, in the selection of drum sounds, in their choice of clothes. While much current mainstream rap tends toward street-life fantasias and thug-love odes, these meta-rap artists are far less ostentatious, preoccupied with authenticity and topically narrow. As a result most of their music exists at the margins, little acknowledged by radio or television but extremely popular on the Internet.
Musically, this may be the most promising underground hip-hop movement in a decade, feted by old-school loyalists and genre outsiders entranced by its obsessive commitment to style. But even as the movement creeps toward broader recognition, it has already generated its share of backlash. These artists are often dismissed as “hipster rap,” as if they’re wearing their old-school references as nothing more than fashion. The result is a hip-hop generation gap.
“It’s the instant gratification aspect,” said Eskay, proprietor of the hip-hop blog NahRight.com, which has prominently featured many of these artists. “You can be an expert in anything in about a week now. The backlash is, these kids are young; why are they trying to recreate something they didn’t experience?”
Rap has had its countercultures before, of course. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, New York’s Native Tongues crew, which included De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, presented a bohemian alternative to the growing gangster rap scene. In the ’90s, Los Angeles and the Bay Area were home to independent scenes interested in rewriting the rules of lyricism.
But while intragenre nostalgia figures regularly in other styles of pop — rock has a long history of sifting through its past for new inspiration — it has never had a place in hip-hop. It’s not that rap never looks backward. Thanks to its innovations in sampling, it has helped keep various other styles prominent in the collective pop memory. But borrowing from other rappers has traditionally been considered taboo. And largely it still is, so many of these artists use elements of the past as building blocks, which they then reconfigure to their own ends. Though the music shares many characteristics with hip-hop from decades past, “in the climate of the industry right now, it’s considered experimental,” said Be Young, 22, of Southern California’s Pacific Division.
“People are students of the game,” said Double O of the Chicago duo Kidz in the Hall. “The late ’80s and early ’90s was hip-hop’s Harlem Renaissance. You can find traces of that in all of these new artists.”
With two full-length albums to their credit, Kidz in the Hall, who met while students at the University of Pennsylvania, qualify as veterans of the new movement. On their latest album, “The In Crowd” (Duck Down), they even enlist golden-age artists like Camp Lo, Buckshot and Masta Ace for cameos. “I’m an academic at heart,” Double O said. “Even when it comes to music, I’m going to take pieces out and reinject them on an academically creative level.”
The New Orleans-via-Los Angeles duo the Knux also takes its bona fides seriously. “I am very schooled on what happened in the ’80s,” said Krispy Kream, 25, half of the duo. “Some of these cats wasn’t even born till the ’90s.”
How they translate those influences is unique, though. The duo’s debut, “Remind Me in 3 Days,” to be released in October on Interscope, is self-produced — the Knux has performed often at songwriters’ nights at Largo, the Los Angeles club spearheaded by the producer Jon Brion, who has worked with Fiona Apple and Aimee Mann — and recalls in places early OutKast, the Clash and the Police. The texture, though, is unmistakably from the golden age, with fast-rap cadences and raw, almost haphazard-sounding drums.
“We recorded songs in the worst way possible,” Krispy Kream said, “so you get a certain feel from it, like an old hip-hop record from 1990 or whenever.”
His brother and band mate, Rah Almillio, 23, considers it “a punk approach, hip-hop as it used to be — not perfected, not overpolished.”
In a sense these meta-rappers have become keepers of the flame for the genre’s old guard: neo-traditionalists in eccentrics’ clothing. “There’s always nostalgia; it’s a byproduct of capitalism,” said Jayson Musson, 30, the frontman for the Philadelphia rap satirists Plastic Little. “Especially for the kids who weren’t really there, that era becomes hypercool, like the ’50s and the Beats.”
Mr. Musson described his music as “rap, but almost an investigation of rap, very aware of the genre and its structural elements.” Plastic Little has released two albums, the self-released “Thug Paradise” and “She’s Mature” (Tonearm), both packed with hip-hop in-jokes. This inquisitiveness also comes out in Mr. Musson’s writing and art. For a time last year, he was a columnist for Philadelphia Weekly, and in 2002 he put out “Too Black for BET,” a collection of posters that poked vicious fun at hip-hop orthodoxies (the most memorable of which speculated on the sexuality of Jay-Z).
“The music is like the writing,” Mr. Musson said. “It’s got to be funny or deconstructive.”
In recent years there has been no shortage of deconstructionists in rap’s mainstream, the most noteworthy being Kanye West, André 3000 of OutKast and Lupe Fiasco. And this is a particularly fertile moment for alternative hip-hop styles: the electro-influenced club-rap of Spank Rock and Kid Sister, the liberal-minded college raps of Asher Roth, the surf-rock hip-hop of Shwayze, Wale’s hybrid of go-go and rap, and the stream-of-consciousness fantasies of Charles Hamilton.
These so-called hipster rappers have been successful at carving out their own niches, finding audiences in unexpected places. The Knux had a song featured on an episode of the HBO series “Entourage” last season. Plastic Little recently toured Europe with Mark Ronson. And the Cool Kids have been prominently featured in a national television ad for Rhapsody, Microsoft’s online music service.
There may well be a ceiling for this movement, though. “The music is just not mass appeal,” said Cipha Sounds, a mixshow D.J. on New York’s Hot 97 (WQHT-FM) and a host on MTV. “I enjoy some of it very much, but it’s nothing I can really play on the radio or in the club.”
And sales of these artists have been modest, though none have yet released an album with a major-label push like the Knux will receive, according to Steve Berman, president of sales and marketing at Interscope Geffen A&M. But he warned that “their success may not be measured in the old-school commercial ways we used in the past.”
Apart from Kidz in the Hall and Plastic Little, none of these groups have even released proper full-length albums; blog hype has gotten ahead of them, forcing them to hone, and perhaps calcify, a sound very early in their careers. “Everyone’s looking at them before they’re ready,” said Kidz in the Hall’s Double O of his peers. “They’re going to have to put out a product before their time.”
Or, perhaps, to suffer the indignity of having their style copied before they get a chance to truly capitalize on it. “We’ve got a lot of friends at record labels that got inside scoop on what’s happening,” said the Cool Kids’ Mikey Rocks. “It’s been said they’re trying to create their own Cool Kids. There’s going to be clones and Cool Kids Juniors all over the place.”
If the Cool Kids have their way, though, they will have evolved by then. In between tour dates, the group has been working on its debut album, tentatively titled “When Fish Ride Bicycles.” And there is always more history to mine.
“After this LP,” Chuck Inglish said, “I’m thinking about recording everything to tape like it’s 1991 and seeing how that sounds.”
DURING a show at the Knitting Factory in TriBeCa this summer, the Cool Kids took the stage dressed like extras in “Do the Right Thing.” Mikey Rocks, 20, and the duo’s main rapper, wore a baggy, bright red tank top with silver lettering, and Chuck Inglish, 23, sported a striped Polo shirt; both wore fitted baseball caps with brims flying high. Midshow, the two slid into the signature song “88,” a carefully constructed burst of reminiscence with spare, crisp drums backing a fusillade of era-appropriate references: Cuban-link gold chains, Cazal eyeglass frames, stone-washed Guess jeans. In the crowd, some fans waved gold ropes and vintage sneakers, and a young woman in a floral-print dress did the high-stepping Kid ’n Play dance from the 1990 film “House Party.”
Released in May, the Cool Kids’ debut EP, “The Bake Sale” (C.A.K.E./Chocolate Industries), is a vivid and unusually potent revisiting of what is commonly referred to as hip-hop’s golden age (spanning the late 1980s and early ’90s), both in its spare, drum-heavy production values and in its neatly structured rhyme patterns. Never mind that the two performers aren’t old enough to have experienced the scene firsthand.
“That’s what we sound like; I can’t help it,” said Chuck Inglish, who produces the Cool Kids’ music with a meticulous ear. “But I’m into emulation, not imitation.”
Increasingly, the Cool Kids are not alone. They are part of a small but newly influential hip-hop subculture — call it meta-rap — created by a generation of artists raised wholly within hip-hop culture, making music that is a commentary on what came before it. In hip-hop, which can be ruthlessly forward-looking, this is a novel development, and it has made for compelling and diverse music from acts like the Cool Kids, Pacific Division, the Knux, Kidz in the Hall and Plastic Little.
Not all these artists are as committed to a specific sound as the Cool Kids are, but they express their nostalgia in other ways: in lyrical references and rhyme patterns, in the selection of drum sounds, in their choice of clothes. While much current mainstream rap tends toward street-life fantasias and thug-love odes, these meta-rap artists are far less ostentatious, preoccupied with authenticity and topically narrow. As a result most of their music exists at the margins, little acknowledged by radio or television but extremely popular on the Internet.
Musically, this may be the most promising underground hip-hop movement in a decade, feted by old-school loyalists and genre outsiders entranced by its obsessive commitment to style. But even as the movement creeps toward broader recognition, it has already generated its share of backlash. These artists are often dismissed as “hipster rap,” as if they’re wearing their old-school references as nothing more than fashion. The result is a hip-hop generation gap.
“It’s the instant gratification aspect,” said Eskay, proprietor of the hip-hop blog NahRight.com, which has prominently featured many of these artists. “You can be an expert in anything in about a week now. The backlash is, these kids are young; why are they trying to recreate something they didn’t experience?”
Rap has had its countercultures before, of course. In the late ’80s and early ’90s, New York’s Native Tongues crew, which included De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, presented a bohemian alternative to the growing gangster rap scene. In the ’90s, Los Angeles and the Bay Area were home to independent scenes interested in rewriting the rules of lyricism.
But while intragenre nostalgia figures regularly in other styles of pop — rock has a long history of sifting through its past for new inspiration — it has never had a place in hip-hop. It’s not that rap never looks backward. Thanks to its innovations in sampling, it has helped keep various other styles prominent in the collective pop memory. But borrowing from other rappers has traditionally been considered taboo. And largely it still is, so many of these artists use elements of the past as building blocks, which they then reconfigure to their own ends. Though the music shares many characteristics with hip-hop from decades past, “in the climate of the industry right now, it’s considered experimental,” said Be Young, 22, of Southern California’s Pacific Division.
“People are students of the game,” said Double O of the Chicago duo Kidz in the Hall. “The late ’80s and early ’90s was hip-hop’s Harlem Renaissance. You can find traces of that in all of these new artists.”
With two full-length albums to their credit, Kidz in the Hall, who met while students at the University of Pennsylvania, qualify as veterans of the new movement. On their latest album, “The In Crowd” (Duck Down), they even enlist golden-age artists like Camp Lo, Buckshot and Masta Ace for cameos. “I’m an academic at heart,” Double O said. “Even when it comes to music, I’m going to take pieces out and reinject them on an academically creative level.”
The New Orleans-via-Los Angeles duo the Knux also takes its bona fides seriously. “I am very schooled on what happened in the ’80s,” said Krispy Kream, 25, half of the duo. “Some of these cats wasn’t even born till the ’90s.”
How they translate those influences is unique, though. The duo’s debut, “Remind Me in 3 Days,” to be released in October on Interscope, is self-produced — the Knux has performed often at songwriters’ nights at Largo, the Los Angeles club spearheaded by the producer Jon Brion, who has worked with Fiona Apple and Aimee Mann — and recalls in places early OutKast, the Clash and the Police. The texture, though, is unmistakably from the golden age, with fast-rap cadences and raw, almost haphazard-sounding drums.
“We recorded songs in the worst way possible,” Krispy Kream said, “so you get a certain feel from it, like an old hip-hop record from 1990 or whenever.”
His brother and band mate, Rah Almillio, 23, considers it “a punk approach, hip-hop as it used to be — not perfected, not overpolished.”
In a sense these meta-rappers have become keepers of the flame for the genre’s old guard: neo-traditionalists in eccentrics’ clothing. “There’s always nostalgia; it’s a byproduct of capitalism,” said Jayson Musson, 30, the frontman for the Philadelphia rap satirists Plastic Little. “Especially for the kids who weren’t really there, that era becomes hypercool, like the ’50s and the Beats.”
Mr. Musson described his music as “rap, but almost an investigation of rap, very aware of the genre and its structural elements.” Plastic Little has released two albums, the self-released “Thug Paradise” and “She’s Mature” (Tonearm), both packed with hip-hop in-jokes. This inquisitiveness also comes out in Mr. Musson’s writing and art. For a time last year, he was a columnist for Philadelphia Weekly, and in 2002 he put out “Too Black for BET,” a collection of posters that poked vicious fun at hip-hop orthodoxies (the most memorable of which speculated on the sexuality of Jay-Z).
“The music is like the writing,” Mr. Musson said. “It’s got to be funny or deconstructive.”
In recent years there has been no shortage of deconstructionists in rap’s mainstream, the most noteworthy being Kanye West, André 3000 of OutKast and Lupe Fiasco. And this is a particularly fertile moment for alternative hip-hop styles: the electro-influenced club-rap of Spank Rock and Kid Sister, the liberal-minded college raps of Asher Roth, the surf-rock hip-hop of Shwayze, Wale’s hybrid of go-go and rap, and the stream-of-consciousness fantasies of Charles Hamilton.
These so-called hipster rappers have been successful at carving out their own niches, finding audiences in unexpected places. The Knux had a song featured on an episode of the HBO series “Entourage” last season. Plastic Little recently toured Europe with Mark Ronson. And the Cool Kids have been prominently featured in a national television ad for Rhapsody, Microsoft’s online music service.
There may well be a ceiling for this movement, though. “The music is just not mass appeal,” said Cipha Sounds, a mixshow D.J. on New York’s Hot 97 (WQHT-FM) and a host on MTV. “I enjoy some of it very much, but it’s nothing I can really play on the radio or in the club.”
And sales of these artists have been modest, though none have yet released an album with a major-label push like the Knux will receive, according to Steve Berman, president of sales and marketing at Interscope Geffen A&M. But he warned that “their success may not be measured in the old-school commercial ways we used in the past.”
Apart from Kidz in the Hall and Plastic Little, none of these groups have even released proper full-length albums; blog hype has gotten ahead of them, forcing them to hone, and perhaps calcify, a sound very early in their careers. “Everyone’s looking at them before they’re ready,” said Kidz in the Hall’s Double O of his peers. “They’re going to have to put out a product before their time.”
Or, perhaps, to suffer the indignity of having their style copied before they get a chance to truly capitalize on it. “We’ve got a lot of friends at record labels that got inside scoop on what’s happening,” said the Cool Kids’ Mikey Rocks. “It’s been said they’re trying to create their own Cool Kids. There’s going to be clones and Cool Kids Juniors all over the place.”
If the Cool Kids have their way, though, they will have evolved by then. In between tour dates, the group has been working on its debut album, tentatively titled “When Fish Ride Bicycles.” And there is always more history to mine.
“After this LP,” Chuck Inglish said, “I’m thinking about recording everything to tape like it’s 1991 and seeing how that sounds.”
Labels: African Americans, Music
Monday, September 22, 2008,5:16 AM
48 Laws of Obama: An Interview with Strategy Expert Robert Greene
On May 20, 2008, Barack Obama won the state of Oregon. No matter what opinion people made about Obama "not being ready to lead" a bi-racial man with a Muslim father and a Christan mother had taken one more step toward entering the Oval Office. The mauling he gave Senator Clinton in several predominantly White states in massive numbers seemed unthinkable.
Or was it?
In 2000 author Robert Greene penned the 48 Laws of Power. His groundbreaking bestseller gives a modern twist to classical war strategy. Greene's in depth discussion on the effects of mastering of one's emotions can easily be seen in the Clinton vs. Obama skirmishes.
Greene expanded his unique approach to observing warfare in The Art of Seduction and The 33 Strategies of war.
He is arguably the foremost sought after strategist in business, politics and war - our Prince Machiavelli of modern warfare, if you will.
In watching Barack Obama's rise, it is hard to not see a pattern of his victories closely connected with the 48 Laws of Power and the 33 Strategies of War.
At times Obama appears to have been playing a magnificent game of political chess from the start of his bid for the Oval Office. I sat down with Robert Greene to discuss Senator Obama's tactical and strategic movements in his campaign. While everyone seems to have their site locked into the DNC convention, Robert Greene advises that we all prepare ourselves for a protracted political battle.
AB: Lets start with Law 24: The Perfect Courtier. You say that individual "thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the most oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.
"
RG: I never thought about it before, but it does make perfect sense. If you wanted to psychoanalyze it a little bit. With his background, in being bi-racial and having to navigate in different worlds...If you look at his Kenyan father, then you look at the White side in Kansas and Hawaii- he's been towing a line between the two worlds. And if you read his book, he's asking "Where do I fit"? It's a really interesting story, I like his books. He's always had to learn how to be the courtier. He's always had to be diplomatic. How not to offend this person or that. These two sides had very different sensibilities, while he's trying too figure out who he is. So, I think its in his nature. Its not a fake thing. Some people learn to be the courtier later in life. Its a nice quality, but some people can feel like its a little bit manipulative. But I think its very deep in his identity, from his multiracial background. I'm not sure, I can only speculate.
Its very nice. He's very graceful. He does not get angry. I thought the one moment where he blew it a little was in a debate with Clinton. It was in January I believe. He kinda lost his cool. He got a little bit angry and testy. I supported him early on. He was my first pick. For while I felt a little bit alienated from him. I did not think he was tough enough. I wanted to see him fighting back. But I understood later on that that's very hard for him to do. It does not play well. For the position that he is in, trying to be the first Black President. For him to show anger at a White woman was strategically not gonna play. So, he lost it a little bit in this one debate. But he never repeated it. I mean, its not really a strategy on his part, but its very effective.
I was just reading before you called about him speaking in Florida. He was meeting with Jewish voters. It was kind of interesting to see him charming them again, winning them over. I can make references to Jewish people and Jewish culture that are very appropriate. So there he is being the courtier.Its a quality hat will serve very well in his campaign. Bill Clinton was a master at it. He could talk to Hollywood liberals and then he could go to a factory in Ohio.
Now, some people don't think he has the common touch. I think there is a bit of truth to that. Maybe he is not comfortable with the White steel worker in Pennsylvania. But he has a different kind of power. A different kind of charm. I think he'll actually get over some of these supposed weaknesses that he has with White voters. I think he is very much a courter.
AB: The first law I think I openly recognized with Barack is Law 32: Play to Peoples Fantasies. There you say "The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes for disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.
"
Now, I do not mean to imply that he is fraudulent in spirit, or an actor. But, I don't think I have seen someone in my lifetime who has been able to mentally and emotionally move masses the way he does. I can only compare it to watching old footage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Maybe Malcolm X.
RG: Or JFK.
AB: Perfect example in JFK. It looks like his change theme has drawn millions of people into what they want to see in America. It seems like he creates this dream for you of what America can be, but leaves room for you to impose your dream on top.
RG: I think you're right. We don't like to bring sophisticated psychology when discussing these things. The fantasy always kind of plays a line between a vague hope with a little bit of reality thrown in. If you put too much reality in it obscures. If you put too much hope there is nothing we can really connect to. So, throughout the ages the people who have been able to master this know how to make the perfect illusionary quality. Its like watching a good writer writing a novel.
Barack makes change inspiring. But he does not fill in too many details. Strategically that's very smart. The problem with America in the 21st century is that the country is so splintered. It's cracking up into smaller and smaller niche markets and groups. By region, by ethnicity and all these things. So that makes it hard to connect the whole country together. Its hard to get over all that and bring people together with a message. The only way you can do that is to be very inspiring and not being too concrete with what you are offering.
I can refer to John Kennedy in 1960 when he ran for President. He kinda drove the Republicans crazy with his vagueness. He never really said what he was going to do on a whole score of issues. But he talked about the new frontier and bringing back a certain spirit in America. It really connected in that moment. I think the people around him, like David Axelrod who have backgrounds in marketing an advertising are crafting a story. They are trying to do more of a JFK, or even Regan type campaign. They know that this is the moment for that. Because Americans are very disillusioned with probably the worst President we've ever had. Things look very bleak.
AB: The fantasy law connects directly to Law 45: Preach the Need for change, but never reform too much at once. I think he's hitting law 45 right on the nail.
RG: How so?
AB: Because he keeps the discussion of change very nebulous. Mainly though Obama keeps you believing that A) that change can happen, and B) that he is the agent for the change you want to see in America. One of his best qualities, and something I think Senator Clinton should have embraced was Law 46: Never Appear Too Perfect. He never lets you forget that he's got a wife and kids and that he has his own struggles with cigarettes or whatever. I think 46 keeps people listening to him.
RG: You and I may feel that way. But I'm wondering if other people don't see that in him. I saw him yesterday in his speech after he won Oregon and he said "I'm not perfect, I've made mistakes". I think that kind of humility is very endearing. But I think there are a lot of people that he doesn't connect to. They see him as kind of arrogant and over educated person who is looking down on them. Its funny how its subjective. So to you and I we think he does embody law 46. Other people think that he doesn't do it enough.
It's all fake though really in the end. Because Hillary is eating hot dogs and drinking beer acting like shes one of the yokels. They made one hundred million dollars last year. She comes from a wealthy background. Certainly more elite than he is. Its all fake in the end. But I think that part is subjective in the end. He's going to have to work a bit on his image. He's gonna have to connect with that NASCAR crowd a little bit.
AB: Moving beyond Hillary and looking toward McCain, are we moving from power to the war? If you could tell him to study only 3 of the 33 Strategies of War what would they be?
RG: The one he should study, and has actually done pretty well so far is Strategy 20: Maneuver Them Into Weakness. Its a Chinese concept. I struggled my hardest to bring this to the Western audience, because its not easy to explain. In the East, its the position you take that matters. Everything is related to something else- nothing is isolated. What you want in war or strategy is to take positions that put your rival in a corner and have less options than you.
The Western approach is not like that at all. The Western approach is to go straight in at the enemy and kill as many as you can.
In politics you want to get to a position that allows you to go here or there. Obama did that brilliantly from day one and Hillary messed it up. Here he is moving toward the general election. How can he move John McCain into positions that are untenable? That's the game. You can already see the position he's trying to put McCain in is, "He's Bush" But how do you make that case? Its one thing to say. Its another thing to make people feel it. If he can make people in Kentucky and Pennsylvania feel that McCain will make us live through four more years of the hell we've been living through it will be very effective.
But it can't be just with words. You have to do and show- its interesting to watch. Now, very fortunately, the Democrats control Congress. For instance the vote to the GI bill that just occurred. It will force McCains hand to show that he supports Bush. If he doesn't, he'll alienate his right wing base. In the Power book we call that putting your enemy on the horns of a dilemma. You go right, you are screwed. You go left, you are screwed. If he votes for the GI bill, he looks like a Democrat. If he votes against it, he looks like he's Bush again.
Obama has to keep his options fluid. You don't wanna commit to anything that's gonna screw you in the end. Any kind of position for instance on the economy. He did that in one debate but I don't think that's going to come back to hurt him. Don't say exactly that you'll never raise taxes on this. Keep it a little bit vague. Give yourself room to put McCain in very uncomfortable positions.
Another law from the war book is Strategy 28: Give Your Rivals Enough Rope to Hang Themselves. You never stop a man who's killing himself. McCain has a temper. Its the old Bob Dole thing. Love him or hate him, he's got a temper and its legendary. So he's got to frustrate him and bait him into things. Seeing John McCain lose his temper. It does not look so good. He looks like a cranky old man.
I talk about this in my book in regards to Lee Atwater. He's kind of a satanic figure in politics. He did that very same thing in 1988 with Bob Dole. But I'm afraid its a very powerful tactic and could be very effective on John McCain. I already saw, with the GI bill he got very testy.
War Strategy number 12: Grand Strategy. Its the most important in the book. Its that you plan, and that you do it looking far ahead into the future. You don't want to be someone that's attacking into the wind everything something new comes into the election cycle. Politicians muck this up again and again. Because its not an election that takes place every week. Its in November. One day. There are going to be setbacks. There are going to be things that you did not plan for happening. I mean, Democrats are really bad at this. I mean pathetic bad. If you have a grand strategy, it makes you consistent. It keeps you going in that line, when it seems everything around you not.
So much of the bad stuff happening, with Clinton losing this state or that state- it could have pushed him off course. But it didn't. He stayed pretty consistent on message there. If he follows those, it'll be a slam dunk.
Or was it?
In 2000 author Robert Greene penned the 48 Laws of Power. His groundbreaking bestseller gives a modern twist to classical war strategy. Greene's in depth discussion on the effects of mastering of one's emotions can easily be seen in the Clinton vs. Obama skirmishes.
Greene expanded his unique approach to observing warfare in The Art of Seduction and The 33 Strategies of war.
He is arguably the foremost sought after strategist in business, politics and war - our Prince Machiavelli of modern warfare, if you will.
In watching Barack Obama's rise, it is hard to not see a pattern of his victories closely connected with the 48 Laws of Power and the 33 Strategies of War.
At times Obama appears to have been playing a magnificent game of political chess from the start of his bid for the Oval Office. I sat down with Robert Greene to discuss Senator Obama's tactical and strategic movements in his campaign. While everyone seems to have their site locked into the DNC convention, Robert Greene advises that we all prepare ourselves for a protracted political battle.
AB: Lets start with Law 24: The Perfect Courtier. You say that individual "thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the most oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.
"
RG: I never thought about it before, but it does make perfect sense. If you wanted to psychoanalyze it a little bit. With his background, in being bi-racial and having to navigate in different worlds...If you look at his Kenyan father, then you look at the White side in Kansas and Hawaii- he's been towing a line between the two worlds. And if you read his book, he's asking "Where do I fit"? It's a really interesting story, I like his books. He's always had to learn how to be the courtier. He's always had to be diplomatic. How not to offend this person or that. These two sides had very different sensibilities, while he's trying too figure out who he is. So, I think its in his nature. Its not a fake thing. Some people learn to be the courtier later in life. Its a nice quality, but some people can feel like its a little bit manipulative. But I think its very deep in his identity, from his multiracial background. I'm not sure, I can only speculate.
Its very nice. He's very graceful. He does not get angry. I thought the one moment where he blew it a little was in a debate with Clinton. It was in January I believe. He kinda lost his cool. He got a little bit angry and testy. I supported him early on. He was my first pick. For while I felt a little bit alienated from him. I did not think he was tough enough. I wanted to see him fighting back. But I understood later on that that's very hard for him to do. It does not play well. For the position that he is in, trying to be the first Black President. For him to show anger at a White woman was strategically not gonna play. So, he lost it a little bit in this one debate. But he never repeated it. I mean, its not really a strategy on his part, but its very effective.
I was just reading before you called about him speaking in Florida. He was meeting with Jewish voters. It was kind of interesting to see him charming them again, winning them over. I can make references to Jewish people and Jewish culture that are very appropriate. So there he is being the courtier.Its a quality hat will serve very well in his campaign. Bill Clinton was a master at it. He could talk to Hollywood liberals and then he could go to a factory in Ohio.
Now, some people don't think he has the common touch. I think there is a bit of truth to that. Maybe he is not comfortable with the White steel worker in Pennsylvania. But he has a different kind of power. A different kind of charm. I think he'll actually get over some of these supposed weaknesses that he has with White voters. I think he is very much a courter.
AB: The first law I think I openly recognized with Barack is Law 32: Play to Peoples Fantasies. There you say "The truth is often avoided because it is ugly and unpleasant. Never appeal to truth and reality unless you are prepared for the anger that comes for disenchantment. Life is so harsh and distressing that people who can manufacture romance or conjure up fantasy are like oases in the desert: Everyone flocks to them. There is great power in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.
"
Now, I do not mean to imply that he is fraudulent in spirit, or an actor. But, I don't think I have seen someone in my lifetime who has been able to mentally and emotionally move masses the way he does. I can only compare it to watching old footage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Maybe Malcolm X.
RG: Or JFK.
AB: Perfect example in JFK. It looks like his change theme has drawn millions of people into what they want to see in America. It seems like he creates this dream for you of what America can be, but leaves room for you to impose your dream on top.
RG: I think you're right. We don't like to bring sophisticated psychology when discussing these things. The fantasy always kind of plays a line between a vague hope with a little bit of reality thrown in. If you put too much reality in it obscures. If you put too much hope there is nothing we can really connect to. So, throughout the ages the people who have been able to master this know how to make the perfect illusionary quality. Its like watching a good writer writing a novel.
Barack makes change inspiring. But he does not fill in too many details. Strategically that's very smart. The problem with America in the 21st century is that the country is so splintered. It's cracking up into smaller and smaller niche markets and groups. By region, by ethnicity and all these things. So that makes it hard to connect the whole country together. Its hard to get over all that and bring people together with a message. The only way you can do that is to be very inspiring and not being too concrete with what you are offering.
I can refer to John Kennedy in 1960 when he ran for President. He kinda drove the Republicans crazy with his vagueness. He never really said what he was going to do on a whole score of issues. But he talked about the new frontier and bringing back a certain spirit in America. It really connected in that moment. I think the people around him, like David Axelrod who have backgrounds in marketing an advertising are crafting a story. They are trying to do more of a JFK, or even Regan type campaign. They know that this is the moment for that. Because Americans are very disillusioned with probably the worst President we've ever had. Things look very bleak.
AB: The fantasy law connects directly to Law 45: Preach the Need for change, but never reform too much at once. I think he's hitting law 45 right on the nail.
RG: How so?
AB: Because he keeps the discussion of change very nebulous. Mainly though Obama keeps you believing that A) that change can happen, and B) that he is the agent for the change you want to see in America. One of his best qualities, and something I think Senator Clinton should have embraced was Law 46: Never Appear Too Perfect. He never lets you forget that he's got a wife and kids and that he has his own struggles with cigarettes or whatever. I think 46 keeps people listening to him.
RG: You and I may feel that way. But I'm wondering if other people don't see that in him. I saw him yesterday in his speech after he won Oregon and he said "I'm not perfect, I've made mistakes". I think that kind of humility is very endearing. But I think there are a lot of people that he doesn't connect to. They see him as kind of arrogant and over educated person who is looking down on them. Its funny how its subjective. So to you and I we think he does embody law 46. Other people think that he doesn't do it enough.
It's all fake though really in the end. Because Hillary is eating hot dogs and drinking beer acting like shes one of the yokels. They made one hundred million dollars last year. She comes from a wealthy background. Certainly more elite than he is. Its all fake in the end. But I think that part is subjective in the end. He's going to have to work a bit on his image. He's gonna have to connect with that NASCAR crowd a little bit.
AB: Moving beyond Hillary and looking toward McCain, are we moving from power to the war? If you could tell him to study only 3 of the 33 Strategies of War what would they be?
RG: The one he should study, and has actually done pretty well so far is Strategy 20: Maneuver Them Into Weakness. Its a Chinese concept. I struggled my hardest to bring this to the Western audience, because its not easy to explain. In the East, its the position you take that matters. Everything is related to something else- nothing is isolated. What you want in war or strategy is to take positions that put your rival in a corner and have less options than you.
The Western approach is not like that at all. The Western approach is to go straight in at the enemy and kill as many as you can.
In politics you want to get to a position that allows you to go here or there. Obama did that brilliantly from day one and Hillary messed it up. Here he is moving toward the general election. How can he move John McCain into positions that are untenable? That's the game. You can already see the position he's trying to put McCain in is, "He's Bush" But how do you make that case? Its one thing to say. Its another thing to make people feel it. If he can make people in Kentucky and Pennsylvania feel that McCain will make us live through four more years of the hell we've been living through it will be very effective.
But it can't be just with words. You have to do and show- its interesting to watch. Now, very fortunately, the Democrats control Congress. For instance the vote to the GI bill that just occurred. It will force McCains hand to show that he supports Bush. If he doesn't, he'll alienate his right wing base. In the Power book we call that putting your enemy on the horns of a dilemma. You go right, you are screwed. You go left, you are screwed. If he votes for the GI bill, he looks like a Democrat. If he votes against it, he looks like he's Bush again.
Obama has to keep his options fluid. You don't wanna commit to anything that's gonna screw you in the end. Any kind of position for instance on the economy. He did that in one debate but I don't think that's going to come back to hurt him. Don't say exactly that you'll never raise taxes on this. Keep it a little bit vague. Give yourself room to put McCain in very uncomfortable positions.
Another law from the war book is Strategy 28: Give Your Rivals Enough Rope to Hang Themselves. You never stop a man who's killing himself. McCain has a temper. Its the old Bob Dole thing. Love him or hate him, he's got a temper and its legendary. So he's got to frustrate him and bait him into things. Seeing John McCain lose his temper. It does not look so good. He looks like a cranky old man.
I talk about this in my book in regards to Lee Atwater. He's kind of a satanic figure in politics. He did that very same thing in 1988 with Bob Dole. But I'm afraid its a very powerful tactic and could be very effective on John McCain. I already saw, with the GI bill he got very testy.
War Strategy number 12: Grand Strategy. Its the most important in the book. Its that you plan, and that you do it looking far ahead into the future. You don't want to be someone that's attacking into the wind everything something new comes into the election cycle. Politicians muck this up again and again. Because its not an election that takes place every week. Its in November. One day. There are going to be setbacks. There are going to be things that you did not plan for happening. I mean, Democrats are really bad at this. I mean pathetic bad. If you have a grand strategy, it makes you consistent. It keeps you going in that line, when it seems everything around you not.
So much of the bad stuff happening, with Clinton losing this state or that state- it could have pushed him off course. But it didn't. He stayed pretty consistent on message there. If he follows those, it'll be a slam dunk.
Labels: Music, Politics and African Americans, Strategy
Tuesday, September 16, 2008,10:48 PM
Top Lawyer Preps March on Mad Ave
Man Who Beat Coke and NFL Starts to Study Diversity in Ad Agencies
By Ken Wheaton
Cyrus Mehri, one of the nation's top civil-rights attorneys and a man who has been dubbed one of Washington's most feared lawyers, has turned his attention to the ad industry's woeful diversity record.
Mr. Mehri declined to discuss whether a lawsuit was in the works but said his firm was behind the preliminary results of a study obtained by Ad Age. Any way you look at it, the fact that a top civil-rights attorney has commissioned a survey of diversity in ad agencies does not bode well for the agencies whose ranks are still overwhelmingly white.
The study, which isn't complete yet, is being conducted by economist Marc Bendick Jr. on behalf of the firm. According to the summary, Mr. Bendick looked at census data and figures for similar "persuasion" industries (media, law, philanthropy, high-end sales) and came up with benchmark percentages of minorities one could expect in an industry such as advertising. Whereas, according to the benchmarks, African-Americans would be expected to make up 9.5% of the professionals in advertising (a number even lower than the 13% in the general population), it turns out they make up only 5.8%. On the executive and managerial side, African-Americans make up only 3.2% compared with an expected 7.2%.
That amounts to a 39% shortfall in African-American representation among the industry's staff and a 56% shortfall among managerial employees. Unlike previous efforts, this study takes into account the entire ad industry, not just a handful of agencies operating out of New York. The figures include employees and managers at African-American-owned shops; Mr. Mehri said he expects the numbers to be even worse when those agencies are not factored in.
'Purposeful discrimination'
"If this was 1970 and they had this shortfall, I could be sympathetic," he said. But, he added, "the preliminary results [of this study] are showing shortfalls that are rare to have in this magnitude in this modern day and indicate purposeful discrimination." He went on to say that the industry won't resolve this issue until it stops focusing on a false "supply" argument (not enough African-American candidates) and starts focusing on the people in charge.
Nancy Hill, president-CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, declined to comment on the matter.
Mr. Mehri, a partner at Mehri and Skalet, wouldn't disclose the firm's long-term plans in relation to the ad industry, but he made it clear he is not working with the New York City Commission on Human Rights. He did attend a forum held by the commission earlier this year on behalf of ad-industry employees who'd contacted him.
A look at Mr. Mehri's case history should worry the industry. His firm was behind suits against Texaco and Coca-Cola Co. that resulted in the largest discrimination settlements in history -- $176 million in the Texaco case and $192.5 million in the Coke case -- as well as dramatic reforms in both companies' employment practices. His firm was also behind recent gender-discrimination suits in the financial-services sector. The so-called Women on Wall Street Project has resulted in, among other things, a $46 million settlement against Morgan Stanley and a $33 million settlement from Smith Barney. Even when lawsuits aren't filed, Mr. Mehri leaves his mark. He, along with Johnnie Cochran, released the report "Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities." That report, backed up with the threat of a major lawsuit, led to the hiring of numerous African-American coaches.
"We're serious players," Mr. Mehri said. "We're going to do our homework. We're going to interview everybody who contacts us. We're going to build this up step by step. This is a world of difference compared to anything [the industry has] faced before."
Economist's perspective
Mr. Bendick, who's conducting the study, is an economist who specializes in employment and human-resource management at Bendick and Eagan Economic Consultants. He's done work for both employers and employees, the departments of Justice and Labor, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Most of his work doesn't involve litigation.
Mr. Bendick wouldn't comment for this story, but in previous studies -- such as "Changing Workplace Cultures to Reduce Employment Discrimination" -- he's touched on types of discrimination that may sound familiar to those toiling in the ad world. "They often derive from social relationships that informally limit access to information about job opportunities. They may reflect issues of 'social comfort' and personal style that affect whose comments get listened to, who is perceived as competent and who gets credit for accomplishments."
On the other hand, he told The Washington Post in January of this year, "If you ask what is the impact of diversity training today, you have to say 75% is junk and will have little impact or no impact or negative impact."
According to Mr. Mehri, the study won't be ready for several weeks. "I want to be clear that our firm has commissioned this study because we do our homework before we come in with guns blazing," he said. The study is meant to offer raw data, a look at causes behind the lack of diversity and, hopefully, remedies.
Leadership problem?
While Mr. Mehri wouldn't disclose what shapes those remedies might take, he was clear that the answer isn't more internships, scholarship programs and diversity initiatives -- which he sees as "rope-a-dope" schemes designed mostly to make it look like the industry is doing something about the problem.
"It's not a matter of forming affinity groups among the excluded," he said. "What needs fixing isn't the African-Americans; it's the white guy running the agency. We want to relentlessly focus on not the excluded groups but the excluding groups, the people who control the power and make the decisions. That's where people are running into barriers. The leadership has to come from the top."
He went on: "We know the industry has had various diversity efforts over the years. However, these efforts are going to continue to fall short until they understand they're operating under a false premise -- that the problem is the supply of African-American talent -- when the real problem is the lack of leadership at the top and their exclusionary policies and practices."
Mr. Mehri countered the argument that the problem is a lack of interest in the industry among African-Americans or a simple lack of candidates. "Supply is important. But you also have to shift the focus to a level playing field. So you can applaud the work that they're doing, but there's still going to be this revolving door unless there's this tenacious focus on a level playing field."
By Ken Wheaton
Cyrus Mehri, one of the nation's top civil-rights attorneys and a man who has been dubbed one of Washington's most feared lawyers, has turned his attention to the ad industry's woeful diversity record.
Mr. Mehri declined to discuss whether a lawsuit was in the works but said his firm was behind the preliminary results of a study obtained by Ad Age. Any way you look at it, the fact that a top civil-rights attorney has commissioned a survey of diversity in ad agencies does not bode well for the agencies whose ranks are still overwhelmingly white.
The study, which isn't complete yet, is being conducted by economist Marc Bendick Jr. on behalf of the firm. According to the summary, Mr. Bendick looked at census data and figures for similar "persuasion" industries (media, law, philanthropy, high-end sales) and came up with benchmark percentages of minorities one could expect in an industry such as advertising. Whereas, according to the benchmarks, African-Americans would be expected to make up 9.5% of the professionals in advertising (a number even lower than the 13% in the general population), it turns out they make up only 5.8%. On the executive and managerial side, African-Americans make up only 3.2% compared with an expected 7.2%.
That amounts to a 39% shortfall in African-American representation among the industry's staff and a 56% shortfall among managerial employees. Unlike previous efforts, this study takes into account the entire ad industry, not just a handful of agencies operating out of New York. The figures include employees and managers at African-American-owned shops; Mr. Mehri said he expects the numbers to be even worse when those agencies are not factored in.
'Purposeful discrimination'
"If this was 1970 and they had this shortfall, I could be sympathetic," he said. But, he added, "the preliminary results [of this study] are showing shortfalls that are rare to have in this magnitude in this modern day and indicate purposeful discrimination." He went on to say that the industry won't resolve this issue until it stops focusing on a false "supply" argument (not enough African-American candidates) and starts focusing on the people in charge.
Nancy Hill, president-CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, declined to comment on the matter.
Mr. Mehri, a partner at Mehri and Skalet, wouldn't disclose the firm's long-term plans in relation to the ad industry, but he made it clear he is not working with the New York City Commission on Human Rights. He did attend a forum held by the commission earlier this year on behalf of ad-industry employees who'd contacted him.
A look at Mr. Mehri's case history should worry the industry. His firm was behind suits against Texaco and Coca-Cola Co. that resulted in the largest discrimination settlements in history -- $176 million in the Texaco case and $192.5 million in the Coke case -- as well as dramatic reforms in both companies' employment practices. His firm was also behind recent gender-discrimination suits in the financial-services sector. The so-called Women on Wall Street Project has resulted in, among other things, a $46 million settlement against Morgan Stanley and a $33 million settlement from Smith Barney. Even when lawsuits aren't filed, Mr. Mehri leaves his mark. He, along with Johnnie Cochran, released the report "Black Coaches in the National Football League: Superior Performance, Inferior Opportunities." That report, backed up with the threat of a major lawsuit, led to the hiring of numerous African-American coaches.
"We're serious players," Mr. Mehri said. "We're going to do our homework. We're going to interview everybody who contacts us. We're going to build this up step by step. This is a world of difference compared to anything [the industry has] faced before."
Economist's perspective
Mr. Bendick, who's conducting the study, is an economist who specializes in employment and human-resource management at Bendick and Eagan Economic Consultants. He's done work for both employers and employees, the departments of Justice and Labor, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Most of his work doesn't involve litigation.
Mr. Bendick wouldn't comment for this story, but in previous studies -- such as "Changing Workplace Cultures to Reduce Employment Discrimination" -- he's touched on types of discrimination that may sound familiar to those toiling in the ad world. "They often derive from social relationships that informally limit access to information about job opportunities. They may reflect issues of 'social comfort' and personal style that affect whose comments get listened to, who is perceived as competent and who gets credit for accomplishments."
On the other hand, he told The Washington Post in January of this year, "If you ask what is the impact of diversity training today, you have to say 75% is junk and will have little impact or no impact or negative impact."
According to Mr. Mehri, the study won't be ready for several weeks. "I want to be clear that our firm has commissioned this study because we do our homework before we come in with guns blazing," he said. The study is meant to offer raw data, a look at causes behind the lack of diversity and, hopefully, remedies.
Leadership problem?
While Mr. Mehri wouldn't disclose what shapes those remedies might take, he was clear that the answer isn't more internships, scholarship programs and diversity initiatives -- which he sees as "rope-a-dope" schemes designed mostly to make it look like the industry is doing something about the problem.
"It's not a matter of forming affinity groups among the excluded," he said. "What needs fixing isn't the African-Americans; it's the white guy running the agency. We want to relentlessly focus on not the excluded groups but the excluding groups, the people who control the power and make the decisions. That's where people are running into barriers. The leadership has to come from the top."
He went on: "We know the industry has had various diversity efforts over the years. However, these efforts are going to continue to fall short until they understand they're operating under a false premise -- that the problem is the supply of African-American talent -- when the real problem is the lack of leadership at the top and their exclusionary policies and practices."
Mr. Mehri countered the argument that the problem is a lack of interest in the industry among African-Americans or a simple lack of candidates. "Supply is important. But you also have to shift the focus to a level playing field. So you can applaud the work that they're doing, but there's still going to be this revolving door unless there's this tenacious focus on a level playing field."
Labels: advertisement, African Americans, Music
,10:23 PM
Why Blockbusters Still Rule The World
By Steve Maich
We like the idea of endless choice, but most of us don't venture past the bestsellers
In October 2004, Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson published an article entitled "The Long Tail," in which he argued a novel hypothesis: the Internet had forever altered the way that businesses operate. Tiny niche audiences could now be serviced as efficiently as mass markets, and could generate prodigious profits.
The title referred to the normal distribution of sales on a graph: a short tall head (where a very few products generate the bulk of sales) that quickly drops away to a long and narrow tail of thousands of products that barely sell at all. Anderson argued that thanks to the Internet, with its limitless choice and easy searchability, people will start flocking into the long tail. Millions of consumers who used to opt for the most popular products, artists, films and brands will now be free to search out the obscure little gems that they always really wanted. The head gets shorter and the tail gets fatter.
The implications for business were potentially enormous. It meant that an online bookstore, for example, could do just as well by offering 10,000 books -- all of which sell just five copies -- as a traditional store selling 1,000 books 50 times each. In practical terms, Anderson argued, it meant that the age of blockbusters is over. Henceforth, he said, smart businesses would stop trying to build one or two massive hits in hopes of catching the hurricane wind of mass popularity. Instead, they would produce a broad range of products to exploit the widest possible array of niche interests and the limitless shelf space available on the Web. When Anderson expanded his article into a book in 2006, he summed it up in the subtitle: "The future of business is selling less of more."
Ironically (or is it paradoxically?), Anderson's book became one of the biggest blockbusters in business publishing. The author became a minor celebrity as a Web guru and a hot ticket on the speaking circuit. The book's title entered the modern business lexicon, casually slipped into conversation by everyone from CEOs on down. The mainstream is dying, they said. Ain't it cool?
Well, as you may have noticed, the era of the blockbuster has stubbornly refused to play along. Last weekend, The Dark Knight, a heavily promoted, big-studio blockbuster, smashed records with the biggest opening weekend for any movie, ever. A few days ago it became the fastest movie ever to break the US$200-million barrier in ticket sales, and it now seems certain that it will eventually haul in more than US$1 billion worldwide. That would make it only the fourth movie ever to do so -- and two of them have come in the past three years. In fact, of the 10 biggest opening movie weekends of all time, nine of them have come in the four years since The Long Tail put blockbusters on death watch.
But anecdotal evidence only gets you so far. To truly evaluate the usefulness of the theory you have to dive into the numbers, and recently Anita Elberse, associate professor of business administration at Harvard, did just that. Elberse pored over data from two services: Rhapsody, the online music store cited by Anderson in his book, and Quickflix online movie rentals. Turns out The Long Tail isn't flattered by close scrutiny.
Elberse found that although sales of obscure titles have risen, there are far more titles in the library that never sell at all. So, rather than the long tail getting fatter, it is getting longer and skinnier. More importantly, sales of those obscure movies and songs aren't coming at the expense of hits. In fact, more money is being channelled into the select few mega-blockbusters. As Elberse says: "The importance of individual bestsellers is not diminishing over time, it is growing."
It's also important to know a bit about who is buying those obscure movies and albums. They are a niche unto themselves -- people who watch a lot of films and listen to a ton of music. Elberse's study shows that if you're watching obscure movies, you are almost certainly a huge movie buff. You aren't watching art house films instead of Iron Man. You're watching those movies because you've already seen the blockbusters. Perhaps most surprisingly, those heavy users tended to rate the blockbusters highest. The more low-budget art films you watch, it seems, the more you appreciate The Dark Knight.
Frankly, Elberse's research feels like common sense to most consumers. Sure we all have a few unknown bands in our iPod, but by and large, things are popular because they're better than the alternatives. The explosion of options and choice doesn't change that. In fact, Elberse's conclusions wouldn't even be noteworthy if not for the enormous popularity of The Long Tail.
So why did Anderson's thesis take off like wildfire? First, because it promised a radical shift. We're attracted to any compelling argument that promises a fundamental change in the way we view the world, and history is littered with examples of revolutionary ideas that turned out to be wrong.
But perhaps most importantly, it pandered to our egos. It appealed to our inner snob -- the one that believes we're above the banal mainstream, and that the Internet will set us free to indulge our unique and sophisticated tastes. The truth is less flattering. We like to think we are, at heart, connoisseurs of Ingmar Bergman films. But most of us never get around to watching Smiles of a Summer Night because we were busy seeing Pirates of the Caribbean for the fourth time.
We all wanted to believe in The Long Tail, but we couldn't stay away from the blockbusters. While we all like the idea of endless choice, most of us are never going to venture far beyond the bestsellers list. Contrary to Anderson's advice, the future of business is doing pretty much what you've always done. But the emergence of the Web means there may be a way to wring a few bucks from the flops you previously wrote off as useless.
In Anderson's defence, that probably would not have fit on a book jacket.
We like the idea of endless choice, but most of us don't venture past the bestsellers
In October 2004, Wired magazine editor-in-chief Chris Anderson published an article entitled "The Long Tail," in which he argued a novel hypothesis: the Internet had forever altered the way that businesses operate. Tiny niche audiences could now be serviced as efficiently as mass markets, and could generate prodigious profits.
The title referred to the normal distribution of sales on a graph: a short tall head (where a very few products generate the bulk of sales) that quickly drops away to a long and narrow tail of thousands of products that barely sell at all. Anderson argued that thanks to the Internet, with its limitless choice and easy searchability, people will start flocking into the long tail. Millions of consumers who used to opt for the most popular products, artists, films and brands will now be free to search out the obscure little gems that they always really wanted. The head gets shorter and the tail gets fatter.
The implications for business were potentially enormous. It meant that an online bookstore, for example, could do just as well by offering 10,000 books -- all of which sell just five copies -- as a traditional store selling 1,000 books 50 times each. In practical terms, Anderson argued, it meant that the age of blockbusters is over. Henceforth, he said, smart businesses would stop trying to build one or two massive hits in hopes of catching the hurricane wind of mass popularity. Instead, they would produce a broad range of products to exploit the widest possible array of niche interests and the limitless shelf space available on the Web. When Anderson expanded his article into a book in 2006, he summed it up in the subtitle: "The future of business is selling less of more."
Ironically (or is it paradoxically?), Anderson's book became one of the biggest blockbusters in business publishing. The author became a minor celebrity as a Web guru and a hot ticket on the speaking circuit. The book's title entered the modern business lexicon, casually slipped into conversation by everyone from CEOs on down. The mainstream is dying, they said. Ain't it cool?
Well, as you may have noticed, the era of the blockbuster has stubbornly refused to play along. Last weekend, The Dark Knight, a heavily promoted, big-studio blockbuster, smashed records with the biggest opening weekend for any movie, ever. A few days ago it became the fastest movie ever to break the US$200-million barrier in ticket sales, and it now seems certain that it will eventually haul in more than US$1 billion worldwide. That would make it only the fourth movie ever to do so -- and two of them have come in the past three years. In fact, of the 10 biggest opening movie weekends of all time, nine of them have come in the four years since The Long Tail put blockbusters on death watch.
But anecdotal evidence only gets you so far. To truly evaluate the usefulness of the theory you have to dive into the numbers, and recently Anita Elberse, associate professor of business administration at Harvard, did just that. Elberse pored over data from two services: Rhapsody, the online music store cited by Anderson in his book, and Quickflix online movie rentals. Turns out The Long Tail isn't flattered by close scrutiny.
Elberse found that although sales of obscure titles have risen, there are far more titles in the library that never sell at all. So, rather than the long tail getting fatter, it is getting longer and skinnier. More importantly, sales of those obscure movies and songs aren't coming at the expense of hits. In fact, more money is being channelled into the select few mega-blockbusters. As Elberse says: "The importance of individual bestsellers is not diminishing over time, it is growing."
It's also important to know a bit about who is buying those obscure movies and albums. They are a niche unto themselves -- people who watch a lot of films and listen to a ton of music. Elberse's study shows that if you're watching obscure movies, you are almost certainly a huge movie buff. You aren't watching art house films instead of Iron Man. You're watching those movies because you've already seen the blockbusters. Perhaps most surprisingly, those heavy users tended to rate the blockbusters highest. The more low-budget art films you watch, it seems, the more you appreciate The Dark Knight.
Frankly, Elberse's research feels like common sense to most consumers. Sure we all have a few unknown bands in our iPod, but by and large, things are popular because they're better than the alternatives. The explosion of options and choice doesn't change that. In fact, Elberse's conclusions wouldn't even be noteworthy if not for the enormous popularity of The Long Tail.
So why did Anderson's thesis take off like wildfire? First, because it promised a radical shift. We're attracted to any compelling argument that promises a fundamental change in the way we view the world, and history is littered with examples of revolutionary ideas that turned out to be wrong.
But perhaps most importantly, it pandered to our egos. It appealed to our inner snob -- the one that believes we're above the banal mainstream, and that the Internet will set us free to indulge our unique and sophisticated tastes. The truth is less flattering. We like to think we are, at heart, connoisseurs of Ingmar Bergman films. But most of us never get around to watching Smiles of a Summer Night because we were busy seeing Pirates of the Caribbean for the fourth time.
We all wanted to believe in The Long Tail, but we couldn't stay away from the blockbusters. While we all like the idea of endless choice, most of us are never going to venture far beyond the bestsellers list. Contrary to Anderson's advice, the future of business is doing pretty much what you've always done. But the emergence of the Web means there may be a way to wring a few bucks from the flops you previously wrote off as useless.
In Anderson's defence, that probably would not have fit on a book jacket.
,10:22 PM
Beyond Integration
By David hattenbach
How to make the whole brand greater than its parts
Here's a thought: The branding game has changed so much that the concept of brand integration is no longer a useful way to approach branding, at least with regard to media selection. In today's new-media landscape, bland integration is just a far too-simple, old-school concept.
It's time to rethink things.
I'm not suggesting we abandon integration principles. I'm suggesting we replace the concept of brand integration with a more contemporary concept I call "brand holism."
It's true that the emergence of new media has provided more opportunities to deliver a brand message in new and interesting places. On the surface, this is a good thing. (It's hard to argue that consistency and ubiquity are bad things.) But all we're doing with new media is adding boxes to the same old-media flow chart. We can do better.
We have the opportunity to do much more for our brands. We can be smarter about the opportunities inherent in each medium and their ability to add dimension to brands and intensify the relationships with consumers. It's no longer good enough to simply align the different parts of the media mix around one objective; we should ask the parts to work toward different objectives that support the whole. We should not be looking to make everything match. We should be looking at how the different parts complement one another anti create a greater whole.
Yes, it is still important to be single-minded, but single-minded doesn't mean we have to be narrow-minded. Today we have the ability to think wide and deep at the same time. As traditional media planning gives way to connections planning, we can see that there are many things we can do for our brands to make them more "whole"; things that were difficult or impossible to do just a short time ago. For example, today we can:
Narrowcast messages to targets that could not be reached effectively before.
Thanks in large part to the Internet, we can now create more complex communication strategies and narrowcast them to multiple target audiences at once.
Create engaging media experiences that help form brand expectations. If it's true that the medium is the message, then it follows that the media experience is the bland. We should use new-media opportunities in ways that convey or contribute to the overall brand experience and define who we are through actions rather than just words.
Connect users and develop communities that will create and propagate brand advocates. We are all hardwired to want to connect with people and belong to something. Today, we can easily connect with our most passionate fans and give them elevated access to the brand via privileged information, special offers, VIP status, etc. Through these communities, we can turn users into loyalists and loyalists into advocates.
Foster real-time conversations with consumers. We can use social media to establish mutually respectful and transparent two-way dialog with our customers. The rewards will be deeper consumer insights that could lead to more relevant products and services, enhanced credibility and greater satisfaction among consumers.
Provide new and interesting context that heightens brand relevancy and deepens brand meaning. We can use new-media opportunities such as branded content to help brands become more culturally relevant and flush with cultural capital. Consumers can come to know our brands not only by the messages we send, but by the places we've been.
The point of brand holism is to no longer look at media as simply a way to deliver messages. We should use media in a complementary way that delivers greater value to the brand and to the consumer. In other words, use media to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. That's the kind of ROI I'd like to see.
How to make the whole brand greater than its parts
Here's a thought: The branding game has changed so much that the concept of brand integration is no longer a useful way to approach branding, at least with regard to media selection. In today's new-media landscape, bland integration is just a far too-simple, old-school concept.
It's time to rethink things.
I'm not suggesting we abandon integration principles. I'm suggesting we replace the concept of brand integration with a more contemporary concept I call "brand holism."
It's true that the emergence of new media has provided more opportunities to deliver a brand message in new and interesting places. On the surface, this is a good thing. (It's hard to argue that consistency and ubiquity are bad things.) But all we're doing with new media is adding boxes to the same old-media flow chart. We can do better.
We have the opportunity to do much more for our brands. We can be smarter about the opportunities inherent in each medium and their ability to add dimension to brands and intensify the relationships with consumers. It's no longer good enough to simply align the different parts of the media mix around one objective; we should ask the parts to work toward different objectives that support the whole. We should not be looking to make everything match. We should be looking at how the different parts complement one another anti create a greater whole.
Yes, it is still important to be single-minded, but single-minded doesn't mean we have to be narrow-minded. Today we have the ability to think wide and deep at the same time. As traditional media planning gives way to connections planning, we can see that there are many things we can do for our brands to make them more "whole"; things that were difficult or impossible to do just a short time ago. For example, today we can:
Narrowcast messages to targets that could not be reached effectively before.
Thanks in large part to the Internet, we can now create more complex communication strategies and narrowcast them to multiple target audiences at once.
Create engaging media experiences that help form brand expectations. If it's true that the medium is the message, then it follows that the media experience is the bland. We should use new-media opportunities in ways that convey or contribute to the overall brand experience and define who we are through actions rather than just words.
Connect users and develop communities that will create and propagate brand advocates. We are all hardwired to want to connect with people and belong to something. Today, we can easily connect with our most passionate fans and give them elevated access to the brand via privileged information, special offers, VIP status, etc. Through these communities, we can turn users into loyalists and loyalists into advocates.
Foster real-time conversations with consumers. We can use social media to establish mutually respectful and transparent two-way dialog with our customers. The rewards will be deeper consumer insights that could lead to more relevant products and services, enhanced credibility and greater satisfaction among consumers.
Provide new and interesting context that heightens brand relevancy and deepens brand meaning. We can use new-media opportunities such as branded content to help brands become more culturally relevant and flush with cultural capital. Consumers can come to know our brands not only by the messages we send, but by the places we've been.
The point of brand holism is to no longer look at media as simply a way to deliver messages. We should use media in a complementary way that delivers greater value to the brand and to the consumer. In other words, use media to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. That's the kind of ROI I'd like to see.
Labels: advertisement, Music
,10:16 PM
War of the Ages
By Noreen O'Leary
How a host of new agency realities are pushing boomers out before their time
Earlier this month, a judge set a December trial date for a $30 million age-discrimination suit by a Universal McCann media exec, George Hayes, against the agency and its corporate parent, Interpublic Group. Hayes says he was fired by a younger boss who believed young people at the agency "got it" when it came to new media in a way that older staffers did not. In addition, Hayes claims, his former boss viewed "age and experience as a hindrance, rather than a benefit."
The two sides seem ready to go public with the private concerns of a generation of industry execs fearing displacement at a time they should be in their peak earning years.
Valid or not, the contentions of Hayes-a former evp, client services let go at age 53--ring true for a large number of other executives on the street who are arguing their relevance.
Even within the youth-obsessive traditions of the ad industry, there's a new sense of gloom about the career prospects for mid- to upper-level employees. Creative executives, who have obviously always felt the need to. exude a hipness born of cutting-edge culture, now feel it tenfold thanks to the fast pace of digital technologies and emerging delivery channels. Now others are feeling youthful pressures in a media world and larger consumer society informed by technological change. But the issues are more complicated; they're as much about compensation and changing skill sets as they are about tenure. Factor in the current economic downturn and client budget cuts that create an incentive to lose higher-salaried employees, and it's no wonder some in the industry see an overt ageism taking hold that could make a new minority: those over 50.
"Baby boomers always say that 40 is the new 30 [and] 50 is the new 40. In advertising, 50 is the new 65. As soon as you hit that barrier, you're considered old," says Dorothy Higgins, 54, who is consulting after being laid off earlier this year from one of the industry's media companies.
That barrier, in fact, may be dipping even lower. Says one of Higgins' peers: "It's now starting at 40 or 45. Unless you've gotten to a certain stage in your career where you have one of those bullet-proof jobs--where you are extremely key to a client--you're vulnerable."
Not to be discounted in all of this is the fact that with "CMOs getting younger, you have a casting issue," says Nancy McNally, 53, a former top executive at agencies like Ammirati & Puffs and clients like American Express.
Industry observer Rick Kurnit, a partner at law firm Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein & Selz, agrees that client-casting issues play a role and points out that it cuts two ways. While younger CMOs may relate better to agency staffers in their peer group, he says, older ones look for the agency perspective on new media creative they themselves may lack. There may also be an element of being in the wrong career place at the wrong time. Boomers climbed their careers ranks in a different agency world. Amid new unbundled economic realities, CFOs, demanding that 75 percent of payroll come from client income, can attain cost savings more readily by cutting higher-salaried staffers. The newly empowered client-procurement people look to buy agency hours at cost and young staffers are obviously cheaper. "None of these factors reflect the merits of these [older] people, unfortunately," Kurnit says.
One industry HR exec acknowledges there's a shortage of opportunities for senior people. "The industry's existing bias toward youth and hipness has become more extreme now because of the digital transformation," he says. "The recruiting priority is to find people who are becoming more proficient in digital communications, and the basic assumption is that anyone 50-plus is not going to be that. There's a deep-seated feeling that people of a certain age have a bias toward traditional media--and it can be hard to put them in front of clients for that reason."
The other new reality: The larger contraction within the ad industry. Martin" Kohli, a regional economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, says that from May 2007 to May 2008 advertising and related industries lost 11,900 jobs, or 2.5 percent of its employment. Job losses were concentrated in three industry segments: ad agencies, ad distribution and direct mail. (In contrast, public relations and media-buying agencies both managed to increase employment over the year.)
"Looking back, one of the striking things about advertising employment is that after falling from 2000 through 2004 and then growing through 2007, the industry did not get back to its May 2000 level," Kohli observes.
Says Susan Friedman, head of her eponymous recruitment firm: "There are so few job openings anywhere, it's painful. This slowdown is deeper than the one in 1991. It's more like in 1981 and it's going to get worse."
To put that into perspective, during that recession, U.S. unemployment levels, around 11 percent, were higher than any other time in the post-WWII era.
Friedman notes that another challenge in the current job market is relocation. Older execs, with more expensive homes, may not be able to sell their residencies in this real estate downturn.
Some say the industry is merely undergoing a realistic correction in compensation, giving people what they're worth in today's digitally focused market. "I was talking to someone recently who was making $350,000 and now she's willing to make $225,000-250,000," says Friedman. "Five years ago, there were no salary concessions. Your salary was tied to your ego. Now, it's, 'How low can you go?' Creative people with only a traditional background will not get another job in this business, period. But if that person embraces all the new forms of advertising, they'll be worth a lot."
How much more? "If you have 'interactive' or 'digital' in front of your title, you'll be paid 10-15 percent more in compensation," says Amy Hoover, evp at the industry's largest recruitment firm, Talent Zoo. "Traditional shops don't have much of that and they're building expertise."
Recruiters expect creative job candidates for interactive positions to have Web sites with online portfolios or to send links to digital work they've produced. "If someone sends over PDFs or their books for a digital position, you discount them immediately," says Hoover.
And again, it's not just creative execs who may need to recalibrate their compensation demands. "There are an awful lot of people of a certain age out of work right now," says one industry leader. "I don't think it's solely the fault of agencies. [These unemployed execs] need to reconfigure their expectations."
Indeed, among out-of-work execs who spoke to Adweek, one was willing to take a 50 percent reduction from a peak earnings period in order to land a job. Another was willing to be more flexible on terms, opting to take a 20 percent pay cut, work four days a week for less pay or take a lower wage, with bonus.
Nonetheless, there's concern about a devaluation of experience. One senior-level media exec, let go during a downsizing, describes a current opening for a leader of global media strategy for Visa--a top-level job requiring considerable coordination within the client organization as well as management of outside agencies, The salary base is $150,000, with experience requirements of seven to 10 years. Previously, a job like that would have a base of $185,000-195,000 and require 10 years of hard-core media experience, the exec argues. One Manhattan headhunter concurs, sniffing at the compensation package: "The base and experience for that will work in Kansas, not New York."
Recruiters also say that employers often pick staffers with less experience than they requested. "People say they want someone with 15 years experience and then they pick a person with six years," says one. "I suspect they just wanted the younger people all along, but it would be illegal to say that."
Indeed, recruiters say there's a new employer shorthand for candidate requests, with terms like "rising star" and "up-and-coming" used to skirt legal issues.
"They mask it by saying they want someone with a lot of energy, a lot of technology or digital, but I know what they mean," says one source.
While creative and media execs of a certain age are bearing the brunt of the industry's digital change, the game has changed in account management as well.
"It used to be a lot simpler: So and so grew up at Y&R or O&M, has telecom experience, lots of client skills. That's a thing of the past," says one industry recruiter. "Five, 10 years ago, if you were the perfect car guy, P&G woman, you had a resume everyone wanted. It's different now; that consistency, and loyalty is not rewarded any more.
"It's a big problem. If you're 45-plus and worked your entire career in an ad agency, you're going to struggle if you don't change," she continues. "You must become an early adopter… We want diverse work experience, people [who are] digitally fluent or open to becoming so, and that's where people 30 or younger may have the advantage.… If you're not willing to change now, you'll be extinct in five years."
But that reinvention may not be so easy. Jeri Dack, a 58-year-old media exec who has worked at agencies like DMB&B, MediaVest and MPG, got her first real taste of digital while serving as director, digital media at TargetCast and is now refocusing her career in that direction. With a diverse industry background, Dack is not used to being held back when trying something new.
"I've never felt discrimination before, gender or age," she says. "Now I feel resume discrimination. You either have to be young and working in digital or to have had your start in digital. People like me go out and are interviewed by a person who is 30, with their feet on the desk, who says, 'You've only been doing this for 18 months.'"
Dack sounds more frustrated than bitter, as did others interviewed for this article. That's not to say there have not been humiliations. Some have been let go by younger bosses only to have their former positions slightly changed and filled with younger, cheaper staffers. Another tells of receiving a call from a contract freelance company for a last-minute new-business pitch and being offered $40 an hour--about a quarter of what she gets on the open market. Others describe freelancing in new-business pitches with the knowledge they're good enough to win the account, but not likely to be hired after the agency lands the business.
Many digital practitioners, however, lack the integrated vision and skills of those more traditional media execs.
"My big frustration is that digital agencies that do creative barely have any understanding of digital media and no understanding of marketing," observes Dack.
Says another unemployed media veteran about her last job: "I said to a [younger, digital] colleague, 'I'd like to work across clients and build a much more robust program across media.' He said, 'That's fine, as long as you understand the purpose is to drive traffic to the Web site.'"
Within digital shops, some more-senior execs have found it a difficult cultural mix with aft office full of predominately younger staffers. One exec, let go from her job earlier this year, said at age 39 she felt it was frowned upon when she left at 6:30 p.m. to go home to her family. Her colleagues, many of them living with roommates in Manhattan apartments co-signed by parents, would hang around the office and then head out to a local bar and do shots together.
"When you have kids, you learn to be efficient," she says. ''You get into the office early, eat lunch at your desk and not go out to two-hour media lunches or spend two hours on Facebook. I'm in the suburbs with a mortgage and kids. We didn't have much in common and I felt like an outsider."
After being laid off, the exec interviewed at some other digital shops and encountered more of the same: bosses and colleagues in "Teva sandals, tattoos and piercings. That's not me, not my culture," she says. She's now in the process of setting up her own consultancy. (Other laid-off media execs say they're focusing their job searches outside the industry to content providers who appreciate their experience and background.)
The exec, realistic about why she thinks she was let go, says agencies are gambling with young people of limited client experience: "OK, you can change the job title or description and get one of them for $50,000 less and they're OK if everything is going well. But when there's a problem, you need someone with experience to face it and say, 'This is how we fix it.'"
Adds Dack: "The easy part in this industry is learning a discipline. The hard things are client management, collaboration, strategy, mentoring and teaching."
Bob Greenberg, the 60-year-old founder of interactive agency R/GA, understands the frustrations of his more-traditional industry peers. He admires their skills in client management, creative and strategy, all of which, he says, is as relevant to R/GA as it is elsewhere. But he notes that companies like his can only take on so many of those execs and retool their skill sets.
"There's a lot of agency musical chairs happening right now and there are more and more people 40-plus left without a chair when the music stops," he says. "They. can't retire, but they're not trained for digital and their salary range is high. We're competitive with traditional agencies when it comes to pay, but it also means when we hire them it takes a year to train them from an investment perspective. A younger person aged 25-32 already knows what we do. They live a digital, multi-channel life already and you don't have to train them."
Former Ogilvy & Mather North American CCO Rick Boyko, 59, now the head of the VCU Brandcenter, says he left the business five years ago after his frustration at not seeing it change quickly enough. Agency execs that have fallen out of step with its transformation, he says, may have only themselves to blame.
"I don't think there's a new kind of ageism in our business today," Boyko says. "It's always been, and always will be, a young person's business. We help shape and create culture. To do that you have to be in tune with the culture of the time. Culture almost always comes from the streets and clubs of inner cities, yet most agency execs move to the 'burbs and do not stay in touch with what's going on. They become comfortable and complacent. They stay in the same job for too long. To stay current in this business, you have to kick yourself in the ass and challenge yourself."
How a host of new agency realities are pushing boomers out before their time
Earlier this month, a judge set a December trial date for a $30 million age-discrimination suit by a Universal McCann media exec, George Hayes, against the agency and its corporate parent, Interpublic Group. Hayes says he was fired by a younger boss who believed young people at the agency "got it" when it came to new media in a way that older staffers did not. In addition, Hayes claims, his former boss viewed "age and experience as a hindrance, rather than a benefit."
The two sides seem ready to go public with the private concerns of a generation of industry execs fearing displacement at a time they should be in their peak earning years.
Valid or not, the contentions of Hayes-a former evp, client services let go at age 53--ring true for a large number of other executives on the street who are arguing their relevance.
Even within the youth-obsessive traditions of the ad industry, there's a new sense of gloom about the career prospects for mid- to upper-level employees. Creative executives, who have obviously always felt the need to. exude a hipness born of cutting-edge culture, now feel it tenfold thanks to the fast pace of digital technologies and emerging delivery channels. Now others are feeling youthful pressures in a media world and larger consumer society informed by technological change. But the issues are more complicated; they're as much about compensation and changing skill sets as they are about tenure. Factor in the current economic downturn and client budget cuts that create an incentive to lose higher-salaried employees, and it's no wonder some in the industry see an overt ageism taking hold that could make a new minority: those over 50.
"Baby boomers always say that 40 is the new 30 [and] 50 is the new 40. In advertising, 50 is the new 65. As soon as you hit that barrier, you're considered old," says Dorothy Higgins, 54, who is consulting after being laid off earlier this year from one of the industry's media companies.
That barrier, in fact, may be dipping even lower. Says one of Higgins' peers: "It's now starting at 40 or 45. Unless you've gotten to a certain stage in your career where you have one of those bullet-proof jobs--where you are extremely key to a client--you're vulnerable."
Not to be discounted in all of this is the fact that with "CMOs getting younger, you have a casting issue," says Nancy McNally, 53, a former top executive at agencies like Ammirati & Puffs and clients like American Express.
Industry observer Rick Kurnit, a partner at law firm Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein & Selz, agrees that client-casting issues play a role and points out that it cuts two ways. While younger CMOs may relate better to agency staffers in their peer group, he says, older ones look for the agency perspective on new media creative they themselves may lack. There may also be an element of being in the wrong career place at the wrong time. Boomers climbed their careers ranks in a different agency world. Amid new unbundled economic realities, CFOs, demanding that 75 percent of payroll come from client income, can attain cost savings more readily by cutting higher-salaried staffers. The newly empowered client-procurement people look to buy agency hours at cost and young staffers are obviously cheaper. "None of these factors reflect the merits of these [older] people, unfortunately," Kurnit says.
One industry HR exec acknowledges there's a shortage of opportunities for senior people. "The industry's existing bias toward youth and hipness has become more extreme now because of the digital transformation," he says. "The recruiting priority is to find people who are becoming more proficient in digital communications, and the basic assumption is that anyone 50-plus is not going to be that. There's a deep-seated feeling that people of a certain age have a bias toward traditional media--and it can be hard to put them in front of clients for that reason."
The other new reality: The larger contraction within the ad industry. Martin" Kohli, a regional economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, says that from May 2007 to May 2008 advertising and related industries lost 11,900 jobs, or 2.5 percent of its employment. Job losses were concentrated in three industry segments: ad agencies, ad distribution and direct mail. (In contrast, public relations and media-buying agencies both managed to increase employment over the year.)
"Looking back, one of the striking things about advertising employment is that after falling from 2000 through 2004 and then growing through 2007, the industry did not get back to its May 2000 level," Kohli observes.
Says Susan Friedman, head of her eponymous recruitment firm: "There are so few job openings anywhere, it's painful. This slowdown is deeper than the one in 1991. It's more like in 1981 and it's going to get worse."
To put that into perspective, during that recession, U.S. unemployment levels, around 11 percent, were higher than any other time in the post-WWII era.
Friedman notes that another challenge in the current job market is relocation. Older execs, with more expensive homes, may not be able to sell their residencies in this real estate downturn.
Some say the industry is merely undergoing a realistic correction in compensation, giving people what they're worth in today's digitally focused market. "I was talking to someone recently who was making $350,000 and now she's willing to make $225,000-250,000," says Friedman. "Five years ago, there were no salary concessions. Your salary was tied to your ego. Now, it's, 'How low can you go?' Creative people with only a traditional background will not get another job in this business, period. But if that person embraces all the new forms of advertising, they'll be worth a lot."
How much more? "If you have 'interactive' or 'digital' in front of your title, you'll be paid 10-15 percent more in compensation," says Amy Hoover, evp at the industry's largest recruitment firm, Talent Zoo. "Traditional shops don't have much of that and they're building expertise."
Recruiters expect creative job candidates for interactive positions to have Web sites with online portfolios or to send links to digital work they've produced. "If someone sends over PDFs or their books for a digital position, you discount them immediately," says Hoover.
And again, it's not just creative execs who may need to recalibrate their compensation demands. "There are an awful lot of people of a certain age out of work right now," says one industry leader. "I don't think it's solely the fault of agencies. [These unemployed execs] need to reconfigure their expectations."
Indeed, among out-of-work execs who spoke to Adweek, one was willing to take a 50 percent reduction from a peak earnings period in order to land a job. Another was willing to be more flexible on terms, opting to take a 20 percent pay cut, work four days a week for less pay or take a lower wage, with bonus.
Nonetheless, there's concern about a devaluation of experience. One senior-level media exec, let go during a downsizing, describes a current opening for a leader of global media strategy for Visa--a top-level job requiring considerable coordination within the client organization as well as management of outside agencies, The salary base is $150,000, with experience requirements of seven to 10 years. Previously, a job like that would have a base of $185,000-195,000 and require 10 years of hard-core media experience, the exec argues. One Manhattan headhunter concurs, sniffing at the compensation package: "The base and experience for that will work in Kansas, not New York."
Recruiters also say that employers often pick staffers with less experience than they requested. "People say they want someone with 15 years experience and then they pick a person with six years," says one. "I suspect they just wanted the younger people all along, but it would be illegal to say that."
Indeed, recruiters say there's a new employer shorthand for candidate requests, with terms like "rising star" and "up-and-coming" used to skirt legal issues.
"They mask it by saying they want someone with a lot of energy, a lot of technology or digital, but I know what they mean," says one source.
While creative and media execs of a certain age are bearing the brunt of the industry's digital change, the game has changed in account management as well.
"It used to be a lot simpler: So and so grew up at Y&R or O&M, has telecom experience, lots of client skills. That's a thing of the past," says one industry recruiter. "Five, 10 years ago, if you were the perfect car guy, P&G woman, you had a resume everyone wanted. It's different now; that consistency, and loyalty is not rewarded any more.
"It's a big problem. If you're 45-plus and worked your entire career in an ad agency, you're going to struggle if you don't change," she continues. "You must become an early adopter… We want diverse work experience, people [who are] digitally fluent or open to becoming so, and that's where people 30 or younger may have the advantage.… If you're not willing to change now, you'll be extinct in five years."
But that reinvention may not be so easy. Jeri Dack, a 58-year-old media exec who has worked at agencies like DMB&B, MediaVest and MPG, got her first real taste of digital while serving as director, digital media at TargetCast and is now refocusing her career in that direction. With a diverse industry background, Dack is not used to being held back when trying something new.
"I've never felt discrimination before, gender or age," she says. "Now I feel resume discrimination. You either have to be young and working in digital or to have had your start in digital. People like me go out and are interviewed by a person who is 30, with their feet on the desk, who says, 'You've only been doing this for 18 months.'"
Dack sounds more frustrated than bitter, as did others interviewed for this article. That's not to say there have not been humiliations. Some have been let go by younger bosses only to have their former positions slightly changed and filled with younger, cheaper staffers. Another tells of receiving a call from a contract freelance company for a last-minute new-business pitch and being offered $40 an hour--about a quarter of what she gets on the open market. Others describe freelancing in new-business pitches with the knowledge they're good enough to win the account, but not likely to be hired after the agency lands the business.
Many digital practitioners, however, lack the integrated vision and skills of those more traditional media execs.
"My big frustration is that digital agencies that do creative barely have any understanding of digital media and no understanding of marketing," observes Dack.
Says another unemployed media veteran about her last job: "I said to a [younger, digital] colleague, 'I'd like to work across clients and build a much more robust program across media.' He said, 'That's fine, as long as you understand the purpose is to drive traffic to the Web site.'"
Within digital shops, some more-senior execs have found it a difficult cultural mix with aft office full of predominately younger staffers. One exec, let go from her job earlier this year, said at age 39 she felt it was frowned upon when she left at 6:30 p.m. to go home to her family. Her colleagues, many of them living with roommates in Manhattan apartments co-signed by parents, would hang around the office and then head out to a local bar and do shots together.
"When you have kids, you learn to be efficient," she says. ''You get into the office early, eat lunch at your desk and not go out to two-hour media lunches or spend two hours on Facebook. I'm in the suburbs with a mortgage and kids. We didn't have much in common and I felt like an outsider."
After being laid off, the exec interviewed at some other digital shops and encountered more of the same: bosses and colleagues in "Teva sandals, tattoos and piercings. That's not me, not my culture," she says. She's now in the process of setting up her own consultancy. (Other laid-off media execs say they're focusing their job searches outside the industry to content providers who appreciate their experience and background.)
The exec, realistic about why she thinks she was let go, says agencies are gambling with young people of limited client experience: "OK, you can change the job title or description and get one of them for $50,000 less and they're OK if everything is going well. But when there's a problem, you need someone with experience to face it and say, 'This is how we fix it.'"
Adds Dack: "The easy part in this industry is learning a discipline. The hard things are client management, collaboration, strategy, mentoring and teaching."
Bob Greenberg, the 60-year-old founder of interactive agency R/GA, understands the frustrations of his more-traditional industry peers. He admires their skills in client management, creative and strategy, all of which, he says, is as relevant to R/GA as it is elsewhere. But he notes that companies like his can only take on so many of those execs and retool their skill sets.
"There's a lot of agency musical chairs happening right now and there are more and more people 40-plus left without a chair when the music stops," he says. "They. can't retire, but they're not trained for digital and their salary range is high. We're competitive with traditional agencies when it comes to pay, but it also means when we hire them it takes a year to train them from an investment perspective. A younger person aged 25-32 already knows what we do. They live a digital, multi-channel life already and you don't have to train them."
Former Ogilvy & Mather North American CCO Rick Boyko, 59, now the head of the VCU Brandcenter, says he left the business five years ago after his frustration at not seeing it change quickly enough. Agency execs that have fallen out of step with its transformation, he says, may have only themselves to blame.
"I don't think there's a new kind of ageism in our business today," Boyko says. "It's always been, and always will be, a young person's business. We help shape and create culture. To do that you have to be in tune with the culture of the time. Culture almost always comes from the streets and clubs of inner cities, yet most agency execs move to the 'burbs and do not stay in touch with what's going on. They become comfortable and complacent. They stay in the same job for too long. To stay current in this business, you have to kick yourself in the ass and challenge yourself."
KEY INSIGHTS
New casting issues are arising with clients who assume agency executives of a certain age harbor a bias toward traditional media.
A compensation correction is under way: Traditional execs will have to be more realistic about what they're worth, while hybrid thinkers and digital staffers are in big demand.
Employers are finding new ways to mask age bias as they select candidates with less experience than is required for the position.
Labels: advertisement, Music
,10:15 PM
Rethinking the User Experience
By Benjamin Palmer
Web designers should consider how using a site reflects upon the brand
In the interactive world, we have a discipline called User Experience, or UX for short. We've got a whole department of people that thinks about it. It's the first phase of many online projects and it's a part of every interactive RFP that any company receives. It's kind of a big deal in the online universe.
You may have heard of this. Or perhaps you've heard of Information Architecture (IA), Experience Design (XD) and/or User Interface Design (UI), terms sometimes used interchangeably with UX. Regardless of what you call it, the key is understanding what the discipline is and what it does.
The first thing to understand when getting your head around UX is that it's an umbrella term for different disciplines that have been converging and co-evolving for the past couple of decades. These include User Interface Design, Information Design, Usability, Interaction Design, Graphic Design, Information Architecture and Human-Computer Interaction. (How's that for a lot of jargon?)
Less important than intimately understanding each subdiscipline is the idea that at the center of all of this is the user. (In the true fashion of the UX community, even the usage of the word "user" is heavily debated.) Ultimately, UX is about fostering a deep understanding of the people who use your Web site, how it fits into their lives, and the empathy necessary to create design solutions that lead to great experiences.
Talking in strictly digital terms, UX is that amorphous middle ground where it's not really graphic design per se, or the art direction, but it's how we structure and craft a person's interactions with the stuff we create. Where does the navigation go? Do we put this on the main page or on a secondary page? Will anyone care about that thing if they have to click twice to get there? Is this interface as easy to use as it could be?
On the surface this just seems like a trendy way of saying "making a Web site." And that's definitely a part of it. But for us, there's more. We've been thinking that the process that goes into thinking about UX should apply more holistically to a brand's overall behavior, so you can make some user-centered marketing.
I like to start with the notion that the audience actually cares about what we're doing. This isn't always a flawless starting point, but it works most of the time, and is at least fairly true if you're talking about a Web site. Whatever the circumstances, if someone ends up on your site, they're there on purpose. Something caught their eye and led them there, and they want the experience to be a good one.
So, giving a crap, check. This actually puts you in a good place to do your job, because you get to think about being nice to your audience. What do they want or need? How can you help them? How can you make this work for them? You get to think about them as individuals who want to have a nice moment with your brand, find out some exciting information and/or do something new.
In more traditional advertising, the thought might be people actually want whatever product or service you're marketing, and what you're doing is less about convincing them or interrupting them, and more about announcing and making available to them in the most interesting way possible. It's getting them super amped about a decision they kind of want to make anyhow.
Let's use the darling of UX people everywhere as an example: the iPhone. Looking at Apple.com's product marketing site for the iPhone you may wonder, how hard does this site really have to work? IPhones sell themselves. But after spending some time with the content on Apple.com/iphone, it's hard not to want to run out and get one even if your spouse wants you to make the overdue trip to Ikea. And what is it that's exciting you? The features? Yes. The industrial design? Yes, of course. But also, the way those icons move around and wobble. The way the camera rotates when you rotate. The way you can pinch in on a Safari page. The user experience.
Looking at it through the eyes of Apple it's almost blindingly obvious: a quality user experience can drive sales and adoption, and it can become an advocate for your product or brand--just like marketing.
As the owner of a digital marketing company, this becomes very interesting. The UX gang is charged with thinking of the user first when designing a site. Coincidentally, so are our marketing guys. But in many shops, despite the "user-centered" nature of both these groups, they're often at odds. The marketing guys might be thinking of the user in terms of, "Will this initiative emotionally move the user enough to think about this brand more often?" And the UX guys might be thinking about, "Will the user feel like clicking on that button or would they prefer it be a link?"
What if we added more to the UX designer's plate? What if we not only charged them with thinking about the interface, but also how that interface reflected upon the brand?
It's glaringly apparent, but it's only now entering into the UX conversation. When looking at Vista or Mac OS X, it seems obvious. But it goes deeper. Even now, I can think of three to four brands I feel negatively toward because their sites are so hard to use. There are companies I'll work to avoid just because their sites have given me grief. Wouldn't their marketers want to know that? Shouldn't the UX people be considering this possible impact on the company's operations?
UX and marketing a brand on the Web are inextricably related. Again, perhaps not the deepest insight, but it's time we recognize it and account for it in a methodical way.
Web designers should consider how using a site reflects upon the brand
In the interactive world, we have a discipline called User Experience, or UX for short. We've got a whole department of people that thinks about it. It's the first phase of many online projects and it's a part of every interactive RFP that any company receives. It's kind of a big deal in the online universe.
You may have heard of this. Or perhaps you've heard of Information Architecture (IA), Experience Design (XD) and/or User Interface Design (UI), terms sometimes used interchangeably with UX. Regardless of what you call it, the key is understanding what the discipline is and what it does.
The first thing to understand when getting your head around UX is that it's an umbrella term for different disciplines that have been converging and co-evolving for the past couple of decades. These include User Interface Design, Information Design, Usability, Interaction Design, Graphic Design, Information Architecture and Human-Computer Interaction. (How's that for a lot of jargon?)
Less important than intimately understanding each subdiscipline is the idea that at the center of all of this is the user. (In the true fashion of the UX community, even the usage of the word "user" is heavily debated.) Ultimately, UX is about fostering a deep understanding of the people who use your Web site, how it fits into their lives, and the empathy necessary to create design solutions that lead to great experiences.
Talking in strictly digital terms, UX is that amorphous middle ground where it's not really graphic design per se, or the art direction, but it's how we structure and craft a person's interactions with the stuff we create. Where does the navigation go? Do we put this on the main page or on a secondary page? Will anyone care about that thing if they have to click twice to get there? Is this interface as easy to use as it could be?
On the surface this just seems like a trendy way of saying "making a Web site." And that's definitely a part of it. But for us, there's more. We've been thinking that the process that goes into thinking about UX should apply more holistically to a brand's overall behavior, so you can make some user-centered marketing.
I like to start with the notion that the audience actually cares about what we're doing. This isn't always a flawless starting point, but it works most of the time, and is at least fairly true if you're talking about a Web site. Whatever the circumstances, if someone ends up on your site, they're there on purpose. Something caught their eye and led them there, and they want the experience to be a good one.
So, giving a crap, check. This actually puts you in a good place to do your job, because you get to think about being nice to your audience. What do they want or need? How can you help them? How can you make this work for them? You get to think about them as individuals who want to have a nice moment with your brand, find out some exciting information and/or do something new.
In more traditional advertising, the thought might be people actually want whatever product or service you're marketing, and what you're doing is less about convincing them or interrupting them, and more about announcing and making available to them in the most interesting way possible. It's getting them super amped about a decision they kind of want to make anyhow.
Let's use the darling of UX people everywhere as an example: the iPhone. Looking at Apple.com's product marketing site for the iPhone you may wonder, how hard does this site really have to work? IPhones sell themselves. But after spending some time with the content on Apple.com/iphone, it's hard not to want to run out and get one even if your spouse wants you to make the overdue trip to Ikea. And what is it that's exciting you? The features? Yes. The industrial design? Yes, of course. But also, the way those icons move around and wobble. The way the camera rotates when you rotate. The way you can pinch in on a Safari page. The user experience.
Looking at it through the eyes of Apple it's almost blindingly obvious: a quality user experience can drive sales and adoption, and it can become an advocate for your product or brand--just like marketing.
As the owner of a digital marketing company, this becomes very interesting. The UX gang is charged with thinking of the user first when designing a site. Coincidentally, so are our marketing guys. But in many shops, despite the "user-centered" nature of both these groups, they're often at odds. The marketing guys might be thinking of the user in terms of, "Will this initiative emotionally move the user enough to think about this brand more often?" And the UX guys might be thinking about, "Will the user feel like clicking on that button or would they prefer it be a link?"
What if we added more to the UX designer's plate? What if we not only charged them with thinking about the interface, but also how that interface reflected upon the brand?
It's glaringly apparent, but it's only now entering into the UX conversation. When looking at Vista or Mac OS X, it seems obvious. But it goes deeper. Even now, I can think of three to four brands I feel negatively toward because their sites are so hard to use. There are companies I'll work to avoid just because their sites have given me grief. Wouldn't their marketers want to know that? Shouldn't the UX people be considering this possible impact on the company's operations?
UX and marketing a brand on the Web are inextricably related. Again, perhaps not the deepest insight, but it's time we recognize it and account for it in a methodical way.
Labels: advertisement, Music
,10:14 PM
Live Nation Strikes Deals With Jay-Z, U2; Shakes Biz
Aggressive moves build new model for music industry
By Brian Hiatt
WHILE THE MUSIC business as we know it collapses, one company is sweeping in to pick up the pieces: Live Nation, the world's largest concert promoter, made another set of aggressive moves beyond its core business in recent weeks, striking broad deals with U2 and Jay-Z. "Live Nation is growing very, very fast," says U2 manager Paul McGuinness. "It's going to emerge as one of the centers of the music industry, if not the center of the music industry."
The U2 pact guarantees that Live Nation will promote tours by the band for twelve years, as well as handle the band's merchandising, run its Website and sell its tickets (financial terms were kept under wraps). The $150 million, ten-year Jay-Z deal (which was not finalized at press time) is even broader, much like the $120 million deal Live Nation made with Madonna in October: The company will release his future albums, promote his tours, handle his merch and partner with him on various entrepreneurial ventures under the name Roc Nation.
After a series of acquisitions and other moves, Live Nation is becoming a company like no other in the history of the music business, with tentacles extending into ticketing, recorded music, merchandising, fan clubs and artist Websites. By committing to releasing albums by Jay-Z and Madonna, it is taking on roles traditionally performed by major labels. But more important to its bottom line, Live Nation is also treading on Ticketmaster's territory. The company — which books more than 150 venues worldwide — will dump Ticketmaster beginning next year, instead offering tickets through its own system, which will allow sites such as U2.com to sell directly to fans.
In the past two years, Live Nation also bought Musictoday, which runs artists' fan clubs, and Signatures Network, a leading music-merchandise company.
"There are a whole bunch of products that are based around live concerts that we've never participated in, where we didn't have the infrastructure," says Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino. "We really just moved into that infrastructure and became a vertically integrated music company." Ever-decreasing sales for recorded music give Live Nation an advantage. "For us, it happens to be great news because the live show is becoming the center of the wheel for artists. [Most] of their revenues are coming from the road, which is a very different economic model. We say to artists, 'If we're going to do your tour, what else can we do around that show to maximize our revenue and do a great job for you?'"
It also helps that, unlike record companies, Live Nation will deal directly with consumers online, allowing it to offer, say, Madonna or Jay-Z MP3s to fans who just bought tickets to their shows. In this scenario, albums become just another form of merchandise.
Some in the music industry question whether Live Nation is overpaying for artists: They doubt that Jay-Z and Madonna have the longevity to justify the multiyear pacts, and they challenge why the company paid U2 a presumably huge advance for the right to promote tours it would have likely promoted anyway. "With Jay-Z, no one in the record industry would have made that deal," argues Randy Phillips, CEO of AEG Live, Live Nation's biggest concert-promotion competitor, pointing out that Jay-Z has never been a U2-level force on the road. "Too much money. If you're looking for a rationale for what Live Nation is doing, you're not going to find it in a business model that makes sense."
He adds, "They're trying to figure out how to move the needle on their stock price, or they're looking for a buyer. And they feel having all these big names and assets will help." Live Nation lost nearly $12 million last year, and its stock price has been trending downward.
Rapino insists that Live Nation will sign very few Madonna- and Jay-Z-style deals. "It's hardly a scalable proposition," he says. He notes that Jay-Z's current arena tour with Mary J. Blige is expected to gross $30 million, likely making it the most successful of the rapper's career. And he says the U2 deal, which partners Live Nation with a band that has earned $706 million on the road over the last twelve years, is a no-brainer: "When you've got one of a handful of bands that can sell out stadiums worldwide, you don't want to leave that one to 'Oh, we've got a great relationship — let's not worry about them,'" he says. "And now we're in a true partnership with the greatest band in the world."
Overall, Rapino adds, all of the new businesses Live Nation is entering — from T-shirt sales to recorded music — have far better profit margins than live concerts: "We have learned that if you have a longer relationship with the artist and you have more revenue streams with the artist, your model is much more robust."
"Live Nation is going to emerge as one of the centers of the music industry — if not the center."
,9:53 PM
This is Your Nation on White Privilege
This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their fuckin' ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.
White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a “light” burden.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain…
White privilege is, in short, the problem.
http://www.timwise.org/
By Tim Wise
For those who still can’t grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a “fuckin’ redneck,” like Bristol Palin’s boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll “kick their fuckin' ass,” and talk about how you like to “shoot shit” for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.
White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was “Alaska first,” and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she’s being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you’re being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you’re somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don’t even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a “second look.”
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good church-going Christian, but if you’re black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you’re an extremist who probably hates America.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a “trick question,” while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O’Reilly means you’re dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a “light” burden.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren’t sure about that whole “change” thing. Ya know, it’s just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain…
White privilege is, in short, the problem.
http://www.timwise.org/
Labels: Music, Politics and African Americans, Racism
Friday, September 12, 2008,11:59 PM
Slumsploitation – The Favela on Film and TV
ByMelanie Gilligan
Brazil has long sold its sunny side to holiday makers, but since the blockbuster film City of God a flood of movies and TV shows have capitalised on the narrative potential of the country’s plentiful favelas, adolescent drug soldiers and ultraviolence.
Melanie Gilligan explores the cinema of slums and asks is representation the answer to ‘social exclusion’ or one of the mechanisms of its reproduction?
The Brazilian documentary Bus 174 by José Padhila opens as we swoop over Rio de Janeiro’s favela covered hills. Dramatic aerial shots of Brazil’s vast slum cities are a common gambit in the country’s burgeoning output of films depicting its favelas, crime and poverty. These top-down vistas economically communicate an incalculably vast scale of privation. Bus 174 chronicles the hijacking of a public bus in Rio in 2000 by one ill-fated resident of the slums. Broadcast live on TV, the hijacking achieved record viewing figures and ended when the police murdered its protagonist. This incident constituted the intersection of two major forces of daily life for Brazil’s working and wageless classes: television and state violence.
The hijacker, Sandro, was a former street kid, and had survived the infamous Candelaria massacre in 1993 when police fired on 70 children sleeping rough in front of a church, killing eight. Throughout the hijacking, Sandro shouted at the police and media, reproaching them for the Candelaria massacre and the violent oppression in the favelas. The film presents the hijacking as Sandro’s desperate plea for recognition from ‘Brazilian society’, a desire supposedly felt by the whole of the so-called invisible class living in the favelas and streets of Brazil.
The alleged renaissance of Brazilian cinema seems dedicated to answering Bus 174’s plea that the country’s disenfranchised be represented. Brazil’s favelas have enjoyed ‘increased visibility’ with films like City of God and have played a lead role in the ‘sudden stardom’ of Third World slums in First World cinemas.[1] With its nearly unrivalled economic inequality and 51.[7] million favela inhabitants, the nation has ample material to feed a growing market for depictions of its poverty, crime and economic polarisation.[2]
While a decade ago Brazil’s government rented New York museums and private galleries for exhibitions of Brazilian art in an effort to improve its international image, today Brazil’s corporate media mine the entertainment value of its ‘social problems’ to produce popular film and television commodities for the domestic and global market.[3] Film and TV unabashedly portray the brutal results of the country’s extreme disparities in wealth, sometimes indicting this situation through the mouths of their characters. However, they ‘raise awareness’ only to support the underlying economic conditions. At the same time Brazilian President Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva’s culture minister, Gilberto Gil, promises to foster the creative industries, calling them the new motor for Brazil’s ‘developing’ economy, and places the movie business atop his list of creative messiahs.
The internationally distributed Brazilian films we see today are products of increasingly commercial imperatives. All government-funded programmes supporting the Brazilian film industry were cut in 1991. Subsequently, the ‘Audiovisual law’ was created in 1993 to subsidise private investment in the film industry by granting Brazil’s immensely wealthy corporations the right to invest up to 70 percent of their yearly income tax in film. The intention was to foster private investment in the film industry so that, when this initiative was phased out in 2003, corporations would continue financing films. The credits of internationally exported Brazilian film such as Lower City or City of God list some of Brazil’s biggest multinationals, for example Petrobras, many banks, and of course the monolithic Globo, who run 60 percent of national media. Unsurprisingly, the pressure to deliver high returns on investments ushered in an era of increasingly mainstream Americanised film-making in Brazil.
City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles and co-directed by Kátia Lund (2002), epitomises the manner in which Brazil’s urban poverty is currently being projected. The film employs a style of fast cutting, abbreviated exposition, tinted colour palettes and perpetually moving handheld photography; techniques which have undeniably become a reified visual ‘pre-set’ for representing Latin American experience below subsistence level. City of God restages epochal class conflicts as a series of personal narratives, beginning in the 1960s when the military dictatorship ‘cleaned up the city’ for the rich by means of slum evictions and real estate development.[4] Adapting the technique of first person voice-over commentary deployed in Scorsese’s crime epics Casino and Goodfellas, the film’s narrator, Rocket, is a young (and like most favela residents, black) slum dweller relocated to the City of God, obscures the political significance of his eviction by giving the cause as flooding and ‘acts of arson in the slums’. Passing over this primordial act of state violence, the film jumps forward to the spectacular gang warfare between the narco-traficantes who gained control of Rio’s favelas in the ‘70s.
While City of God renders most of the substantive history in quick strokes, more detail about the political formation of Rio’s gangs is given in the documentary that accompanies the DVD version of the film. Widespread arrests of political dissidents during the military dictatorship of the Medici administration 1969-74, landed insurgents in a maximum-security prison with so-called ‘common criminals’.[5] According to popular legend, educated middle class political prisoners radicalised the working class inmates who then began a movement to self-organise against the systemic violence and deprivation imposed by the state, giving birth to Rio’s powerful drug gang Comando Vermelho (Red Command).[6]
William da Silva Lima, one of Comando Vermelho’s founders, said the group ‘was not an organisation but, above all, a kind of behavior, a way of surviving in times of adversity.’7 Comando Vermelho, initially known as o colectivo, spread an ethos of collective organisation. This laid the basis for the contemporary gangs, which today form ‘parallel polities’ in the favelas and prisons, supplying people with essential resources withheld by the state. Soup kitchens, daycare centres, and money for medicines, as well as brutally enforced security, form part of this alternative welfare and justice system adopted by populations disdained and abused by the official state. By some accounts, the drug gangs are businesses, providing services in return for the support of the favela communities, ‘accomplices of the bourgeois state’ that couch their endeavours in politicised rhetoric while obstructing the possibility of organised working class political action.[8] It may be that gang strikes on the middle class areas of Rio have replaced, and contained, what previously manifested as direct working class antagonism – for instance the riots of the late 1980s in which residents of the slum Rocinha attacked a nearby wealthy district.[9] Furthermore, the Brazilian state is known to cooperate with the drug gangs which operate like mini-states within the borders of the larger nation. The police, for example, sell weapons to the gangs and engage in transactions involving contraband, though of course they’re ostensibly fighting trafficking. This symbiotic relationship goes far beyond individual police corruption and says a great deal about the dependence of the state and ruling classes on the continuation of the drug trade.
City of God’s popularity in Brazil lead to a TV drama spin-off called City of Men, attempting the same handheld documentary ‘gritty realism’ in a modern-day Rio favela. The first TV drama set in the favelas, it was shot in slums like Rocinha, Rio’s largest, and watched by 35 million people in Brazil, spawning several other favela soaps. The protagonists amaze audiences with their resourcefulness and entrepreneurial zeal, getting themselves out of the tight spots and near death experiences that living in a community regulated by arbitrary police and gang violence creates. In other words, it celebrates the slum as a dangerous but creative place where people improvise solutions.
Critical moments do occur intermittently in City of Men. A protagonist leaves the favela, telling us he is crossing the frontier between two countries and the police are the border guards. Later he says, ‘the playboys [i.e. middle class] watch the slums on TV and think it’s better to live where they are. They only come here to buy drugs or make documentaries and films. They need drugs to live there with all the cameras and bars.’ Yet one is struck by the way the programme mitigates the force of its own content. After focusing on the lives of favela kids for a few episodes, a middle class character is introduced as point of identification and reemployed in increasingly unlikely scenarios. Ostensibly focused on the lives of favela dwellers, the show incessantly revisits their relationship to the middle class. A day at the beach is loaded with race and class tensions, while another episode compares the lives of a young ‘playboy’ and the working class protagonist, finding the former gets a bit depressed, the latter starves, but the moral is that they both share the same existential angst.
In the guise of offering ‘positive representation’ to ‘socially excluded’ residents of the favelas, exposing the economic and racial segregation they experience, the show transparently attempts to manage class tensions and assuage middle class guilt. (One candidly propagandistic episode narrates the legend of Lula’s working-class childhood, offering a ‘working class’ hero as point of identification for those viewers not feeling sufficiently ‘represented’ already). If any viewer doubts the importance of being portrayed on the channels of nation’s most powerful TV monopoly, Globo, the recurrent shots of densely clustered satellite dishes atop favela shacks drive the point home.
City of God contains similar nods to the power and comlicity of the Brazilian media. Gang members compete to get their photos in the newspapers, TV and news journalism intensify the conflict they chronicle. During the 1960s and ‘70s Brazil’s military dictatorship fostered a powerful television dominated ‘culture industry’ as a means to cohere national identity, promoting consumerism and controlling the political sphere. Globo governed official public discourse in Brazil until the end of the dictatorship in 1984, and has been influencing political outcomes, electoral and otherwise, ever since. City of Men supplements its documentary aesthetic with mock TV news interviews, while a media circus is Bus 174’s starting point for discussing life on the streets and in prison. The fascination with mediation in these films reflects more than just the spectacularisation of daily life. It indexes the self-consciousness of an industry that has long exploited the frisson of favela culture and violence. However, placing the interdependence of Brazil’s official ‘cultural’ and ‘informal’ or illegitimate economies in plain sight could seem to cynically reinforce and normalise its inevitability.[10]
The monolithic media of Brazil presents a means for liberal audiences to reconcile themselves with the brutality of state repression against the working class. Despite the intention of exposing state violence which informs films like Bus 174 and Hector Babenco’s Carandiru (2000), these films’ critical challenge to the brutality of the present order is blunted into a kind of empathic supplement to it. Carandiru tells the story of the infamous 1992 massacre in a Sao Paulo prison. Police, called to quell a riot, killed 111 unarmed prisoners. Numerous inmates were murdered execution-style, some several hours after the riot was suppressed. This extermination returned to haunt the gated ‘communities’ of Sao Paulo this May. The Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) gang, formed in response to the massacre and sworn to avenge it, declared war on the state, starting 75 separate prison riots and attacking the stations, cars and homes of the police.[11]
Like the Comando Vermelho, the PCC constitute a parallel state controlling 90 percent of the prison system in the state of Sao Paulo and even funding their own electoral candidates. Each member swears to a manifesto-like list of statutes which pledge unceasing struggle against the injustices and oppression inside prisons, solidarity with all members, and to be the ‘Terror of the Powerful oppressors’ who run the prisons. The gang has ‘reduced the level of violence (in prisons) … won better visiting rights … [and] defense lawyers for their members’. Although Comando Vermelho have been responsible for prison bloodbaths of their own, the PCC has now allied with them to strengthen their influence on the nation’s prison system.12 Rio gangs have conducted many similar attacks, but the scale of the PCC’s actions this year and their unequivocal demands for prison reform suggest a more developed political agenda. When the PCC shut down the country’s richest city, killing 40 police officers and threatening the heavily guarded safety of the ruling elite, the police responded as they had at Carandiru: by sending death squads through the favelas and assassinating random slum-dwellers. Suspiciously, the police revised the total civilian body count down from 109 to 79, of whom 34 are acknowledged to have been killed by death squads.[13]
Bus 174 also presents images of the prisons and the appalling conditions endured by the likes of Sandro, who was interned many times in the years prior to the hijacking. One of his cells was 40º C and so overcrowded that half the inmates had to stand so the other half could sit. In the documentary, prisoners in cramped cells denounce the state for its negligence, corruption and injustice. Once again the assumption is that Brazil’s street kids and favela inhabitants want desperately to be represented and recognised in Brazilian society. This view is explicitly stated by Luis Eduardo Soares, Rio’s former subsecretary of public security, in an interview that is interspersed throughout the film. Audaciously, Soares asserts that this need for acknowledgement is the biggest problem facing street kids today (not hunger or getting shot or brained with rocks while asleep). This position resonates with the strategy of City of Men and indeed, on a macro level, with Brazil’s attempted conversion to a culture economy. In other words, represent the working class in the media and hopefully demands for economic parity will decrease.
The director claims that the film reopened debate about the hijacking, this time creating discussion about the reasons for Sandro’s action, instead of vilifying him as a drugged-up hoodlum. However, without addressing the basic material needs of the population and curbing the murderous domination of the police-gang state repressive apparatus such debate is likely to remain sterile.
Brazilian culture minister Gilberto Gil points to the 1 trillion 300 billion US dollars in revenue generated by global ‘creative industries’ this year and proposes that increased production of cultural exports is the key to prosperity for Brazil.[14] Culture in the favelas has long been profitable. For instance, samba, once a central part of favela life, was turned into a mainstream commodity and official national culture. Today, samba’s social function in the favelas is mostly fulfilled by ‘Baile Funk’, itself an increasingly popular cultural export. A recent investor-oriented Financial Times article spoke of the atmosphere in Rocinha as ‘like stepping into the tempting chaos of a rock concert’ indicating that Rio’s favelas are gaining a reputation for edgy culture that could attract many more such capitalisations. Gil encourages Brazilians to become cultural producers. We hear the same message in Favela Rising, a documentary by American filmmakers Matt Mochary and Jeff Zimbalist, which zealously deploys the now formulaic MTV-povera aesthetic of City of God (etc). Once again, a collective story about community music group Afro Reggae becomes the tale of one man, Anderson Sá, and his fight to improve life in the favelas. Interviews with Sá carry a clear message – he preaches the salvation of cultural work as the way to pull oneself out of the slums. Artists have long been able to transgress class barriers, but it is unlikely that all the kids Sá would like to save from the trenches of the drug wars can become middle class creative workers. The economic situation in Brazil would not allow for it. Incidentally, the message of City of God is quite similar – Rocket ‘gets out’ precisely because he is lucky enough to land a job as a photographer on the basis that he can get close to the gang action in the favelas. Thus the hypothetical lucky ones become cultural workers that subsist by documenting the lot or selling the culture of the unlucky.
Despite the creative economy line being fed by the Lula administration and the production of new rags-to-cultural-work-riches films (such as recent release 2 Filhos de Francisco, the biggest hit at Brazilian box offices in 20 years), those living in favelas will continue to be portrayed in cultural commodities but are unlikely to benefit from their production. Furthermore, the box office and broadcast hits bringing favela life to middle class Brazilian and western audiences are taking place in a context of growing economic disparity and a ‘drastic diminution of the intersections between the lives of the rich and the poor’.[15] Sao Paulo’s 300 hundred gated communities, serviced by the world’s highest volume of civilian helicopter traffic, and the Rio government’s plan to build a 7 foot wall around several favelas, push the working class further out of sight.[16] As material segregations proliferate in the cities of Brazil, it seems unlikely that the new market for consumer-friendly representations of the favelas will lead to anything more than profits off the backs of those who are, so to speak, providing the content.
[1] Rana Dasgupta, ‘The Sudden Stardom of the Third-World City’, http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0603/msg00031.html
[2] The richest 10% of Brazil owns between 48% to over 50% of the nation’s wealth while the poorest 10% own 1%.
[3] Barry Schwabsky, ‘Art from Brazil in New York’, Artforum, Summer, 1995, http://linkme2.net/9j
[4] ‘Evoking the threat of a tiny urban foco of Marxist guerillas, the military razed 80 favelas and evicted almost 140,000 poor people from the hills overlooking Rio. With financial support from USAID, other favelas were later demolished to clear the way for industrial expansion or to “beautify” the borders of upper income areas. Although the authorities failed in their goal of eliminating all “slums within Rio within a decade”, the dictatorships ignited conflicts between bourgeois neighbourhoods and the favelas, and between the police and slum youth, which continue to rage three decades later.’ Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, Verso, London, p. 108.
[5] In Brazil today ‘98% of prison inmates lived in poor or modest economic conditions prior to their arrest’. Marie-Eve Sylvestre, ‘Crime, Law & Society – Exploring the Relationship Between Crime, Punitive Practices, Poverty and Social Exclusion in Contemporary Societies’, Harvard Law School, http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/graduate/sjd_candidates/marie-evesylvestre/syllabus.doc
[6] ‘Conditions in the prisons included systematic torture and no basic amenities (mattresses, linens, blankets, soap)’, Elizabeth Leeds, ‘Cocaine and Parallel Polities in the Brazilian Urban Periphery: Constraints on Local-Level Democratization’, Latin American Research Review, Vol. 31, 1996, p.54.
Comando Vermelho orchestrated a series of attacks on Rio’s middle class neighbourhoods during the same week that City of God won the BAFTA for best editing. The gang told the press they were retaliating against ‘oppressive and cowardly’ policing in the slums and politicians’ violence against the poor.Would this also qualify as a plea for recognition? ‘Rio gangs cast violent shadow over carnival’, The Guardian, http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-25-2003-36272.asp
[7] Elizabeth Leeds, op. cit., p.54.
[8] Hector Benoit, ‘Brazil: The social contradictions underlying the violent eruption in Sao Paulo’, World Socialist Web Site, May 2006, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/may2006/braz-m18_prn.shtml
[9] Elizabeth Leeds, op. cit., p. 48-49.
[10] The treasure trove of eye-witness reports from the favela front lines have recently proven dangerous business. In 2002, celebrity reporter Tim Lopes, renowned for his undercover work, often in disguise, was dismembered with a samurai sword and burned during a favelaBrazzil Magazine, June 2005, http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/9297/79/ reconnaissance. Tom Phillips, ‘Justice for One. In Brazil, Drug War Goes On’,
[11] Gibby Zobel, ‘Mayhem That left Sao Paolo in Shock’, Al Jazeera,
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B0DB410F-55C4-4A73-8EAF-41475DD8CF7B.htm and Pepe Escobar ‘The accumulation of the wretched, a review of Planet of Slums by Mike Davis’, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HE20Aa01.html
[12] Tom Phillips, ‘Jail riots kill up to 80 as gangs rebel’, Sunday Herald, June 2004, http://www.sundayherald.com/42704
[13] ‘Brazil: Death tally reaches 400 in the wake of attacks in Sao Paulo State’, Coav Newsroom, http://www.coav.org.br/publique/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?infoid=1956&tpl=printerview&sid=114Al Jazeera, http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F418DB9E-5DEE-4B18-A9FE-F11A9FA76863.htm and ‘Brazil probes police role in gang riots’,
[14] Tiffany Linton Page, ‘Building a Creative Utopia in Brazil’, Center for Latin American Studies, February 2005, http://www.clas.berkeley.edu:7001/Events/spring2005/02-17-05-gil/index.html and Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42332-2002May31
[15] Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, Verso, London, p. 119.
[16] Anthony Faiola, ‘Brazil’s Elites Fly Above Their Fears
Rich Try to Wall Off Urban Violence’, Washington Post, May 31st 2002, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42332-2002May31 and Daniel Howden, ‘Bitter Divide over Plan to Wall in Rio’s Slums’, Independent, June 23, 2005, http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2005/06/bitter_divide_o.php
Brazil has long sold its sunny side to holiday makers, but since the blockbuster film City of God a flood of movies and TV shows have capitalised on the narrative potential of the country’s plentiful favelas, adolescent drug soldiers and ultraviolence.
Melanie Gilligan explores the cinema of slums and asks is representation the answer to ‘social exclusion’ or one of the mechanisms of its reproduction?
The Brazilian documentary Bus 174 by José Padhila opens as we swoop over Rio de Janeiro’s favela covered hills. Dramatic aerial shots of Brazil’s vast slum cities are a common gambit in the country’s burgeoning output of films depicting its favelas, crime and poverty. These top-down vistas economically communicate an incalculably vast scale of privation. Bus 174 chronicles the hijacking of a public bus in Rio in 2000 by one ill-fated resident of the slums. Broadcast live on TV, the hijacking achieved record viewing figures and ended when the police murdered its protagonist. This incident constituted the intersection of two major forces of daily life for Brazil’s working and wageless classes: television and state violence.
The hijacker, Sandro, was a former street kid, and had survived the infamous Candelaria massacre in 1993 when police fired on 70 children sleeping rough in front of a church, killing eight. Throughout the hijacking, Sandro shouted at the police and media, reproaching them for the Candelaria massacre and the violent oppression in the favelas. The film presents the hijacking as Sandro’s desperate plea for recognition from ‘Brazilian society’, a desire supposedly felt by the whole of the so-called invisible class living in the favelas and streets of Brazil.
The alleged renaissance of Brazilian cinema seems dedicated to answering Bus 174’s plea that the country’s disenfranchised be represented. Brazil’s favelas have enjoyed ‘increased visibility’ with films like City of God and have played a lead role in the ‘sudden stardom’ of Third World slums in First World cinemas.[1] With its nearly unrivalled economic inequality and 51.[7] million favela inhabitants, the nation has ample material to feed a growing market for depictions of its poverty, crime and economic polarisation.[2]
While a decade ago Brazil’s government rented New York museums and private galleries for exhibitions of Brazilian art in an effort to improve its international image, today Brazil’s corporate media mine the entertainment value of its ‘social problems’ to produce popular film and television commodities for the domestic and global market.[3] Film and TV unabashedly portray the brutal results of the country’s extreme disparities in wealth, sometimes indicting this situation through the mouths of their characters. However, they ‘raise awareness’ only to support the underlying economic conditions. At the same time Brazilian President Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva’s culture minister, Gilberto Gil, promises to foster the creative industries, calling them the new motor for Brazil’s ‘developing’ economy, and places the movie business atop his list of creative messiahs.
The internationally distributed Brazilian films we see today are products of increasingly commercial imperatives. All government-funded programmes supporting the Brazilian film industry were cut in 1991. Subsequently, the ‘Audiovisual law’ was created in 1993 to subsidise private investment in the film industry by granting Brazil’s immensely wealthy corporations the right to invest up to 70 percent of their yearly income tax in film. The intention was to foster private investment in the film industry so that, when this initiative was phased out in 2003, corporations would continue financing films. The credits of internationally exported Brazilian film such as Lower City or City of God list some of Brazil’s biggest multinationals, for example Petrobras, many banks, and of course the monolithic Globo, who run 60 percent of national media. Unsurprisingly, the pressure to deliver high returns on investments ushered in an era of increasingly mainstream Americanised film-making in Brazil.
City of God, directed by Fernando Meirelles and co-directed by Kátia Lund (2002), epitomises the manner in which Brazil’s urban poverty is currently being projected. The film employs a style of fast cutting, abbreviated exposition, tinted colour palettes and perpetually moving handheld photography; techniques which have undeniably become a reified visual ‘pre-set’ for representing Latin American experience below subsistence level. City of God restages epochal class conflicts as a series of personal narratives, beginning in the 1960s when the military dictatorship ‘cleaned up the city’ for the rich by means of slum evictions and real estate development.[4] Adapting the technique of first person voice-over commentary deployed in Scorsese’s crime epics Casino and Goodfellas, the film’s narrator, Rocket, is a young (and like most favela residents, black) slum dweller relocated to the City of God, obscures the political significance of his eviction by giving the cause as flooding and ‘acts of arson in the slums’. Passing over this primordial act of state violence, the film jumps forward to the spectacular gang warfare between the narco-traficantes who gained control of Rio’s favelas in the ‘70s.
While City of God renders most of the substantive history in quick strokes, more detail about the political formation of Rio’s gangs is given in the documentary that accompanies the DVD version of the film. Widespread arrests of political dissidents during the military dictatorship of the Medici administration 1969-74, landed insurgents in a maximum-security prison with so-called ‘common criminals’.[5] According to popular legend, educated middle class political prisoners radicalised the working class inmates who then began a movement to self-organise against the systemic violence and deprivation imposed by the state, giving birth to Rio’s powerful drug gang Comando Vermelho (Red Command).[6]
William da Silva Lima, one of Comando Vermelho’s founders, said the group ‘was not an organisation but, above all, a kind of behavior, a way of surviving in times of adversity.’7 Comando Vermelho, initially known as o colectivo, spread an ethos of collective organisation. This laid the basis for the contemporary gangs, which today form ‘parallel polities’ in the favelas and prisons, supplying people with essential resources withheld by the state. Soup kitchens, daycare centres, and money for medicines, as well as brutally enforced security, form part of this alternative welfare and justice system adopted by populations disdained and abused by the official state. By some accounts, the drug gangs are businesses, providing services in return for the support of the favela communities, ‘accomplices of the bourgeois state’ that couch their endeavours in politicised rhetoric while obstructing the possibility of organised working class political action.[8] It may be that gang strikes on the middle class areas of Rio have replaced, and contained, what previously manifested as direct working class antagonism – for instance the riots of the late 1980s in which residents of the slum Rocinha attacked a nearby wealthy district.[9] Furthermore, the Brazilian state is known to cooperate with the drug gangs which operate like mini-states within the borders of the larger nation. The police, for example, sell weapons to the gangs and engage in transactions involving contraband, though of course they’re ostensibly fighting trafficking. This symbiotic relationship goes far beyond individual police corruption and says a great deal about the dependence of the state and ruling classes on the continuation of the drug trade.
City of God’s popularity in Brazil lead to a TV drama spin-off called City of Men, attempting the same handheld documentary ‘gritty realism’ in a modern-day Rio favela. The first TV drama set in the favelas, it was shot in slums like Rocinha, Rio’s largest, and watched by 35 million people in Brazil, spawning several other favela soaps. The protagonists amaze audiences with their resourcefulness and entrepreneurial zeal, getting themselves out of the tight spots and near death experiences that living in a community regulated by arbitrary police and gang violence creates. In other words, it celebrates the slum as a dangerous but creative place where people improvise solutions.
Critical moments do occur intermittently in City of Men. A protagonist leaves the favela, telling us he is crossing the frontier between two countries and the police are the border guards. Later he says, ‘the playboys [i.e. middle class] watch the slums on TV and think it’s better to live where they are. They only come here to buy drugs or make documentaries and films. They need drugs to live there with all the cameras and bars.’ Yet one is struck by the way the programme mitigates the force of its own content. After focusing on the lives of favela kids for a few episodes, a middle class character is introduced as point of identification and reemployed in increasingly unlikely scenarios. Ostensibly focused on the lives of favela dwellers, the show incessantly revisits their relationship to the middle class. A day at the beach is loaded with race and class tensions, while another episode compares the lives of a young ‘playboy’ and the working class protagonist, finding the former gets a bit depressed, the latter starves, but the moral is that they both share the same existential angst.
In the guise of offering ‘positive representation’ to ‘socially excluded’ residents of the favelas, exposing the economic and racial segregation they experience, the show transparently attempts to manage class tensions and assuage middle class guilt. (One candidly propagandistic episode narrates the legend of Lula’s working-class childhood, offering a ‘working class’ hero as point of identification for those viewers not feeling sufficiently ‘represented’ already). If any viewer doubts the importance of being portrayed on the channels of nation’s most powerful TV monopoly, Globo, the recurrent shots of densely clustered satellite dishes atop favela shacks drive the point home.
City of God contains similar nods to the power and comlicity of the Brazilian media. Gang members compete to get their photos in the newspapers, TV and news journalism intensify the conflict they chronicle. During the 1960s and ‘70s Brazil’s military dictatorship fostered a powerful television dominated ‘culture industry’ as a means to cohere national identity, promoting consumerism and controlling the political sphere. Globo governed official public discourse in Brazil until the end of the dictatorship in 1984, and has been influencing political outcomes, electoral and otherwise, ever since. City of Men supplements its documentary aesthetic with mock TV news interviews, while a media circus is Bus 174’s starting point for discussing life on the streets and in prison. The fascination with mediation in these films reflects more than just the spectacularisation of daily life. It indexes the self-consciousness of an industry that has long exploited the frisson of favela culture and violence. However, placing the interdependence of Brazil’s official ‘cultural’ and ‘informal’ or illegitimate economies in plain sight could seem to cynically reinforce and normalise its inevitability.[10]
The monolithic media of Brazil presents a means for liberal audiences to reconcile themselves with the brutality of state repression against the working class. Despite the intention of exposing state violence which informs films like Bus 174 and Hector Babenco’s Carandiru (2000), these films’ critical challenge to the brutality of the present order is blunted into a kind of empathic supplement to it. Carandiru tells the story of the infamous 1992 massacre in a Sao Paulo prison. Police, called to quell a riot, killed 111 unarmed prisoners. Numerous inmates were murdered execution-style, some several hours after the riot was suppressed. This extermination returned to haunt the gated ‘communities’ of Sao Paulo this May. The Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) gang, formed in response to the massacre and sworn to avenge it, declared war on the state, starting 75 separate prison riots and attacking the stations, cars and homes of the police.[11]
Like the Comando Vermelho, the PCC constitute a parallel state controlling 90 percent of the prison system in the state of Sao Paulo and even funding their own electoral candidates. Each member swears to a manifesto-like list of statutes which pledge unceasing struggle against the injustices and oppression inside prisons, solidarity with all members, and to be the ‘Terror of the Powerful oppressors’ who run the prisons. The gang has ‘reduced the level of violence (in prisons) … won better visiting rights … [and] defense lawyers for their members’. Although Comando Vermelho have been responsible for prison bloodbaths of their own, the PCC has now allied with them to strengthen their influence on the nation’s prison system.12 Rio gangs have conducted many similar attacks, but the scale of the PCC’s actions this year and their unequivocal demands for prison reform suggest a more developed political agenda. When the PCC shut down the country’s richest city, killing 40 police officers and threatening the heavily guarded safety of the ruling elite, the police responded as they had at Carandiru: by sending death squads through the favelas and assassinating random slum-dwellers. Suspiciously, the police revised the total civilian body count down from 109 to 79, of whom 34 are acknowledged to have been killed by death squads.[13]
Bus 174 also presents images of the prisons and the appalling conditions endured by the likes of Sandro, who was interned many times in the years prior to the hijacking. One of his cells was 40º C and so overcrowded that half the inmates had to stand so the other half could sit. In the documentary, prisoners in cramped cells denounce the state for its negligence, corruption and injustice. Once again the assumption is that Brazil’s street kids and favela inhabitants want desperately to be represented and recognised in Brazilian society. This view is explicitly stated by Luis Eduardo Soares, Rio’s former subsecretary of public security, in an interview that is interspersed throughout the film. Audaciously, Soares asserts that this need for acknowledgement is the biggest problem facing street kids today (not hunger or getting shot or brained with rocks while asleep). This position resonates with the strategy of City of Men and indeed, on a macro level, with Brazil’s attempted conversion to a culture economy. In other words, represent the working class in the media and hopefully demands for economic parity will decrease.
The director claims that the film reopened debate about the hijacking, this time creating discussion about the reasons for Sandro’s action, instead of vilifying him as a drugged-up hoodlum. However, without addressing the basic material needs of the population and curbing the murderous domination of the police-gang state repressive apparatus such debate is likely to remain sterile.
Brazilian culture minister Gilberto Gil points to the 1 trillion 300 billion US dollars in revenue generated by global ‘creative industries’ this year and proposes that increased production of cultural exports is the key to prosperity for Brazil.[14] Culture in the favelas has long been profitable. For instance, samba, once a central part of favela life, was turned into a mainstream commodity and official national culture. Today, samba’s social function in the favelas is mostly fulfilled by ‘Baile Funk’, itself an increasingly popular cultural export. A recent investor-oriented Financial Times article spoke of the atmosphere in Rocinha as ‘like stepping into the tempting chaos of a rock concert’ indicating that Rio’s favelas are gaining a reputation for edgy culture that could attract many more such capitalisations. Gil encourages Brazilians to become cultural producers. We hear the same message in Favela Rising, a documentary by American filmmakers Matt Mochary and Jeff Zimbalist, which zealously deploys the now formulaic MTV-povera aesthetic of City of God (etc). Once again, a collective story about community music group Afro Reggae becomes the tale of one man, Anderson Sá, and his fight to improve life in the favelas. Interviews with Sá carry a clear message – he preaches the salvation of cultural work as the way to pull oneself out of the slums. Artists have long been able to transgress class barriers, but it is unlikely that all the kids Sá would like to save from the trenches of the drug wars can become middle class creative workers. The economic situation in Brazil would not allow for it. Incidentally, the message of City of God is quite similar – Rocket ‘gets out’ precisely because he is lucky enough to land a job as a photographer on the basis that he can get close to the gang action in the favelas. Thus the hypothetical lucky ones become cultural workers that subsist by documenting the lot or selling the culture of the unlucky.
Despite the creative economy line being fed by the Lula administration and the production of new rags-to-cultural-work-riches films (such as recent release 2 Filhos de Francisco, the biggest hit at Brazilian box offices in 20 years), those living in favelas will continue to be portrayed in cultural commodities but are unlikely to benefit from their production. Furthermore, the box office and broadcast hits bringing favela life to middle class Brazilian and western audiences are taking place in a context of growing economic disparity and a ‘drastic diminution of the intersections between the lives of the rich and the poor’.[15] Sao Paulo’s 300 hundred gated communities, serviced by the world’s highest volume of civilian helicopter traffic, and the Rio government’s plan to build a 7 foot wall around several favelas, push the working class further out of sight.[16] As material segregations proliferate in the cities of Brazil, it seems unlikely that the new market for consumer-friendly representations of the favelas will lead to anything more than profits off the backs of those who are, so to speak, providing the content.
[1] Rana Dasgupta, ‘The Sudden Stardom of the Third-World City’, http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0603/msg00031.html
[2] The richest 10% of Brazil owns between 48% to over 50% of the nation’s wealth while the poorest 10% own 1%.
[3] Barry Schwabsky, ‘Art from Brazil in New York’, Artforum, Summer, 1995, http://linkme2.net/9j
[4] ‘Evoking the threat of a tiny urban foco of Marxist guerillas, the military razed 80 favelas and evicted almost 140,000 poor people from the hills overlooking Rio. With financial support from USAID, other favelas were later demolished to clear the way for industrial expansion or to “beautify” the borders of upper income areas. Although the authorities failed in their goal of eliminating all “slums within Rio within a decade”, the dictatorships ignited conflicts between bourgeois neighbourhoods and the favelas, and between the police and slum youth, which continue to rage three decades later.’ Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, Verso, London, p. 108.
[5] In Brazil today ‘98% of prison inmates lived in poor or modest economic conditions prior to their arrest’. Marie-Eve Sylvestre, ‘Crime, Law & Society – Exploring the Relationship Between Crime, Punitive Practices, Poverty and Social Exclusion in Contemporary Societies’, Harvard Law School, http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/graduate/sjd_candidates/marie-evesylvestre/syllabus.doc
[6] ‘Conditions in the prisons included systematic torture and no basic amenities (mattresses, linens, blankets, soap)’, Elizabeth Leeds, ‘Cocaine and Parallel Polities in the Brazilian Urban Periphery: Constraints on Local-Level Democratization’, Latin American Research Review, Vol. 31, 1996, p.54.
Comando Vermelho orchestrated a series of attacks on Rio’s middle class neighbourhoods during the same week that City of God won the BAFTA for best editing. The gang told the press they were retaliating against ‘oppressive and cowardly’ policing in the slums and politicians’ violence against the poor.Would this also qualify as a plea for recognition? ‘Rio gangs cast violent shadow over carnival’, The Guardian, http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-25-2003-36272.asp
[7] Elizabeth Leeds, op. cit., p.54.
[8] Hector Benoit, ‘Brazil: The social contradictions underlying the violent eruption in Sao Paulo’, World Socialist Web Site, May 2006, http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/may2006/braz-m18_prn.shtml
[9] Elizabeth Leeds, op. cit., p. 48-49.
[10] The treasure trove of eye-witness reports from the favela front lines have recently proven dangerous business. In 2002, celebrity reporter Tim Lopes, renowned for his undercover work, often in disguise, was dismembered with a samurai sword and burned during a favelaBrazzil Magazine, June 2005, http://www.brazzil.com/content/view/9297/79/ reconnaissance. Tom Phillips, ‘Justice for One. In Brazil, Drug War Goes On’,
[11] Gibby Zobel, ‘Mayhem That left Sao Paolo in Shock’, Al Jazeera,
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B0DB410F-55C4-4A73-8EAF-41475DD8CF7B.htm and Pepe Escobar ‘The accumulation of the wretched, a review of Planet of Slums by Mike Davis’, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HE20Aa01.html
[12] Tom Phillips, ‘Jail riots kill up to 80 as gangs rebel’, Sunday Herald, June 2004, http://www.sundayherald.com/42704
[13] ‘Brazil: Death tally reaches 400 in the wake of attacks in Sao Paulo State’, Coav Newsroom, http://www.coav.org.br/publique/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?infoid=1956&tpl=printerview&sid=114Al Jazeera, http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F418DB9E-5DEE-4B18-A9FE-F11A9FA76863.htm and ‘Brazil probes police role in gang riots’,
[14] Tiffany Linton Page, ‘Building a Creative Utopia in Brazil’, Center for Latin American Studies, February 2005, http://www.clas.berkeley.edu:7001/Events/spring2005/02-17-05-gil/index.html and Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42332-2002May31
[15] Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, Verso, London, p. 119.
[16] Anthony Faiola, ‘Brazil’s Elites Fly Above Their Fears
Rich Try to Wall Off Urban Violence’, Washington Post, May 31st 2002, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42332-2002May31 and Daniel Howden, ‘Bitter Divide over Plan to Wall in Rio’s Slums’, Independent, June 23, 2005, http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2005/06/bitter_divide_o.php
Sunday, September 07, 2008,12:25 AM
Thinking Outside the Marketing Box
By STUART ELLIOTT
HE "secret weapon" of the Omnicom Group, Peter Arnell, has done it again. His Arnell Group has landed an important project from a company that regularly works with an Omnicom competitor.
The Arnell Group, based in New York, planned to announce today that it is being awarded a global assignment from Electrolux, the world's biggest maker of home and outdoor appliances, which uses as its global agency of record Lowe & Partners Worldwide, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.
Mr. Arnell, the chairman and chief executive of the Arnell Group, is to oversee a broad effort - everything from product design to in-store marketing to traditional advertising - to help Electrolux introduce a line of small domestic appliances, tentatively scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2005.
Mr. Arnell, who sold the Arnell Group to Omnicom in June 2001, is known for wooing chief executives and other senior managers of large advertisers, who assign his agency projects and consulting chores; current clients include DaimlerChrysler, Diageo, Mars, Reebok International and Unilever. Often his strategic advice leads the advertisers to hire the Arnell Group or other Omnicom agencies. Hence, the recent description of Mr. Arnell by the trade publication Advertising Age as the secret weapon of John D. Wren, the Omnicom president and chief executive.
Needless to say, Mr. Arnell is not infallible. His most-publicized flop involved an extensive, and expensive, campaign for Chrysler that was centered on the singer Celine Dion. The campaign, originally scheduled to run three years, lasted not much more than one, and its failure contributed to the resignation last year of its most ardent fan, James C. Schroer, executive vice president for global sales, marketing and service at the Chrysler Group division of DaimlerChrysler.
But it is a different matter when Mr. Arnell can do the voodoo that he does so well. For instance, last month Unilever shifted the account of its Lipton tea products in the United States to an Omnicom agency, DDB Worldwide in New York, from an agency owned by the WPP Group, J. Walter Thompson in New York. Mr. Arnell has been providing Unilever with ideas on reintroducing the Lipton brand to American consumers in 2005, Advertising Age reported.
Lars Goran Johansson, senior vice president for corporate communications at Electrolux in Stockholm, said Electrolux was attracted to Mr. Arnell by his reputation for thinking beyond the boundaries of conventional advertising and venturing into realms like graphic design, retail marketing and branded entertainment.
For example, for a previous client, Samsung, Mr. Arnell recognized the appeal to young adult consumers of photographs of a shirtless man holding a Samsung microwave oven, which were originally shot for print ads. The images were subsequently used on oversized outdoor signs in big cities and the cardboard boxes in which the ovens were packaged. Some buyers even displayed the empty boxes on their kitchen shelves, above the ovens.
"This is a different kind of business, an interesting mixture of design, creativity and technology," Mr. Johansson said.
The experience consumers have with brands, in stores and at home, is becoming just as important in shaping their perceptions of those brands as traditional ads, if not more so, Mr. Johansson said. So Mr. Arnell's reputation for "doing something different, something cool," he added, played a large part in awarding the Arnell Group the assignment, for which spending has not been determined.
Mr. Arnell said he welcomed the assignment because "the brand positioning and strategy will be embedded in the product development and design."
"In this iPod economy, clearly design has become one of the most important differentiating tools for brands," Mr. Arnell said. "It's a powerful place to be these days."
Mr. Arnell said he was also designing a store being opened in Midtown Manhattan by Jacob the Jeweler, the purveyor to the stars of diamond-encrusted watches and other jewelry, so that it evokes the interior of a gem mine, as well as a store in Philadelphia that will serve as a showcase for the Rbk line of clothing and footwear sold by Reebok.
Also on the Arnell Group's list of tasks, Mr. Arnell said, is the introduction of a line of fire extinguishers and other home-safety products for a company called Home Hero, owned by Thomas Von Essen, the former New York City fire commissioner.
The typical fire extinguisher could stand to be redesigned because "it's so ugly, nobody wants to leave it on a counter," Mr. Arnell said. "We need a product like what Braun did with coffee makers."
Mr. Arnell described the products he will help design and develop for Electrolux as "small-task domestic appliances," like coffee makers, toasters and blenders. Mr. Johansson described them as "an entry point for consumers to our bigger products," like ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers and vacuums.
The new Electrolux line, still unnamed, will be branded differently from Electrolux floor-care products and other brands the company sells under names like Eureka and Frigidaire.
This week Electrolux is introducing a campaign by Lowe in the United States to promote a new, higher-priced line of major appliances, called Electrolux Icon, which were first sold in Europe. The campaign, with a budget estimated at $70 million over the next three years, is separate from ads for the regularly priced line of Electrolux appliances.
Electrolux hired the London, New York and Stockholm offices of Lowe in January 2003 to develop brand campaigns. Asked what effect the hiring of the Arnell Group and Mr. Arnell would have on Lowe, Mr. Johansson replied, "I don't see this as competition," adding that Lowe remained the company's global agency of record.
The new line is "a way to show Electrolux is interesting," Mr. Johansson said, by having the products be "different in function and design" from what is now sold in the small-appliance market.
"We want consumers to say, 'Wow, I didn't know I needed that,' " he added.
HE "secret weapon" of the Omnicom Group, Peter Arnell, has done it again. His Arnell Group has landed an important project from a company that regularly works with an Omnicom competitor.
The Arnell Group, based in New York, planned to announce today that it is being awarded a global assignment from Electrolux, the world's biggest maker of home and outdoor appliances, which uses as its global agency of record Lowe & Partners Worldwide, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.
Mr. Arnell, the chairman and chief executive of the Arnell Group, is to oversee a broad effort - everything from product design to in-store marketing to traditional advertising - to help Electrolux introduce a line of small domestic appliances, tentatively scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2005.
Mr. Arnell, who sold the Arnell Group to Omnicom in June 2001, is known for wooing chief executives and other senior managers of large advertisers, who assign his agency projects and consulting chores; current clients include DaimlerChrysler, Diageo, Mars, Reebok International and Unilever. Often his strategic advice leads the advertisers to hire the Arnell Group or other Omnicom agencies. Hence, the recent description of Mr. Arnell by the trade publication Advertising Age as the secret weapon of John D. Wren, the Omnicom president and chief executive.
Needless to say, Mr. Arnell is not infallible. His most-publicized flop involved an extensive, and expensive, campaign for Chrysler that was centered on the singer Celine Dion. The campaign, originally scheduled to run three years, lasted not much more than one, and its failure contributed to the resignation last year of its most ardent fan, James C. Schroer, executive vice president for global sales, marketing and service at the Chrysler Group division of DaimlerChrysler.
But it is a different matter when Mr. Arnell can do the voodoo that he does so well. For instance, last month Unilever shifted the account of its Lipton tea products in the United States to an Omnicom agency, DDB Worldwide in New York, from an agency owned by the WPP Group, J. Walter Thompson in New York. Mr. Arnell has been providing Unilever with ideas on reintroducing the Lipton brand to American consumers in 2005, Advertising Age reported.
Lars Goran Johansson, senior vice president for corporate communications at Electrolux in Stockholm, said Electrolux was attracted to Mr. Arnell by his reputation for thinking beyond the boundaries of conventional advertising and venturing into realms like graphic design, retail marketing and branded entertainment.
For example, for a previous client, Samsung, Mr. Arnell recognized the appeal to young adult consumers of photographs of a shirtless man holding a Samsung microwave oven, which were originally shot for print ads. The images were subsequently used on oversized outdoor signs in big cities and the cardboard boxes in which the ovens were packaged. Some buyers even displayed the empty boxes on their kitchen shelves, above the ovens.
"This is a different kind of business, an interesting mixture of design, creativity and technology," Mr. Johansson said.
The experience consumers have with brands, in stores and at home, is becoming just as important in shaping their perceptions of those brands as traditional ads, if not more so, Mr. Johansson said. So Mr. Arnell's reputation for "doing something different, something cool," he added, played a large part in awarding the Arnell Group the assignment, for which spending has not been determined.
Mr. Arnell said he welcomed the assignment because "the brand positioning and strategy will be embedded in the product development and design."
"In this iPod economy, clearly design has become one of the most important differentiating tools for brands," Mr. Arnell said. "It's a powerful place to be these days."
Mr. Arnell said he was also designing a store being opened in Midtown Manhattan by Jacob the Jeweler, the purveyor to the stars of diamond-encrusted watches and other jewelry, so that it evokes the interior of a gem mine, as well as a store in Philadelphia that will serve as a showcase for the Rbk line of clothing and footwear sold by Reebok.
Also on the Arnell Group's list of tasks, Mr. Arnell said, is the introduction of a line of fire extinguishers and other home-safety products for a company called Home Hero, owned by Thomas Von Essen, the former New York City fire commissioner.
The typical fire extinguisher could stand to be redesigned because "it's so ugly, nobody wants to leave it on a counter," Mr. Arnell said. "We need a product like what Braun did with coffee makers."
Mr. Arnell described the products he will help design and develop for Electrolux as "small-task domestic appliances," like coffee makers, toasters and blenders. Mr. Johansson described them as "an entry point for consumers to our bigger products," like ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers and vacuums.
The new Electrolux line, still unnamed, will be branded differently from Electrolux floor-care products and other brands the company sells under names like Eureka and Frigidaire.
This week Electrolux is introducing a campaign by Lowe in the United States to promote a new, higher-priced line of major appliances, called Electrolux Icon, which were first sold in Europe. The campaign, with a budget estimated at $70 million over the next three years, is separate from ads for the regularly priced line of Electrolux appliances.
Electrolux hired the London, New York and Stockholm offices of Lowe in January 2003 to develop brand campaigns. Asked what effect the hiring of the Arnell Group and Mr. Arnell would have on Lowe, Mr. Johansson replied, "I don't see this as competition," adding that Lowe remained the company's global agency of record.
The new line is "a way to show Electrolux is interesting," Mr. Johansson said, by having the products be "different in function and design" from what is now sold in the small-appliance market.
"We want consumers to say, 'Wow, I didn't know I needed that,' " he added.
Labels: advertisement, Music
Saturday, September 06, 2008,11:53 PM
Fear Factor Branding
by Roger Dooley
One of the interesting tricks our brains play on us is to transfer physiological and emotional states that we are experiencing to something else going on at the same time. In Sway, authors Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman describe one of the more unusual experiments in behavior I’ve seen. In fact, it sounds like the perfect research boondoggle, as it required traveling to a remote location of incredible natural beauty. Oh, and did I mention that an attractive female research assistant was part of the experiment?
Even if this road trip started off as a lark, the results it produced were quite interesting. Here’s the quick setup: the researchers traveled to Capilano Canyon in Vancouver, a scenic gorge that (at the time of the experiments) was conveniently traversed by two bridges: a sturdy and safe wooden one, and a scary, swaying rope bridge built in the 1800s and offering the possibility of falling up to 230 feet along its 450 foot length.
The researchers had a female assistant conduct a brief interview with random male hikers as they completed the crossing of each bridge. The ostensible reason was that researchers were studying the effect of scenic beauty on creative expression. After talking to each unwitting subject, the assistant offered to provide more information on the experiment, wrote her phone number down, and gave it to the subject. The same procedure was repeated with a male research assistant who also approached male hikers.
The male assistant received virtually no phone calls in the ensuing days. The female assistant, meanwhile, had her phone ring off the hook. Perhaps that’s no great surprise, but the interesting thing was the mix of calls that the female assistant received. Half of the hikers who had crossed the scary bridge called her, while only an eighth of those who used the sturdy wood bridge responded.
The conclusion of the researchers was that the swaying rope bridge had caused those crossing it to undergo physiological changes - their pulse rate increased, they perspired, adrenaline levels increased, and so on. When they were confronted by the female research assistant as they set foot on terra firma, the subjects subconsciously attributed this state of arousal to her presence. The hikers who had crossed the wood bridge had no such physiological change, and hence called with much less frequency.
Fear Factor Branding
Regular readers of Neuromarketing know I’m always trying to find the practical side of neuroscience and behavioral research, but figuring this one out was a bit tricky. Rope bridges and deep gorges are uncommon, to say the least. (Sadly, even the shaky rope Capilano Suspension Bridge has been replaced with a disgustingly safe steel cable version anchored in tons of concrete and featuring chain-link sides.) On the other hand, what ARE very common are scary amusement park rides like roller coasters. Over 300 million people visit such parks each year, and a healthy percentage of those partake in some kind of ride designed to get one’s adremaline going. Is this an opportunity?
Here are three questions for which I don’t yet have good answers:
1) Would the adrenaline rush created by a scary ride transfer to a brand message, much like it did to the female research assistant in the bridge experiment?
2) If so, where should the ad placement be? In view of the rider while the ride is taking place? Or in sight as the rider exits the ride with wobbly knees and surging pulse?
3) Are there any negatives to combining branding and frightened customers?
Despite the fact that the effectiveness of such ads is speculative, I find the concept intriguing. What other opportunies can you think of for fear factor branding? New York taxis? IRS office sponsorships?
One of the interesting tricks our brains play on us is to transfer physiological and emotional states that we are experiencing to something else going on at the same time. In Sway, authors Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman describe one of the more unusual experiments in behavior I’ve seen. In fact, it sounds like the perfect research boondoggle, as it required traveling to a remote location of incredible natural beauty. Oh, and did I mention that an attractive female research assistant was part of the experiment?
Even if this road trip started off as a lark, the results it produced were quite interesting. Here’s the quick setup: the researchers traveled to Capilano Canyon in Vancouver, a scenic gorge that (at the time of the experiments) was conveniently traversed by two bridges: a sturdy and safe wooden one, and a scary, swaying rope bridge built in the 1800s and offering the possibility of falling up to 230 feet along its 450 foot length.
The researchers had a female assistant conduct a brief interview with random male hikers as they completed the crossing of each bridge. The ostensible reason was that researchers were studying the effect of scenic beauty on creative expression. After talking to each unwitting subject, the assistant offered to provide more information on the experiment, wrote her phone number down, and gave it to the subject. The same procedure was repeated with a male research assistant who also approached male hikers.
The male assistant received virtually no phone calls in the ensuing days. The female assistant, meanwhile, had her phone ring off the hook. Perhaps that’s no great surprise, but the interesting thing was the mix of calls that the female assistant received. Half of the hikers who had crossed the scary bridge called her, while only an eighth of those who used the sturdy wood bridge responded.
The conclusion of the researchers was that the swaying rope bridge had caused those crossing it to undergo physiological changes - their pulse rate increased, they perspired, adrenaline levels increased, and so on. When they were confronted by the female research assistant as they set foot on terra firma, the subjects subconsciously attributed this state of arousal to her presence. The hikers who had crossed the wood bridge had no such physiological change, and hence called with much less frequency.
Fear Factor Branding
Regular readers of Neuromarketing know I’m always trying to find the practical side of neuroscience and behavioral research, but figuring this one out was a bit tricky. Rope bridges and deep gorges are uncommon, to say the least. (Sadly, even the shaky rope Capilano Suspension Bridge has been replaced with a disgustingly safe steel cable version anchored in tons of concrete and featuring chain-link sides.) On the other hand, what ARE very common are scary amusement park rides like roller coasters. Over 300 million people visit such parks each year, and a healthy percentage of those partake in some kind of ride designed to get one’s adremaline going. Is this an opportunity?
Here are three questions for which I don’t yet have good answers:
1) Would the adrenaline rush created by a scary ride transfer to a brand message, much like it did to the female research assistant in the bridge experiment?
2) If so, where should the ad placement be? In view of the rider while the ride is taking place? Or in sight as the rider exits the ride with wobbly knees and surging pulse?
3) Are there any negatives to combining branding and frightened customers?
Despite the fact that the effectiveness of such ads is speculative, I find the concept intriguing. What other opportunies can you think of for fear factor branding? New York taxis? IRS office sponsorships?
Labels: advertisement, Music
,11:39 PM
Euro Parliament Targets 'Stereotyping'
Votes to ban sexist images in advertising, media
Sept 4, 2008
-By Leo Cendrowicz, The Hollywood Reporter
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM National media-monitoring bodies should be set up to deal with stereotypes in advertising and media, particularly degrading depictions of women, the European Parliament said Wednesday.
The Parliament, meeting here, voted on a program to ban sexist images of women and men in advertising, broadcasting, video games and other media.
The monitoring bodies would handle complaints from the public, study and report on the question of women in the media and grant gender equality awards to media and advertising professionals.
The Parliament said images such as women cleaning the kitchen and men polishing their cars simply play up stereotypes, undermining efforts to achieve equality between the sexes.
"Advertising and marketing create culture rather than just reflect it," the Parliament said. "Gender stereotyping in advertising straitjackets women, men, girls and boys by restricting individuals to predetermined and artificial roles that are often degrading, humiliating and dumbed down for both sexes."
Swedish MEP Eva-Britt Svensson, who drafted most of the program, said that gender stereotyping affects the self-esteem of women and men, particularly teenagers and those susceptible to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. One area of particular concern was the use of extremely thin women to advertise products.
Sept 4, 2008
-By Leo Cendrowicz, The Hollywood Reporter
BRUSSELS, BELGIUM National media-monitoring bodies should be set up to deal with stereotypes in advertising and media, particularly degrading depictions of women, the European Parliament said Wednesday.
The Parliament, meeting here, voted on a program to ban sexist images of women and men in advertising, broadcasting, video games and other media.
The monitoring bodies would handle complaints from the public, study and report on the question of women in the media and grant gender equality awards to media and advertising professionals.
The Parliament said images such as women cleaning the kitchen and men polishing their cars simply play up stereotypes, undermining efforts to achieve equality between the sexes.
"Advertising and marketing create culture rather than just reflect it," the Parliament said. "Gender stereotyping in advertising straitjackets women, men, girls and boys by restricting individuals to predetermined and artificial roles that are often degrading, humiliating and dumbed down for both sexes."
Swedish MEP Eva-Britt Svensson, who drafted most of the program, said that gender stereotyping affects the self-esteem of women and men, particularly teenagers and those susceptible to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. One area of particular concern was the use of extremely thin women to advertise products.
Labels: advertisement, Music
Thursday, September 04, 2008,11:25 PM
UPTOWN Magazine unveils study on spending by affluent African-Americans
(September 2, 2008) UPTOWN Magazine, the luxury lifestyle company targeting the growing Affluent African American market, and Diversity Affluence, a marketing research and consulting company specializing in affluent ethnic markets, have released groundbreaking research on the behaviors, attitudes, opinions and spending patterns of Affluent African Americans. This demo is defined as individual consumers earning a minimum annual income of $75,000.
"Affluent African Americans are an educated, sizeable and often untapped opportunity for luxury brands, said Leonard Burnett, Co-CEO, Group Publisher of Uptown Media. "This unprecedented study aims to arm marketers with data and insights to help them more effectively target this growing audience."
The study comprised a national online survey and a series of regional focus groups in Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington DC from March-July 2008. The respondent mix was 35% male and 65% female; 68% were single and 32% were married or committed.
Some key results from the study:
- Purchasing Power of AAAs in the US (individual income of $100K), is estimated at $29.8 billion.
- AAAs conduct extensive research on luxury items prior to purchase.
- Decisions influencing purchase include tailored advertising, personalized service and event marketing at the retail level.
- AAAs are aspirational and focused on trading up to more luxurious brands.
- Fashion is an expected luxury and is equally important to both men and women.
- Men's fashion spending was focused on career wear, casual wear and shoes; while women spent on purses and shoes.
"The comprehensive study took five months to complete," said Andrea Hoffman, CEO of Diversity Affluence. "What was once considered luxury has now become necessity."
Founded in 2004, Uptown Media is the only luxury lifestyle company that targets the Affluent African American (AAA) Market. UPTOWN Magazine affords luxury purveyors the broadest access to this highly sought-after male and female demographic.
"Affluent African Americans are an educated, sizeable and often untapped opportunity for luxury brands, said Leonard Burnett, Co-CEO, Group Publisher of Uptown Media. "This unprecedented study aims to arm marketers with data and insights to help them more effectively target this growing audience."
The study comprised a national online survey and a series of regional focus groups in Atlanta, Chicago, and Washington DC from March-July 2008. The respondent mix was 35% male and 65% female; 68% were single and 32% were married or committed.
Some key results from the study:
- Purchasing Power of AAAs in the US (individual income of $100K), is estimated at $29.8 billion.
- AAAs conduct extensive research on luxury items prior to purchase.
- Decisions influencing purchase include tailored advertising, personalized service and event marketing at the retail level.
- AAAs are aspirational and focused on trading up to more luxurious brands.
- Fashion is an expected luxury and is equally important to both men and women.
- Men's fashion spending was focused on career wear, casual wear and shoes; while women spent on purses and shoes.
"The comprehensive study took five months to complete," said Andrea Hoffman, CEO of Diversity Affluence. "What was once considered luxury has now become necessity."
Founded in 2004, Uptown Media is the only luxury lifestyle company that targets the Affluent African American (AAA) Market. UPTOWN Magazine affords luxury purveyors the broadest access to this highly sought-after male and female demographic.
Labels: African Americans, Music
,2:48 AM
That 70's Jazz (for the Discriminating Rapper)
By J. D. CONSIDINE
IN their quest for rare grooves and ear-catching hooks, hip-hop D.J.'s do a lot of digging through old LP's. Anything is fair game, from classic R & B hits to corny movie soundtracks. But for many D.J.'s, nothing confers sophistication better than jazz.
Rap fans and jazz fans value markedly different things in their music, of course. You won't find many samples from John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk or Charlie Parker on rap albums. But you will find quite a few from George Benson, Bob James, Stanley Turrentine and Grover Washington.
What do these artists have in common? From a D.J. perspective, the answer is simple: they all recorded for CTI (or one of its subsidiaries), a label founded in the the late 1960's by the well-known producer Creed Taylor. Rappers from Run D.M.C. to LL Cool J to Snoop Dogg have all sampled CTI's stylish, groove-driven recordings. In fact, the label has gained a cachet among hip-hop D.J.'s, in part because its catalog has only sporadically been available since the introduction of the CD in the late 1980's.
But that situation may change: Sony Legacy reissued eight titles earlier this month, including albums by Mr. Benson, Mr. Turrentine, Milt Jackson and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Seven more are planned for this summer. Even so, dozens of CTI albums remain out of print.
The unavailability of CTI's catalog is especially puzzling given the label's great commercial success in the 1970's. It's best-known albums, like Mr. Washington's ''Mr. Magic'' and Mr. James's ''BJ4,'' were not just successful by the standards of jazz; they were also bona fide pop hits, often climbing high in the album charts. The label even released a few hit singles, notably Eumir Deodato's 1973 revamping of ''Also Sprach Zarathustra,'' the theme from the movie ''2001: A Space Odyssey.'' It went to No. 2 on the Billboard pop charts despite having an all-star jazz lineup.
That such success didn't win Mr. Taylor more friends in jazz is instructive. Where many jazz musicians wanted their music to be more like high art -- oblique, austere, intellectually demanding -- Mr. Taylor believed that jazz, having started out as popular music, ought to maintain a connection to a broader audience. His credo was that when cut off from its pop roots, jazz withers and dies.
By and large, Mr. Taylor's productions stressed recognizable tunes (often pop hits at the time or light classical favorites), sturdy, straightforward grooves and slick, hi-fidelity recordings. Jazz snobs carped that many of those values were middlebrow, pandering to commercial tastes. (When Steely Dan imported those qualities into rock, critics applauded.)
Mr. Taylor nonetheless managed to assemble a stable of first-rate talent -- including Paul Desmond, Freddie Hubbard and Chet Baker -- and to make the sound sell. His success shouldn't have been that surprising. Initially a trumpeter, he began his career in jazz production in 1954. A decade later, he produced one of the most successful jazz albums of its time, Stan Getz and João Gilberto's ''Getz/Gilberto,'' which included the Grammy-winning single ''The Girl From Ipanema.''
In 1967, Mr. Taylor began CTI as a boutique label within A & M Records. His first signings ranged from the Brazilian superstar Milton Nascimento to the arranger Quincy Jones. The album ''A Day in the Life'' by the guitarist Wes Montgomery showed that the producer hadn't lost the touch. Lushly arranged and favoring pop fare over jazz standards -- the title was that of a Beatles song -- it placed Mr. Montgomery's lean, swinging phrasing in a commercial package and earned him the only gold album (selling more than 500,000 copies) of his career.
CTI went independent in 1970, and ''Stone Flower,'' its reissue of an album by the Brazilian composer and guitarist Antonio Carlos Jobim, was one of the label's first releases. Jobim was a favorite of Mr. Taylor's, having written ''The Girl From Ipanema'' and many of the bossa nova songs that ''Getz/Gilberto'' helped popularize. ''Stone Flower'' isn't jazz as such -- there's little improvisation -- but it offers a stellar lineup, particularly the bassist Ron Carter (a CTI mainstay), the flutist Hubert Laws and the saxophonist Joe Farrell.
What ''Stone Flower'' lacks in solos is made up for in warmth and rhythm. As arranged by Mr. Deodato, the album casts Jobim's songs in the signature CTI manner, with the instrumental soloists treated almost like singers and the harmonies sketched in dark, velvety textures (whispery strings, throaty flutes, chocolaty trombones).
But it's the approach to rhythm that would ultimately become a CTI touchstone and endear the label to D.J.'s. Where most jazz albums relied on a standard bebop rhythm section of piano, bass and drums, CTI recordings frequently added guitar and percussion. Mr. Benson's 1973 album, ''Body Talk,'' not only paired his electric guitar with Earl Klugh's acoustic; it also reinforced Mr. Carter's acoustic bass with Gary King's electric.
In addition, most of the label's albums were recorded in the studios of the engineer Rudy Van Gelder, a jazz legend in his own right, in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. He emphasized the rhythm instruments: the deep resonance of acoustic bass and the crispness of cymbals and percussion. By shading the sounds, Mr. Van Gelder created a sonic world that was CTI's own.
That ear for sonic detail is evident on Mr. Laws's ''Rite of Spring.'' Based on classical works, from Stravinsky's ''Rite'' to a swinging take on Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, the album wields an unusual array of instruments, including a bassoon. But even the arrangements tend to emphasize ensemble playing over improvisation. Notwithstanding, there are enough hot moments that the title track has been sampled by the Canadian hip-hop group Swollen Members.
MR. TAYLOR eventually augmented his CTI line with Kudu Records, a subsidiary devoted to soul jazz. Beginning with the organist Johnny Hammond's ''Breakout'' in 1971, it expanded on the formula that Mr. Taylor had established with Mr. Turrentine's 1970 album ''Sugar.'' Kudu releases were funkier and relied more on pop songs than most CTI offerings, making more of beats and arrangements than of solos.
It was the rhythm that made both the Beastie Boys and Fat Boy Slim sample ''Loran's Dance'' from the drummer Idris Muhammad's album ''The Power of Soul,'' just as the rappers Eric B. and Rakim drew from Hammond's ''Breakout.'' That connection may not be enough to make hip-hop listeners into a new generation of jazz fans. But it's nice to know that these recordings are again available in something more than just snippets.
IN their quest for rare grooves and ear-catching hooks, hip-hop D.J.'s do a lot of digging through old LP's. Anything is fair game, from classic R & B hits to corny movie soundtracks. But for many D.J.'s, nothing confers sophistication better than jazz.
Rap fans and jazz fans value markedly different things in their music, of course. You won't find many samples from John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk or Charlie Parker on rap albums. But you will find quite a few from George Benson, Bob James, Stanley Turrentine and Grover Washington.
What do these artists have in common? From a D.J. perspective, the answer is simple: they all recorded for CTI (or one of its subsidiaries), a label founded in the the late 1960's by the well-known producer Creed Taylor. Rappers from Run D.M.C. to LL Cool J to Snoop Dogg have all sampled CTI's stylish, groove-driven recordings. In fact, the label has gained a cachet among hip-hop D.J.'s, in part because its catalog has only sporadically been available since the introduction of the CD in the late 1980's.
But that situation may change: Sony Legacy reissued eight titles earlier this month, including albums by Mr. Benson, Mr. Turrentine, Milt Jackson and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Seven more are planned for this summer. Even so, dozens of CTI albums remain out of print.
The unavailability of CTI's catalog is especially puzzling given the label's great commercial success in the 1970's. It's best-known albums, like Mr. Washington's ''Mr. Magic'' and Mr. James's ''BJ4,'' were not just successful by the standards of jazz; they were also bona fide pop hits, often climbing high in the album charts. The label even released a few hit singles, notably Eumir Deodato's 1973 revamping of ''Also Sprach Zarathustra,'' the theme from the movie ''2001: A Space Odyssey.'' It went to No. 2 on the Billboard pop charts despite having an all-star jazz lineup.
That such success didn't win Mr. Taylor more friends in jazz is instructive. Where many jazz musicians wanted their music to be more like high art -- oblique, austere, intellectually demanding -- Mr. Taylor believed that jazz, having started out as popular music, ought to maintain a connection to a broader audience. His credo was that when cut off from its pop roots, jazz withers and dies.
By and large, Mr. Taylor's productions stressed recognizable tunes (often pop hits at the time or light classical favorites), sturdy, straightforward grooves and slick, hi-fidelity recordings. Jazz snobs carped that many of those values were middlebrow, pandering to commercial tastes. (When Steely Dan imported those qualities into rock, critics applauded.)
Mr. Taylor nonetheless managed to assemble a stable of first-rate talent -- including Paul Desmond, Freddie Hubbard and Chet Baker -- and to make the sound sell. His success shouldn't have been that surprising. Initially a trumpeter, he began his career in jazz production in 1954. A decade later, he produced one of the most successful jazz albums of its time, Stan Getz and João Gilberto's ''Getz/Gilberto,'' which included the Grammy-winning single ''The Girl From Ipanema.''
In 1967, Mr. Taylor began CTI as a boutique label within A & M Records. His first signings ranged from the Brazilian superstar Milton Nascimento to the arranger Quincy Jones. The album ''A Day in the Life'' by the guitarist Wes Montgomery showed that the producer hadn't lost the touch. Lushly arranged and favoring pop fare over jazz standards -- the title was that of a Beatles song -- it placed Mr. Montgomery's lean, swinging phrasing in a commercial package and earned him the only gold album (selling more than 500,000 copies) of his career.
CTI went independent in 1970, and ''Stone Flower,'' its reissue of an album by the Brazilian composer and guitarist Antonio Carlos Jobim, was one of the label's first releases. Jobim was a favorite of Mr. Taylor's, having written ''The Girl From Ipanema'' and many of the bossa nova songs that ''Getz/Gilberto'' helped popularize. ''Stone Flower'' isn't jazz as such -- there's little improvisation -- but it offers a stellar lineup, particularly the bassist Ron Carter (a CTI mainstay), the flutist Hubert Laws and the saxophonist Joe Farrell.
What ''Stone Flower'' lacks in solos is made up for in warmth and rhythm. As arranged by Mr. Deodato, the album casts Jobim's songs in the signature CTI manner, with the instrumental soloists treated almost like singers and the harmonies sketched in dark, velvety textures (whispery strings, throaty flutes, chocolaty trombones).
But it's the approach to rhythm that would ultimately become a CTI touchstone and endear the label to D.J.'s. Where most jazz albums relied on a standard bebop rhythm section of piano, bass and drums, CTI recordings frequently added guitar and percussion. Mr. Benson's 1973 album, ''Body Talk,'' not only paired his electric guitar with Earl Klugh's acoustic; it also reinforced Mr. Carter's acoustic bass with Gary King's electric.
In addition, most of the label's albums were recorded in the studios of the engineer Rudy Van Gelder, a jazz legend in his own right, in Englewood Cliffs, N.J. He emphasized the rhythm instruments: the deep resonance of acoustic bass and the crispness of cymbals and percussion. By shading the sounds, Mr. Van Gelder created a sonic world that was CTI's own.
That ear for sonic detail is evident on Mr. Laws's ''Rite of Spring.'' Based on classical works, from Stravinsky's ''Rite'' to a swinging take on Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, the album wields an unusual array of instruments, including a bassoon. But even the arrangements tend to emphasize ensemble playing over improvisation. Notwithstanding, there are enough hot moments that the title track has been sampled by the Canadian hip-hop group Swollen Members.
MR. TAYLOR eventually augmented his CTI line with Kudu Records, a subsidiary devoted to soul jazz. Beginning with the organist Johnny Hammond's ''Breakout'' in 1971, it expanded on the formula that Mr. Taylor had established with Mr. Turrentine's 1970 album ''Sugar.'' Kudu releases were funkier and relied more on pop songs than most CTI offerings, making more of beats and arrangements than of solos.
It was the rhythm that made both the Beastie Boys and Fat Boy Slim sample ''Loran's Dance'' from the drummer Idris Muhammad's album ''The Power of Soul,'' just as the rappers Eric B. and Rakim drew from Hammond's ''Breakout.'' That connection may not be enough to make hip-hop listeners into a new generation of jazz fans. But it's nice to know that these recordings are again available in something more than just snippets.
,1:05 AM
A Second Round of Glory
A second round of glory
By Ben Shalev
ADDIS ABABA - Mulatu Astatke, 63, is sitting next to the pool of the Addis Ababa Hilton, giving out autographs to fans and remembering with pleasure his glory days in the early 1970s.
Thirty-three years ago, he relates, in exactly this spot, he hosted Duke Ellington, who came with his band to Ethiopia, and played his music, which he calls Ethio-Jazz - a fusion of Ethiopian music and jazz - for the jazz great. "I'll never forget Duke's reaction," says Astatke, getting excited. "He listened attentively and said: 'Mulatu, your music has such a nice sound. I didn't expect something like that from an African. Excellent work.'" The last few months have been the second glory days in Astatke's career. Since his wonderful music starred in Jim Jarmusch's last film, "Broken Flowers," he has been the object of renewed interest from Western music fans and has been invited to perform in Europe and the United States.
"I'm not the only one who benefited from the film," he says, "Ethiopia as a whole benefited. Usually it is portrayed in the context of famine. The film and the performances across America are causing people to look at the country in a different way."
How did the connection with Jarmusch come about?
"I met Jim in New York," says Astatke "I was performing there with Either/Orchestra [a Boston jazz ensemble that in recent years has frequently used Ethiopian motifs in its music - B.S.]. One day someone phoned me at the hotel and said 'there's a big director, his name's Jarmusch, who wants to come to your concert with his whole crew.'
"Jim came to the concert, and at the end he came up to me and said, 'I fell in love with your music. It really penetrated me. I'm considering using it in a film I'm doing now.' I said that's great, and a few months later he called and told me which segments of mine he had chosen to use. After 40 years, I've finally made it. At last there is recognition of the value and beauty of my creation, Ethio-Jazz."
Ethio-Jazz would not have appeared were it not for Astatke, who was born in the city of Jimma in western Ethiopia and was sent as a boy in the late 1950s to study in Wales. His parents' intention was for him to study aeronautical engineering there.
"That was also my intention," he relates, "but the director of the school orchestra, where I played for fun, told me, 'It's possible that you may become a good engineer, but your destiny is to be a musician.'
"Basically, I think there's no difference between music and science. The musician puts together different sounds in order to create something interesting; the chemist combines different chemicals in order to create something interesting. The success of both is determined by the proportions within the structure that they create. In music it's called counterpoint; in science it has another name. But the principle is exactly the same."
From Wales, Astatke went to study classical music in London and when he decided he wanted to concentrate on jazz, he went to Boston, where he was the first African student at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. Later on, in New York, he formed with some Puerto Rican musicians the Ethiopian Quintet, in which he combined jazz, Latin music and Ethiopian music.
In the late 1960s, after some 10 years in the West, he decided to return to Ethiopia. "I always had respect for America, because it transformed me into what I am," he says, "but it was important for me to apply what I had learned and bring what I had created to my country - to insert into Ethiopian music new perceptions of beat, counterpoint, orchestration, harmony."
Astatke was one of the leaders of the cultural renaissance that hit Addis Ababa in the late 1960s and early 1970s, whose musical creations captivate Western listeners thanks to their mix of the foreign (Ethiopian tones) and the familiar (recognizable influences of black American music). But his innovations had a hard time seeping into the local scene, primarily because jazz had a hard time making the transition to Ethiopia.
"I tried to do a jazz concert in one of the theaters in Addis Ababa, and people couldn't tolerate it," relates Astatke. "It was too progressive. Experimental. People in the audience were actually shouting. But I saw it as a positive experience. Why? Because it didn't make me stop. Even Miles Davis, the greatest musician in the world, was booed when he started playing fusion in the late 1960s and he still carried on. His example gave me strength."
In the mid-1970s, there was a communist revolution in Ethiopia and for the next 17 years, any attempt at creativity was quashed. When Astatke is asked about that period, he surprises at first and says that even creativity during the period of the communist regime is of value. "There are two different approaches," he explains. "In capitalist culture, you as an artist think individually, whereas under a communist regime, you think for the masses."
But, after a short time, as if he felt his remarks might be understood as if he were identifying with the oppressive communist regime, he starts to talk in a completely different manner, and throughout the rest of the interview he says repeatedly, "I'm a private individual. I don't deal with politics. I always say leave the politics to the politicians."
According to a very reliable version, Astatke, unlike many other musicians, was not persecuted by the communist regime and even served as one of its functionaries responsible for the sphere of music. Astatke claims he never had any connection to the regime.
In recent years he opened and then closed a jazz club in Addis Ababa called African Jazz Village and focused on researching ancient traditions of Ethiopian music. He spends a fair amount of time corresponding with fans who thanked him for the music in "Broken Flowers."
"The e-mails don't stop coming," he says proudly.
A culture we didn't know
The name Francis Falceto did not come up during the interview with Mulatu Astatke, but the Ethiopian musician owes his revived glory primarily to this French researcher and producer, the great documenter of modern Ethiopian music. Falceto's thorough 20 years of research led to the creation of one of the most impressive musical enterprises of late - the "Ethiopiques" series of albums, which revealed to the world the great music recorded in Ethiopia during the 1960s and 1970s. So far 12 albums have been released in the monumental series. The fourth album, which was released in the late 1990s, includes Astatke's best cuts, and through it Jim Jarmusch discovered the music that was eventually used in "Broken Flowers."
"I wasn't at all surprised that Jarmusch contacted me and asked to know where he could find other recordings of Astatke," says Falceto in a phone interview from his home in Normandy, France. "First of all, it is music that is very easy to fall in love with. Apart from that, I appreciate Jarmusch's good ear. I really liked the sound tracks of 'Dead Man' and of his other films."
Jarmusch joins many other music fans and a long list of artists, primarily from outside the mainstream, who have fallen in love with the Ethiopiques series, including Elvis Costello, the Kronos Quartet and others.
What is the source of the enthusiasm for Ethiopian music?
"In my opinion, there are several causes," says Falceto "The groove is unique, the dominance of the wind instruments, the similarity of Ethiopian music of the 1960s and 1970s to American black music. And there's another thing: the trendiness of what's known as world music, and the vast industry that has sprung up around it, made us think that we already know all the music created in Africa. Suddenly it turns out that there is an Ethiopian musical culture that we weren't acquainted with, and that also added to the excitement."
But Falceto says: "If someone thinks Astatke's disc is now selling in the hundreds of thousands, he is mistaken. So far a total of some 15,000 discs only have been sold and a survey that we did among our distributors indicates that some 5,000 of those copies were sold thanks to the film. Moreover, the film had a positive affect on the sales of the other discs in the series, but that too was not very big. The newspaper coverage is misleading. In terms of sales, the Ethiopiques series is not a major item. It is far from being a best-seller."
By Ben Shalev
ADDIS ABABA - Mulatu Astatke, 63, is sitting next to the pool of the Addis Ababa Hilton, giving out autographs to fans and remembering with pleasure his glory days in the early 1970s.
Thirty-three years ago, he relates, in exactly this spot, he hosted Duke Ellington, who came with his band to Ethiopia, and played his music, which he calls Ethio-Jazz - a fusion of Ethiopian music and jazz - for the jazz great. "I'll never forget Duke's reaction," says Astatke, getting excited. "He listened attentively and said: 'Mulatu, your music has such a nice sound. I didn't expect something like that from an African. Excellent work.'" The last few months have been the second glory days in Astatke's career. Since his wonderful music starred in Jim Jarmusch's last film, "Broken Flowers," he has been the object of renewed interest from Western music fans and has been invited to perform in Europe and the United States.
"I'm not the only one who benefited from the film," he says, "Ethiopia as a whole benefited. Usually it is portrayed in the context of famine. The film and the performances across America are causing people to look at the country in a different way."
How did the connection with Jarmusch come about?
"I met Jim in New York," says Astatke "I was performing there with Either/Orchestra [a Boston jazz ensemble that in recent years has frequently used Ethiopian motifs in its music - B.S.]. One day someone phoned me at the hotel and said 'there's a big director, his name's Jarmusch, who wants to come to your concert with his whole crew.'
"Jim came to the concert, and at the end he came up to me and said, 'I fell in love with your music. It really penetrated me. I'm considering using it in a film I'm doing now.' I said that's great, and a few months later he called and told me which segments of mine he had chosen to use. After 40 years, I've finally made it. At last there is recognition of the value and beauty of my creation, Ethio-Jazz."
Ethio-Jazz would not have appeared were it not for Astatke, who was born in the city of Jimma in western Ethiopia and was sent as a boy in the late 1950s to study in Wales. His parents' intention was for him to study aeronautical engineering there.
"That was also my intention," he relates, "but the director of the school orchestra, where I played for fun, told me, 'It's possible that you may become a good engineer, but your destiny is to be a musician.'
"Basically, I think there's no difference between music and science. The musician puts together different sounds in order to create something interesting; the chemist combines different chemicals in order to create something interesting. The success of both is determined by the proportions within the structure that they create. In music it's called counterpoint; in science it has another name. But the principle is exactly the same."
From Wales, Astatke went to study classical music in London and when he decided he wanted to concentrate on jazz, he went to Boston, where he was the first African student at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. Later on, in New York, he formed with some Puerto Rican musicians the Ethiopian Quintet, in which he combined jazz, Latin music and Ethiopian music.
In the late 1960s, after some 10 years in the West, he decided to return to Ethiopia. "I always had respect for America, because it transformed me into what I am," he says, "but it was important for me to apply what I had learned and bring what I had created to my country - to insert into Ethiopian music new perceptions of beat, counterpoint, orchestration, harmony."
Astatke was one of the leaders of the cultural renaissance that hit Addis Ababa in the late 1960s and early 1970s, whose musical creations captivate Western listeners thanks to their mix of the foreign (Ethiopian tones) and the familiar (recognizable influences of black American music). But his innovations had a hard time seeping into the local scene, primarily because jazz had a hard time making the transition to Ethiopia.
"I tried to do a jazz concert in one of the theaters in Addis Ababa, and people couldn't tolerate it," relates Astatke. "It was too progressive. Experimental. People in the audience were actually shouting. But I saw it as a positive experience. Why? Because it didn't make me stop. Even Miles Davis, the greatest musician in the world, was booed when he started playing fusion in the late 1960s and he still carried on. His example gave me strength."
In the mid-1970s, there was a communist revolution in Ethiopia and for the next 17 years, any attempt at creativity was quashed. When Astatke is asked about that period, he surprises at first and says that even creativity during the period of the communist regime is of value. "There are two different approaches," he explains. "In capitalist culture, you as an artist think individually, whereas under a communist regime, you think for the masses."
But, after a short time, as if he felt his remarks might be understood as if he were identifying with the oppressive communist regime, he starts to talk in a completely different manner, and throughout the rest of the interview he says repeatedly, "I'm a private individual. I don't deal with politics. I always say leave the politics to the politicians."
According to a very reliable version, Astatke, unlike many other musicians, was not persecuted by the communist regime and even served as one of its functionaries responsible for the sphere of music. Astatke claims he never had any connection to the regime.
In recent years he opened and then closed a jazz club in Addis Ababa called African Jazz Village and focused on researching ancient traditions of Ethiopian music. He spends a fair amount of time corresponding with fans who thanked him for the music in "Broken Flowers."
"The e-mails don't stop coming," he says proudly.
A culture we didn't know
The name Francis Falceto did not come up during the interview with Mulatu Astatke, but the Ethiopian musician owes his revived glory primarily to this French researcher and producer, the great documenter of modern Ethiopian music. Falceto's thorough 20 years of research led to the creation of one of the most impressive musical enterprises of late - the "Ethiopiques" series of albums, which revealed to the world the great music recorded in Ethiopia during the 1960s and 1970s. So far 12 albums have been released in the monumental series. The fourth album, which was released in the late 1990s, includes Astatke's best cuts, and through it Jim Jarmusch discovered the music that was eventually used in "Broken Flowers."
"I wasn't at all surprised that Jarmusch contacted me and asked to know where he could find other recordings of Astatke," says Falceto in a phone interview from his home in Normandy, France. "First of all, it is music that is very easy to fall in love with. Apart from that, I appreciate Jarmusch's good ear. I really liked the sound tracks of 'Dead Man' and of his other films."
Jarmusch joins many other music fans and a long list of artists, primarily from outside the mainstream, who have fallen in love with the Ethiopiques series, including Elvis Costello, the Kronos Quartet and others.
What is the source of the enthusiasm for Ethiopian music?
"In my opinion, there are several causes," says Falceto "The groove is unique, the dominance of the wind instruments, the similarity of Ethiopian music of the 1960s and 1970s to American black music. And there's another thing: the trendiness of what's known as world music, and the vast industry that has sprung up around it, made us think that we already know all the music created in Africa. Suddenly it turns out that there is an Ethiopian musical culture that we weren't acquainted with, and that also added to the excitement."
But Falceto says: "If someone thinks Astatke's disc is now selling in the hundreds of thousands, he is mistaken. So far a total of some 15,000 discs only have been sold and a survey that we did among our distributors indicates that some 5,000 of those copies were sold thanks to the film. Moreover, the film had a positive affect on the sales of the other discs in the series, but that too was not very big. The newspaper coverage is misleading. In terms of sales, the Ethiopiques series is not a major item. It is far from being a best-seller."
Wednesday, September 03, 2008,10:57 PM
Black Knights
Has pop culture paved the way for Barack Obama to become our next president?
By David Walker
No matter the final outcome of the general election in November, Sen. Barack Obama has already made history. The historical discussion of Obama's success on the campaign trail would not be complete without mentioning the trailblazers who came before him, men and women like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Mary McLeod Bethune and Shirley Chisholm, the first black major-party candidate for president of the United States.
But while everyone is quick to point out the civil rights leaders and political movers and shakers that have paved the way for Obama, not nearly enough attention has been paid to a film about a killer comet on a collision course with Earth, a popular television series on a network owned by notorious conservative Rupert Murdoch, or how Darth Vader was once commander in chief.
Entertainment in all of its forms -- sports, literature, popular music, television and film -- has always been a crucial component of American culture, serving as a historical marker of where society has been as well as an indicator of where it is headed. Historically, popular entertainment has always played an especially pivotal role in shaping the perception of black Americans. From Jackie Robinson becoming the first black player in Major League Baseball to Will Smith repeatedly saving the world in films like "Men in Black" and "I Am Legend," pop culture has, for better and for worse, been a primary source of information that determines how mainstream America perceives black people. And for Obama, pop culture, especially film and television, may just help him win the election in November.
"America is ready for a black president because we've seen them before. Black presidents, in fact, have been our most awesome presidents ever: Morgan Freeman in 'Deep Impact' and Dennis Haysbert in '24,'" wrote Joel Stein in a Los Angeles Times editorial. "And their approval ratings -- box office grosses and Nielsen ratings, the only approval that matters in the U.S. -- have been huge."
The fictional presidents portrayed by Freeman and Haysbert have gone a long way to popularizing the concept of a black American in the Oval Office, but it was actor James Earl Jones who played the first black president in 1972's "The Man," based on Irving Wallace's novel and adapted for the screen by "Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling. When the president of the United States and the speaker of the House are killed in a freak accident, and the terminally ill vice president abdicates power, the role of commander in chief falls unexpectedly on the shoulders of the Senate president pro tempore, Douglass Dilman (Jones). Faced with a choice of being his own man or serving as the puppet president others want him to be, Dilman wrestles with a series of complex racial issues that include a black American student accused of assassinating the defense minister of South Africa.
"The Man" deals specifically with the issues of race and racism as it relates to the presidency. Produced in the wake of the civil rights movement, when black power had manifested itself cinematically in the blaxploitation films of the era, "The Man" is very much a product of the 1970s. It is a byproduct of the politically charged films of the late 1950s and '60s (many of which starred Sidney Poitier), which helped to change the way blacks were portrayed in mass media.
In the world of film, Poitier did more to clear the way for Obama than any other actor. Poitier was the first black actor to be successfully cast as a hero in mainstream American cinema. The Bahamian Poitier's career began in the 1950s with films like "No Way Out," "Edge of the City" and "The Defiant Ones," all of which dealt head-on with race relations in America. In 1964 he won an Oscar for his leading role in "Lilies of the Field," and, by 1967, the year he starred in "In the Heat of the Night," "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "To Sir, With Love" -- all racially charged films -- Poitier was the No. 1 box office actor in the country.
The issues of race and racism that fueled most of Poitier's films and also informed "The Man" became minor points in the following decades. When Freeman co-starred in 1998's "Deep Impact" as President Tom Beck, no mention of his race was ever made in the film. With a comet on a collision course with Earth threatening all life on the planet, matters of race and politics took a back seat to special effects. In a performance that was calm, cool and compassionate in the face impending doom, Freeman came to embody everything that America looks for in a leader. Film critic Janet Maslin wrote in her New York Times review of "Deep Impact," "Morgan Freeman makes a fine president of the United States, with a thoughtful manner and just the right reassuring television presence."
With "The Man" never having been released on home video, Freeman's President Beck has enjoyed a high approval rating among fictional presidents, making him one of the most beloved and effective leaders of the United States of Cinema. But for all of President Beck's popularity, he is outshined by another fictional leader, President David Palmer.
Named the No. 1 pick for fictional president in an Entertainment Weekly reader's poll earlier this year, President Palmer (Haysbert) from the FOX television series "24" has enjoyed far more favorable ratings than the current leader of the free world. Serving as president for two seasons on "24," Palmer became a crucial pop culture icon that helped make the concept of a black president a bit more realistic. "If anything, my portrayal of David Palmer, I think, may have helped open the eyes of the American people," Haysbert said in an Associated Press article. "And I mean the American people from across the board -- from the poorest to the richest, every color and creed, every religious base -- to prove the possibility there could be an African-American president, a female president, any type of president that puts the people first."
While Haysbert, Freeman and, to a lesser extent, Jones have all helped in creating a public perception of a black president, they have not been the only actors to tackle the role. On "24," actor D.B. Woodside's Wayne Palmer, the brother of David Palmer, would go on to become president, but his character has not proven to be as popular as his sibling.
Other black actors have played the president in more comedic roles, most notably Chris Rock as Mays Gilliam in "Head of State," an uneven comedy that's silly at best and not nearly as funny as Dave Chappelle's performances as the president on his television series "Chappelle's Show." Ernie Hudson, best known for his work in "Ghostbusters," stepped into the role of President Westwood in the unintentionally funny B-movie thriller "Stealth Fighter." Tommy "Tiny" Lister played the futuristic President Lindberg in the science fiction film "The Fifth Element." The pinnacle of the comedic commanders in chief would have to be former professional wrestler and porn star President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (Terry Crews) in "Idiocracy," the stupidest president -- at least stupidest fictional president -- of all time.
The comedic portrayal of black presidents recalls a time when the most acceptable roles for black Americans were those of jesters and buffoons. As entertaining as Crews' President Camacho may be, he ultimately conjures a negative image of blacks that recalls the performances of actors like Stepin Fetchit, whose entire career was built around comical stereotypes. These performances, amusing though some of them may be, have done little to help Obama's cause.
Whether or not Obama is elected president of the United States in November remains to be seen. But the one thing that is clear is that the image of black Americans in pop culture has changed considerably since D.W. Griffith's racially inflammatory 1915 film "Birth of a Nation." Those changes can be tracked and measured with a line that leads from Paul Robeson to Smith, twisting and turning along the way to include everyone from Robinson to Poitier to Muhammad Ali to Richard Pryor, and perhaps leading to the first black president of the United States.
By David Walker
No matter the final outcome of the general election in November, Sen. Barack Obama has already made history. The historical discussion of Obama's success on the campaign trail would not be complete without mentioning the trailblazers who came before him, men and women like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Mary McLeod Bethune and Shirley Chisholm, the first black major-party candidate for president of the United States.
But while everyone is quick to point out the civil rights leaders and political movers and shakers that have paved the way for Obama, not nearly enough attention has been paid to a film about a killer comet on a collision course with Earth, a popular television series on a network owned by notorious conservative Rupert Murdoch, or how Darth Vader was once commander in chief.
Entertainment in all of its forms -- sports, literature, popular music, television and film -- has always been a crucial component of American culture, serving as a historical marker of where society has been as well as an indicator of where it is headed. Historically, popular entertainment has always played an especially pivotal role in shaping the perception of black Americans. From Jackie Robinson becoming the first black player in Major League Baseball to Will Smith repeatedly saving the world in films like "Men in Black" and "I Am Legend," pop culture has, for better and for worse, been a primary source of information that determines how mainstream America perceives black people. And for Obama, pop culture, especially film and television, may just help him win the election in November.
"America is ready for a black president because we've seen them before. Black presidents, in fact, have been our most awesome presidents ever: Morgan Freeman in 'Deep Impact' and Dennis Haysbert in '24,'" wrote Joel Stein in a Los Angeles Times editorial. "And their approval ratings -- box office grosses and Nielsen ratings, the only approval that matters in the U.S. -- have been huge."
The fictional presidents portrayed by Freeman and Haysbert have gone a long way to popularizing the concept of a black American in the Oval Office, but it was actor James Earl Jones who played the first black president in 1972's "The Man," based on Irving Wallace's novel and adapted for the screen by "Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling. When the president of the United States and the speaker of the House are killed in a freak accident, and the terminally ill vice president abdicates power, the role of commander in chief falls unexpectedly on the shoulders of the Senate president pro tempore, Douglass Dilman (Jones). Faced with a choice of being his own man or serving as the puppet president others want him to be, Dilman wrestles with a series of complex racial issues that include a black American student accused of assassinating the defense minister of South Africa.
"The Man" deals specifically with the issues of race and racism as it relates to the presidency. Produced in the wake of the civil rights movement, when black power had manifested itself cinematically in the blaxploitation films of the era, "The Man" is very much a product of the 1970s. It is a byproduct of the politically charged films of the late 1950s and '60s (many of which starred Sidney Poitier), which helped to change the way blacks were portrayed in mass media.
In the world of film, Poitier did more to clear the way for Obama than any other actor. Poitier was the first black actor to be successfully cast as a hero in mainstream American cinema. The Bahamian Poitier's career began in the 1950s with films like "No Way Out," "Edge of the City" and "The Defiant Ones," all of which dealt head-on with race relations in America. In 1964 he won an Oscar for his leading role in "Lilies of the Field," and, by 1967, the year he starred in "In the Heat of the Night," "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "To Sir, With Love" -- all racially charged films -- Poitier was the No. 1 box office actor in the country.
The issues of race and racism that fueled most of Poitier's films and also informed "The Man" became minor points in the following decades. When Freeman co-starred in 1998's "Deep Impact" as President Tom Beck, no mention of his race was ever made in the film. With a comet on a collision course with Earth threatening all life on the planet, matters of race and politics took a back seat to special effects. In a performance that was calm, cool and compassionate in the face impending doom, Freeman came to embody everything that America looks for in a leader. Film critic Janet Maslin wrote in her New York Times review of "Deep Impact," "Morgan Freeman makes a fine president of the United States, with a thoughtful manner and just the right reassuring television presence."
With "The Man" never having been released on home video, Freeman's President Beck has enjoyed a high approval rating among fictional presidents, making him one of the most beloved and effective leaders of the United States of Cinema. But for all of President Beck's popularity, he is outshined by another fictional leader, President David Palmer.
Named the No. 1 pick for fictional president in an Entertainment Weekly reader's poll earlier this year, President Palmer (Haysbert) from the FOX television series "24" has enjoyed far more favorable ratings than the current leader of the free world. Serving as president for two seasons on "24," Palmer became a crucial pop culture icon that helped make the concept of a black president a bit more realistic. "If anything, my portrayal of David Palmer, I think, may have helped open the eyes of the American people," Haysbert said in an Associated Press article. "And I mean the American people from across the board -- from the poorest to the richest, every color and creed, every religious base -- to prove the possibility there could be an African-American president, a female president, any type of president that puts the people first."
While Haysbert, Freeman and, to a lesser extent, Jones have all helped in creating a public perception of a black president, they have not been the only actors to tackle the role. On "24," actor D.B. Woodside's Wayne Palmer, the brother of David Palmer, would go on to become president, but his character has not proven to be as popular as his sibling.
Other black actors have played the president in more comedic roles, most notably Chris Rock as Mays Gilliam in "Head of State," an uneven comedy that's silly at best and not nearly as funny as Dave Chappelle's performances as the president on his television series "Chappelle's Show." Ernie Hudson, best known for his work in "Ghostbusters," stepped into the role of President Westwood in the unintentionally funny B-movie thriller "Stealth Fighter." Tommy "Tiny" Lister played the futuristic President Lindberg in the science fiction film "The Fifth Element." The pinnacle of the comedic commanders in chief would have to be former professional wrestler and porn star President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho (Terry Crews) in "Idiocracy," the stupidest president -- at least stupidest fictional president -- of all time.
The comedic portrayal of black presidents recalls a time when the most acceptable roles for black Americans were those of jesters and buffoons. As entertaining as Crews' President Camacho may be, he ultimately conjures a negative image of blacks that recalls the performances of actors like Stepin Fetchit, whose entire career was built around comical stereotypes. These performances, amusing though some of them may be, have done little to help Obama's cause.
Whether or not Obama is elected president of the United States in November remains to be seen. But the one thing that is clear is that the image of black Americans in pop culture has changed considerably since D.W. Griffith's racially inflammatory 1915 film "Birth of a Nation." Those changes can be tracked and measured with a line that leads from Paul Robeson to Smith, twisting and turning along the way to include everyone from Robinson to Poitier to Muhammad Ali to Richard Pryor, and perhaps leading to the first black president of the United States.
Labels: African Americans, Music
,10:56 PM
Read My Mind
-By Jim Edwards
The human brain is smaller than most people think. If you were to peel away the hair, skin and muscle fiber, then remove the skull, you'd be left with a mass of tissue slightly larger than a man's fist. I happen to know this because Prof. Joy Hirsch has a plastic model of one sitting in front of me, next to a can of Diet Coke, on her desk at Columbia University Medical Center.
Brains are jellylike and gray. Confusingly, Hirsch's model is hard and pink, but it'll have to do. Hirsch, the director of Columbia's Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research Center, is using her plastic model to explain to me what's going to happen in a few minutes from now, when she'll insert my head into one of her three fMRI scanners down the hall.
I have come to Hirsch's book-cluttered office, located in the basement of the hospital's Neurological Institute Building in upper Manhattan, because I have a question: "Does my brain handle the brands I like differently from the brands that I do not like?" Hirsch has custom-designed a small demonstration to provide an answer for Brandweek's readers.
On one level, the answer is trivial: Of course it does. That's why I know that I like some brands and dislike others in the first place.
But if Hirsch's fMRI showed that my brain uses different structures for different brands, it could mean problems for a company that wants consumers to value its brand highly. Changing a consumer's mind-persuading him to admire a brand that he previously held in low esteem-might involve producing complex physical or biological changes inside the brain.
Of course, the desire to see inside the working mind of a consumer is something marketers have been dreaming about for many years. What's significant is that technology has finally caught up to the aspirations and made it all possible-or at least possible to begin. Thirty years ago, for instance, researchers would measure pupil dilation and constriction as consumers watched ads, or hook them up to electrodes that detected skin dampness, in the hope that their bodies would give away their level of excitement. But the results of these early stabs at neurologically centered marketing were too primitive to be of much use. That's why analog tools like the focus group and the opinion poll have dominated market research. But the fMRI could well change all that.
More Than a Feeling
Marketers have traditionally assumed that we all have an "emotional" attachment to some brands that trumps our rational shopping choices. This is why Apple users happily pay hundreds of dollars more for a computer that does pretty much exactly the same things that a Dell computer does. Conversely, marketers believe brands we dislike are relegated to background noise. Apple people ignore Dell because, well, only squares buy from Dell, right? There's even a name for that noise: "clutter."
The problem with this theory is that's exactly what it is: theory. It's a presumption that needs to be tested. Hirsch's scanner is going to do that by chopping my brain horizontally into two-dozen slices, each one 4 mm thick. The machine will then dice my brain further, into "voxels," or units about the size of a rice grain. When I (which is to say, my brain) am exposed to brands that I like the most and ones I like the least, some of those voxels will call for extra blood. In this manner, the imager will be able to see which bits of my brain are active and which are simply twiddling their neural thumbs.
Though Hirsch's work marks the inaugural stages of this type of study, its marketplace applications are not lost on her. "We're opening the doors to do commercial work," she said. "It's extraordinarily exciting."
Hirsch, who is a neuroscientist/psychologist with 10 years experience in functional imaging, isn't the only researcher who's interested in the nascent field of "neuromarketing." Nor is fMRI the only tool for conducting research in it. In Tenafly, N.J., Lee Weinblatt's PreTesting agency records high-frequency eye vibration to gauge consumers' reaction to advertisements. In Westport, Conn., EmSense uses EEG, heart rate, temperature and eye-blink monitoring to do the same thing. NeuroFocus of Berkeley, Calif., uses all of the above, including "dense array" EEG, which it believes is better.
The one thing they all have in common is a belief that, if proven to be true, could well upturn much of conventional marketing research as we know it: That consumers' non-conscious responses to marketing may be more reliable indicators of brand preference than any number of opinion polls or focus groups you'd care to convene.
Welcome to the Machine
Most of Hirsch's research is medical. She once examined a man who had "alexia without agraphia"-a stroke left him unable to read. The cruelty of the condition was that, because the human brain handles reading and writing within separate structures, the man could still write with perfect clarity-even though everything he left on the paper appeared to him as indecipherable scrawl. Prior to his stroke, the man had run a newsstand in Times Square. After it, he could not understand the titles of the magazines he sold. With the help of Hirsch's colleagues, he was able to memorize the location of every periodical, and return to work.
As Hirsch related this story, she grabbed the plastic brain model off her desk and separated it into two halves to demonstrate what the fMRI machine would soon be doing. When she finished, rather than slotting the lobes back together, Hirsch left them lying loose on the desk amid her paperwork and the Diet Coke can. It's a slightly disconcerting image-especially when it's your brain that's about to be sliced by a machine into grains of rice.
Hirsch's scanners are giant circular magnets whose enormous weight and powerful force fields have banished them to the windowless complex of small rooms and narrow corridors that snake beneath the neurological institute. It's a sterile, institutional setting where the only light comes from recessed ceiling fixtures; you wouldn't want to be left alone down here if the power went out. The fMRI control room is filled with wires, cables and computer equipment, all of it piled on top of one another, garage-sale style. Powering the works are several towers of Sun Microsystems processors, which live on their own inside a separate, icily air-conditioned room.
The electromagnetic field created by the machine can cause anything made of metal to become a projectile. In 2001, a 6-year-old boy undergoing an MRI at Westchester Medical Center died when an oxygen tank accidentally left inside the room flew into his skull, shattering it. So, I'm admonished to remove all metal objects from my pockets-keys, cell phone, spare change-and leave them on Hirsch's desk, next to her plastic brain.
An attendant then helps me onto a narrow bed and thoughtfully tapes my head between two boards to keep it perfectly still. Immobilized, I stare upwards as a plastic cage is placed over my face. Once the assistant leaves the room, the platform slides into the center of the fMRI machine, which I cannot be the first to liken in appearance to an enormous bagel. The space is claustrophobic but tolerable. The magnet takes snapshots of my head in a series of loud electronic buzzes and bangs, as a liquid helium pump to cool the machinery retorts with shush-shush-shush.
Hirsch's staff shows me a series of 40 images of brands projected onto a screen at my feet. I can see them through a mirror inside the fMRI, much as if I were peering through a periscope. I have designated the brands in advance of the test either "high value" or "low value." Some of my appraisals were obvious; Tiffany fared better than Zales. Some are more subjective. I happen to like Genesee Cream Ale and dislike Bud Light; most men, I wager, would have it the other way around. Hirsch has allowed me to furnish some that are unique to me. Liverpool F.C., my hometown team, goes up against Manchester United, our despised rivals. (What if the fMRI shows some traitorous part of my brain responding positively to Man. U.? Could it be surgically removed?)
Images of the brands click past in blocks-five high-value followed by five low, with rest periods between to establish a baseline. While I'm looking at the brand images-logos and product shots-Hirsch has asked me to rate each brand on a 1 - 10 scale to ensure that my brain is doing the same thing in each exposure, and to confirm which are high and which are low. All the while, the fMRI is slicing, slicing, slicing, looking for voxels that want extra blood.
Dissenting Votes
This type of research has its critics. Among their arguments is the point that lying supine inside a 10-ton magnetic imager is hardly a workaday experience-it's nothing like shopping at a supermarket.
"The environment of the fMRI can generate emotions in itself," offered Prof. Baba Shiv of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He remains a realist about prospects for neuromarketing. One of his best-known experiments involves giving sips of wine to consumers lying inside an fMRI. Some of the subjects are told the wine is expensive, others that it's cheap-but they're all getting the same wine. Unsurprisingly, the brain's pleasure centers are activated to a greater extent when people believe that the wine they're sipping is pricey.
As word of Shiv's experiment got out, he started getting calls from vintners in Napa, who were excited. "Perhaps my wine gives more pleasure, and I can charge more!" he recalled them saying. And so Shiv developed a sobering talk to make the limitations of his neurological work clear to marketers who get too excited. "You need to have repeated measures with small variations in what's presented," he cautioned, and each step needs to be validated and statistically robust. That takes a lot of time and even more money. "And that's when they realize it's not a magic bullet," Shiv said. "You're not going to get an answer." (Besides, he points out, drinkers don't even taste wine when they're purchasing it-they're standing in a liquor store looking at the labels.)
Real-life brand-purchasing decisions are skewed and colored by countless ancillary stimuli, from a ringing cell phone in one's pocket to a crying baby in the mall food court. It's rare that any shopper is able to concentrate on a brand with the mental focus I achieve inside the machine.
That's why Leo Weinblatt, CEO of PreTesting, prefers measuring "saccadic" eye movement. Our eyes don't just point like binoculars at the things we want to see. Rather, they dodge and dart at high frequency, scanning all around an image. By monitoring saccade levels, Weinblatt claims he can tell which parts of a commercial a consumer is actually looking at, which are being ignored, and whether attention levels are rising or falling. The strongest argument for Weinblatt's method is also the strongest against Hirsch's: Subjects whose eye movements are being studied need not be immobilized inside a loud, electric bagel. They just watch TV using a remote to change channels.
But Weinblatt's method isn't perfect, either. It's best used for TV and that's just fine, except that many marketers are devoting an ever-increasing portion of their ad budgets to newer media: the Web, of course, and mobile phones, too.
That's where EmSense steps in. The company employs a headband embedded with sensors that record physiological stats such as EEG, heart rate, body temperature and even the rate of eye blinking, all as the participant interacts with the brand being tested."It brings us out of the research facility into the natural habitat," said chief analytics officer Elissa Moses. "It can also be camouflaged easily in a hat because it's so small. No one has to notice it."
Critics have noticed it, and they argue the device's usefulness is not unlike employing a polygraph test to determine a subject's truthfulness. An increased heart rate and sweaty palms are a sign of something-but is that something necessarily a lie? When it came to the EmSense test, Joe Kades initially counted himself among those skeptics, although now he's an EmSense customer. "Most of my career was in the ad world, and I never really had a high opinion of quantitative testing," said Kades, Virgin Mobile's vp of strategic planning and consumer insights. "I'd never seen a case where diagnostics had ever improved a campaign."
EmSense is often mentioned in the same breath as NeuroFocus, whose signature device features 64 EEG censors that cover the wearer's head "like grandma's swim cap," according to CEO A.K. Pradeep. (Full disclosure: NeuroFocus is owned by Nielsen, the parent company of Brandweek.) The device also monitors saccades and skin response. Pradeep claims he can track not only a user's attention span, but also his emotional engagement and memory.
Despite their technical differences these companies are all in accord on one point: The direct measurement of brain activity, they claim, is more accurate than consumers' rationalizations of their own behavior. And they've managed to get major brands to listen. While EmSense will not disclose its other clients, it said that they include marketers of food, beverage telecommunications, packaged goods and personal care products. NeuroFocus counts ESPN and "Fortune 100 companies across the consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, financial services, automotive and retail sectors" among its clients, which it would not identify further.
The Results
A couple of days later, Hirsch has my results. She has filtered them to show only unique brain activity triggered by the high-value brands, and the same for the low-value brands. Activated areas glow red and white; inactive ones appear green and blue. The slices, with their spectral dapples here and there, "are really beautiful," Hirsch said.
There are caveats: This was a test performed with one subject-me-so it obviously proves nothing about consumer brains in general. Nonetheless, the test was performed under real conditions and the results raise valid questions, Hirsch says. The most striking part: My brain processed high-value brands on its left side, handling the low-value ones on the right. That's not what one would expect, since the so-called left-brain is traditionally associated with conceptual processing and the right with emotions.
In my case, the high-value brands activated three areas: my left angular gyrus, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and my left orbitofrontal gyrus. Those systems are associated with the extraction of meaning, conceptual organization, and reward, respectively. "I haven't seen that before," Hirsch said. "My curiosity is piqued by that."
Mine, too. When it came to brands I dislike, I apparently really disliked them. My right insula-an internal fold just over an inch in length-is lit up like a runway. "Now, your brain isn't that big, but it's devoted on your right side to something where you're saying, 'That's a low-value item for me,'" Hirsch explained. Worse, the insula is understood to handle feelings of disgust. "That is not a result to be trifled with," Hirsch said.
And that's the big surprise: These results are the exact opposite of the received marketing wisdom. I'm not, apparently, emotional about brands I like. Instead, my brain behaves like an antiques dealer sifting an estate sale for high-priced items. My emotional feelings-specifically, disgust-are reserved for the brands I dislike. And I don't merely ignore those brands like clutter; I process them through the area of my brain that helps me avoid rotten food and poisonous berries.
A Broader Relevance
What do mere pockets of exaggerated activity in an organ as poorly understood as the human brain really say about an activity like shopping or, by extension, by marketing that's supposed to encourage it?
The counter-intuitive nature of the results hints at the existence of a dark universe of intimate consumer information that marketers have so far only guessed at. Suppose that our emotions aren't used to find brands we love but avoid brands we dislike. Then all those companies that have sunk millions into developing "lovemarks" and "touchpoints" may have wasted their money. Indeed, they might have done better to encourage consumers to find "hatemarks" and "loathepoints" on competing brands instead.
We don't know this from a single test, of course. But it illustrates the promise of neuroscience: Marketers need no longer be guided by supposition. They have a clearer view into the brain. That's a significant step given how frequently consumers seem to make previously "unthinkable" decisions.
For instance, back on March 3 of this year, it was widely believed that black Americans would vote largely for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries because of the former First Lady and her husband's historic support in that demographic. Then on March 4, Barack Obama won in Ohio, and that "historic support" evaporated like Scotch mist.
Hirsch believes the results tell us something about "neural value," or how the brain handles concepts to which we have attached an abstract importance (which, basically, is the definition of the word "brand").
Clearly, the results of my fMRI session raise questions for marketers. How hard would it be for Anheuser-Busch to move Bud Light from my disgusted insula into my reward-loving left oribitofrontal gyrus? Could a client create incentives for agencies who can show that their brands are shifting in consumers' minds from one area to another in response to their marketing?
"We could study various approaches to changing the neurocircuitry associated with 'low value' judgments to 'high value' judgments," offered Hirsch. "I like this idea."
All it needs are companies willing to support such research, Hirsch added. (In fact, Hirsch's office already has interest from Wall Street firms who want to know why traders who bet on a losing stock so often pile on to their declining position in an attempt to prove that they were right.)
But the big takeaway is how unexpected the results were. It's common knowledge that different brain structures have discrete functions, but seeing those brands segregated from each other on different hemispheres-in a neural apartheid-was a shock. I felt guilty for not shopping at Zales. (Man. U., not so much.)
Hirsch seemed pleased at my reaction. "This is why we have science. Our intuitions about how the brain works are often not consistent with the objective evidence." The plastic model of a brain, which was lying in pieces when I last saw it, has been restored to its pedestal at the side of her office.
-------------------
Sidebar: The Case for Subliminal Brand Awareness
When it comes to studying how our brains interpret branding messages, fMRI machines represent up-to-the-minute technology. But some of the most interesting work in the field is being done in decidedly low-tech fashion by Prof. Gavan Fitzsimons of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Durham, N.C.
Fitzsimons' theory is that the majority of our exposure to brands occurs outside our conscious awareness. The average American is exposed to at least 3,000 brands a day-either indirectly or via advertising. That is, obviously, far more than we can rationally acknowledge. But do these peripheral exposures actually affect our behavior? Fitzsimons believes they do.
His proof comes from an experiment he and his team designed in which subjects take a peripheral-vision test. On a computer screen, boxes randomly flash in the corners, left and right, top and bottom. The subjects must call out the location of the box when they see it. At the same time, subjects are asked to keep track of a stream of numbers that scrolls in mid-screen.
What the test's participants don't know is that they are also seeing extremely brief flashes of a brand logo-either Apple's or that of IBM. The flashes last less than 30 milliseconds-faster than the brain can consciously register, but slow enough to be detected by the eye. In other words, the flashes are subliminal.
Shortly afterwards, the subjects complete what's termed an "unusual uses task." Fitzsimons asks them to think up as many nontraditional uses for a household brick as they can. "Paperweight, doorstop, break through a locked window" are the most common replies. (Fitzsimons' personal favorite is the subject who said, "Tie to the foot of my boss and sink him to the bottom of a lake.")
Then things get interesting. Fitzsimons has found that study participants who were subliminally exposed to the Apple logo generate answers 30-35% more creative than those who were exposed to the IBM logo. The relative measure of creativity is determined by a separate team of judges who know nothing of the test. (These results, incidentally, are consistent even with users who express a preference for PCs.) Fitzsimons believes that something to do with Apple's strong association with creativity motivates people to literally "think different."
To eliminate the possibility that his findings might be isolated, Fitzsimons has repeated the experiment using the Disney logo facing off with the logo for the E! cable network. Instead of creativity, subjects are tested on their honesty, because Disney, for many Americans, is associated with honesty and E!, well, less so. After the bogus visual task, subjects are asked to agree or disagree with statements such as, "I find it easy to get along with obnoxious people," or "I've never pretended I was sick to get out of doing something." Give the "wrong" answer-i.e. agree with either of those statements-and you must be lying.
According to Fitzsimons' evaluation, subjects who were exposed to Disney answer 15% more honestly than those who were flashed the logo for the channel E!.
A number of brands have taken note of Fitzsimons' experiments. "I have spoken with folks at Procter & Gamble about some of the work they've been doing on short brand exposure," he said. "They're very interested in the implications."
There's only one drawback: His research indicates that brands affect behavior, but not necessarily buying behavior. That appears to be influenced by a panoply of factors extraneous to those in Fitzsimons' study. For instance, he said, "People are impacted by price." Except, since Fitzsimons' work began, his team members have switched their computer gear from PCs to Apple. "I'm now an official Apple person," he said. "I have a laptop, desktop and an iPhone. It can't hurt, I figured."
The human brain is smaller than most people think. If you were to peel away the hair, skin and muscle fiber, then remove the skull, you'd be left with a mass of tissue slightly larger than a man's fist. I happen to know this because Prof. Joy Hirsch has a plastic model of one sitting in front of me, next to a can of Diet Coke, on her desk at Columbia University Medical Center.
Brains are jellylike and gray. Confusingly, Hirsch's model is hard and pink, but it'll have to do. Hirsch, the director of Columbia's Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Research Center, is using her plastic model to explain to me what's going to happen in a few minutes from now, when she'll insert my head into one of her three fMRI scanners down the hall.
I have come to Hirsch's book-cluttered office, located in the basement of the hospital's Neurological Institute Building in upper Manhattan, because I have a question: "Does my brain handle the brands I like differently from the brands that I do not like?" Hirsch has custom-designed a small demonstration to provide an answer for Brandweek's readers.
On one level, the answer is trivial: Of course it does. That's why I know that I like some brands and dislike others in the first place.
But if Hirsch's fMRI showed that my brain uses different structures for different brands, it could mean problems for a company that wants consumers to value its brand highly. Changing a consumer's mind-persuading him to admire a brand that he previously held in low esteem-might involve producing complex physical or biological changes inside the brain.
Of course, the desire to see inside the working mind of a consumer is something marketers have been dreaming about for many years. What's significant is that technology has finally caught up to the aspirations and made it all possible-or at least possible to begin. Thirty years ago, for instance, researchers would measure pupil dilation and constriction as consumers watched ads, or hook them up to electrodes that detected skin dampness, in the hope that their bodies would give away their level of excitement. But the results of these early stabs at neurologically centered marketing were too primitive to be of much use. That's why analog tools like the focus group and the opinion poll have dominated market research. But the fMRI could well change all that.
More Than a Feeling
Marketers have traditionally assumed that we all have an "emotional" attachment to some brands that trumps our rational shopping choices. This is why Apple users happily pay hundreds of dollars more for a computer that does pretty much exactly the same things that a Dell computer does. Conversely, marketers believe brands we dislike are relegated to background noise. Apple people ignore Dell because, well, only squares buy from Dell, right? There's even a name for that noise: "clutter."
The problem with this theory is that's exactly what it is: theory. It's a presumption that needs to be tested. Hirsch's scanner is going to do that by chopping my brain horizontally into two-dozen slices, each one 4 mm thick. The machine will then dice my brain further, into "voxels," or units about the size of a rice grain. When I (which is to say, my brain) am exposed to brands that I like the most and ones I like the least, some of those voxels will call for extra blood. In this manner, the imager will be able to see which bits of my brain are active and which are simply twiddling their neural thumbs.
Though Hirsch's work marks the inaugural stages of this type of study, its marketplace applications are not lost on her. "We're opening the doors to do commercial work," she said. "It's extraordinarily exciting."
Hirsch, who is a neuroscientist/psychologist with 10 years experience in functional imaging, isn't the only researcher who's interested in the nascent field of "neuromarketing." Nor is fMRI the only tool for conducting research in it. In Tenafly, N.J., Lee Weinblatt's PreTesting agency records high-frequency eye vibration to gauge consumers' reaction to advertisements. In Westport, Conn., EmSense uses EEG, heart rate, temperature and eye-blink monitoring to do the same thing. NeuroFocus of Berkeley, Calif., uses all of the above, including "dense array" EEG, which it believes is better.
The one thing they all have in common is a belief that, if proven to be true, could well upturn much of conventional marketing research as we know it: That consumers' non-conscious responses to marketing may be more reliable indicators of brand preference than any number of opinion polls or focus groups you'd care to convene.
Welcome to the Machine
Most of Hirsch's research is medical. She once examined a man who had "alexia without agraphia"-a stroke left him unable to read. The cruelty of the condition was that, because the human brain handles reading and writing within separate structures, the man could still write with perfect clarity-even though everything he left on the paper appeared to him as indecipherable scrawl. Prior to his stroke, the man had run a newsstand in Times Square. After it, he could not understand the titles of the magazines he sold. With the help of Hirsch's colleagues, he was able to memorize the location of every periodical, and return to work.
As Hirsch related this story, she grabbed the plastic brain model off her desk and separated it into two halves to demonstrate what the fMRI machine would soon be doing. When she finished, rather than slotting the lobes back together, Hirsch left them lying loose on the desk amid her paperwork and the Diet Coke can. It's a slightly disconcerting image-especially when it's your brain that's about to be sliced by a machine into grains of rice.
Hirsch's scanners are giant circular magnets whose enormous weight and powerful force fields have banished them to the windowless complex of small rooms and narrow corridors that snake beneath the neurological institute. It's a sterile, institutional setting where the only light comes from recessed ceiling fixtures; you wouldn't want to be left alone down here if the power went out. The fMRI control room is filled with wires, cables and computer equipment, all of it piled on top of one another, garage-sale style. Powering the works are several towers of Sun Microsystems processors, which live on their own inside a separate, icily air-conditioned room.
The electromagnetic field created by the machine can cause anything made of metal to become a projectile. In 2001, a 6-year-old boy undergoing an MRI at Westchester Medical Center died when an oxygen tank accidentally left inside the room flew into his skull, shattering it. So, I'm admonished to remove all metal objects from my pockets-keys, cell phone, spare change-and leave them on Hirsch's desk, next to her plastic brain.
An attendant then helps me onto a narrow bed and thoughtfully tapes my head between two boards to keep it perfectly still. Immobilized, I stare upwards as a plastic cage is placed over my face. Once the assistant leaves the room, the platform slides into the center of the fMRI machine, which I cannot be the first to liken in appearance to an enormous bagel. The space is claustrophobic but tolerable. The magnet takes snapshots of my head in a series of loud electronic buzzes and bangs, as a liquid helium pump to cool the machinery retorts with shush-shush-shush.
Hirsch's staff shows me a series of 40 images of brands projected onto a screen at my feet. I can see them through a mirror inside the fMRI, much as if I were peering through a periscope. I have designated the brands in advance of the test either "high value" or "low value." Some of my appraisals were obvious; Tiffany fared better than Zales. Some are more subjective. I happen to like Genesee Cream Ale and dislike Bud Light; most men, I wager, would have it the other way around. Hirsch has allowed me to furnish some that are unique to me. Liverpool F.C., my hometown team, goes up against Manchester United, our despised rivals. (What if the fMRI shows some traitorous part of my brain responding positively to Man. U.? Could it be surgically removed?)
Images of the brands click past in blocks-five high-value followed by five low, with rest periods between to establish a baseline. While I'm looking at the brand images-logos and product shots-Hirsch has asked me to rate each brand on a 1 - 10 scale to ensure that my brain is doing the same thing in each exposure, and to confirm which are high and which are low. All the while, the fMRI is slicing, slicing, slicing, looking for voxels that want extra blood.
Dissenting Votes
This type of research has its critics. Among their arguments is the point that lying supine inside a 10-ton magnetic imager is hardly a workaday experience-it's nothing like shopping at a supermarket.
"The environment of the fMRI can generate emotions in itself," offered Prof. Baba Shiv of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He remains a realist about prospects for neuromarketing. One of his best-known experiments involves giving sips of wine to consumers lying inside an fMRI. Some of the subjects are told the wine is expensive, others that it's cheap-but they're all getting the same wine. Unsurprisingly, the brain's pleasure centers are activated to a greater extent when people believe that the wine they're sipping is pricey.
As word of Shiv's experiment got out, he started getting calls from vintners in Napa, who were excited. "Perhaps my wine gives more pleasure, and I can charge more!" he recalled them saying. And so Shiv developed a sobering talk to make the limitations of his neurological work clear to marketers who get too excited. "You need to have repeated measures with small variations in what's presented," he cautioned, and each step needs to be validated and statistically robust. That takes a lot of time and even more money. "And that's when they realize it's not a magic bullet," Shiv said. "You're not going to get an answer." (Besides, he points out, drinkers don't even taste wine when they're purchasing it-they're standing in a liquor store looking at the labels.)
Real-life brand-purchasing decisions are skewed and colored by countless ancillary stimuli, from a ringing cell phone in one's pocket to a crying baby in the mall food court. It's rare that any shopper is able to concentrate on a brand with the mental focus I achieve inside the machine.
That's why Leo Weinblatt, CEO of PreTesting, prefers measuring "saccadic" eye movement. Our eyes don't just point like binoculars at the things we want to see. Rather, they dodge and dart at high frequency, scanning all around an image. By monitoring saccade levels, Weinblatt claims he can tell which parts of a commercial a consumer is actually looking at, which are being ignored, and whether attention levels are rising or falling. The strongest argument for Weinblatt's method is also the strongest against Hirsch's: Subjects whose eye movements are being studied need not be immobilized inside a loud, electric bagel. They just watch TV using a remote to change channels.
But Weinblatt's method isn't perfect, either. It's best used for TV and that's just fine, except that many marketers are devoting an ever-increasing portion of their ad budgets to newer media: the Web, of course, and mobile phones, too.
That's where EmSense steps in. The company employs a headband embedded with sensors that record physiological stats such as EEG, heart rate, body temperature and even the rate of eye blinking, all as the participant interacts with the brand being tested."It brings us out of the research facility into the natural habitat," said chief analytics officer Elissa Moses. "It can also be camouflaged easily in a hat because it's so small. No one has to notice it."
Critics have noticed it, and they argue the device's usefulness is not unlike employing a polygraph test to determine a subject's truthfulness. An increased heart rate and sweaty palms are a sign of something-but is that something necessarily a lie? When it came to the EmSense test, Joe Kades initially counted himself among those skeptics, although now he's an EmSense customer. "Most of my career was in the ad world, and I never really had a high opinion of quantitative testing," said Kades, Virgin Mobile's vp of strategic planning and consumer insights. "I'd never seen a case where diagnostics had ever improved a campaign."
EmSense is often mentioned in the same breath as NeuroFocus, whose signature device features 64 EEG censors that cover the wearer's head "like grandma's swim cap," according to CEO A.K. Pradeep. (Full disclosure: NeuroFocus is owned by Nielsen, the parent company of Brandweek.) The device also monitors saccades and skin response. Pradeep claims he can track not only a user's attention span, but also his emotional engagement and memory.
Despite their technical differences these companies are all in accord on one point: The direct measurement of brain activity, they claim, is more accurate than consumers' rationalizations of their own behavior. And they've managed to get major brands to listen. While EmSense will not disclose its other clients, it said that they include marketers of food, beverage telecommunications, packaged goods and personal care products. NeuroFocus counts ESPN and "Fortune 100 companies across the consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, financial services, automotive and retail sectors" among its clients, which it would not identify further.
The Results
A couple of days later, Hirsch has my results. She has filtered them to show only unique brain activity triggered by the high-value brands, and the same for the low-value brands. Activated areas glow red and white; inactive ones appear green and blue. The slices, with their spectral dapples here and there, "are really beautiful," Hirsch said.
There are caveats: This was a test performed with one subject-me-so it obviously proves nothing about consumer brains in general. Nonetheless, the test was performed under real conditions and the results raise valid questions, Hirsch says. The most striking part: My brain processed high-value brands on its left side, handling the low-value ones on the right. That's not what one would expect, since the so-called left-brain is traditionally associated with conceptual processing and the right with emotions.
In my case, the high-value brands activated three areas: my left angular gyrus, left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and my left orbitofrontal gyrus. Those systems are associated with the extraction of meaning, conceptual organization, and reward, respectively. "I haven't seen that before," Hirsch said. "My curiosity is piqued by that."
Mine, too. When it came to brands I dislike, I apparently really disliked them. My right insula-an internal fold just over an inch in length-is lit up like a runway. "Now, your brain isn't that big, but it's devoted on your right side to something where you're saying, 'That's a low-value item for me,'" Hirsch explained. Worse, the insula is understood to handle feelings of disgust. "That is not a result to be trifled with," Hirsch said.
And that's the big surprise: These results are the exact opposite of the received marketing wisdom. I'm not, apparently, emotional about brands I like. Instead, my brain behaves like an antiques dealer sifting an estate sale for high-priced items. My emotional feelings-specifically, disgust-are reserved for the brands I dislike. And I don't merely ignore those brands like clutter; I process them through the area of my brain that helps me avoid rotten food and poisonous berries.
A Broader Relevance
What do mere pockets of exaggerated activity in an organ as poorly understood as the human brain really say about an activity like shopping or, by extension, by marketing that's supposed to encourage it?
The counter-intuitive nature of the results hints at the existence of a dark universe of intimate consumer information that marketers have so far only guessed at. Suppose that our emotions aren't used to find brands we love but avoid brands we dislike. Then all those companies that have sunk millions into developing "lovemarks" and "touchpoints" may have wasted their money. Indeed, they might have done better to encourage consumers to find "hatemarks" and "loathepoints" on competing brands instead.
We don't know this from a single test, of course. But it illustrates the promise of neuroscience: Marketers need no longer be guided by supposition. They have a clearer view into the brain. That's a significant step given how frequently consumers seem to make previously "unthinkable" decisions.
For instance, back on March 3 of this year, it was widely believed that black Americans would vote largely for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries because of the former First Lady and her husband's historic support in that demographic. Then on March 4, Barack Obama won in Ohio, and that "historic support" evaporated like Scotch mist.
Hirsch believes the results tell us something about "neural value," or how the brain handles concepts to which we have attached an abstract importance (which, basically, is the definition of the word "brand").
Clearly, the results of my fMRI session raise questions for marketers. How hard would it be for Anheuser-Busch to move Bud Light from my disgusted insula into my reward-loving left oribitofrontal gyrus? Could a client create incentives for agencies who can show that their brands are shifting in consumers' minds from one area to another in response to their marketing?
"We could study various approaches to changing the neurocircuitry associated with 'low value' judgments to 'high value' judgments," offered Hirsch. "I like this idea."
All it needs are companies willing to support such research, Hirsch added. (In fact, Hirsch's office already has interest from Wall Street firms who want to know why traders who bet on a losing stock so often pile on to their declining position in an attempt to prove that they were right.)
But the big takeaway is how unexpected the results were. It's common knowledge that different brain structures have discrete functions, but seeing those brands segregated from each other on different hemispheres-in a neural apartheid-was a shock. I felt guilty for not shopping at Zales. (Man. U., not so much.)
Hirsch seemed pleased at my reaction. "This is why we have science. Our intuitions about how the brain works are often not consistent with the objective evidence." The plastic model of a brain, which was lying in pieces when I last saw it, has been restored to its pedestal at the side of her office.
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Sidebar: The Case for Subliminal Brand Awareness
When it comes to studying how our brains interpret branding messages, fMRI machines represent up-to-the-minute technology. But some of the most interesting work in the field is being done in decidedly low-tech fashion by Prof. Gavan Fitzsimons of Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Durham, N.C.
Fitzsimons' theory is that the majority of our exposure to brands occurs outside our conscious awareness. The average American is exposed to at least 3,000 brands a day-either indirectly or via advertising. That is, obviously, far more than we can rationally acknowledge. But do these peripheral exposures actually affect our behavior? Fitzsimons believes they do.
His proof comes from an experiment he and his team designed in which subjects take a peripheral-vision test. On a computer screen, boxes randomly flash in the corners, left and right, top and bottom. The subjects must call out the location of the box when they see it. At the same time, subjects are asked to keep track of a stream of numbers that scrolls in mid-screen.
What the test's participants don't know is that they are also seeing extremely brief flashes of a brand logo-either Apple's or that of IBM. The flashes last less than 30 milliseconds-faster than the brain can consciously register, but slow enough to be detected by the eye. In other words, the flashes are subliminal.
Shortly afterwards, the subjects complete what's termed an "unusual uses task." Fitzsimons asks them to think up as many nontraditional uses for a household brick as they can. "Paperweight, doorstop, break through a locked window" are the most common replies. (Fitzsimons' personal favorite is the subject who said, "Tie to the foot of my boss and sink him to the bottom of a lake.")
Then things get interesting. Fitzsimons has found that study participants who were subliminally exposed to the Apple logo generate answers 30-35% more creative than those who were exposed to the IBM logo. The relative measure of creativity is determined by a separate team of judges who know nothing of the test. (These results, incidentally, are consistent even with users who express a preference for PCs.) Fitzsimons believes that something to do with Apple's strong association with creativity motivates people to literally "think different."
To eliminate the possibility that his findings might be isolated, Fitzsimons has repeated the experiment using the Disney logo facing off with the logo for the E! cable network. Instead of creativity, subjects are tested on their honesty, because Disney, for many Americans, is associated with honesty and E!, well, less so. After the bogus visual task, subjects are asked to agree or disagree with statements such as, "I find it easy to get along with obnoxious people," or "I've never pretended I was sick to get out of doing something." Give the "wrong" answer-i.e. agree with either of those statements-and you must be lying.
According to Fitzsimons' evaluation, subjects who were exposed to Disney answer 15% more honestly than those who were flashed the logo for the channel E!.
A number of brands have taken note of Fitzsimons' experiments. "I have spoken with folks at Procter & Gamble about some of the work they've been doing on short brand exposure," he said. "They're very interested in the implications."
There's only one drawback: His research indicates that brands affect behavior, but not necessarily buying behavior. That appears to be influenced by a panoply of factors extraneous to those in Fitzsimons' study. For instance, he said, "People are impacted by price." Except, since Fitzsimons' work began, his team members have switched their computer gear from PCs to Apple. "I'm now an official Apple person," he said. "I have a laptop, desktop and an iPhone. It can't hurt, I figured."
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