HustleKnockin'

AKEELAH’S COMING

In my “Good Buy, Bad Sell” news… 2006’s highly underrated kid flick, AKEELAH AND THE BEE (LionsGate, $29) drops on DVD on Aug 29.

Now in case you missed it—as most of the country did—Akeelah is a bright young Black daughter (Keke Palmer) of single mom (former Oscar nom Angela Bassett) with an incredible capacity for spelling. She’s a really smart kid who (like most youngsters) is a little awkward, lacks some confidence and isn’t too sure what the point/purpose is of being smart. So sometimes she dumbs it down just to fit in. It takes a teacher, Laurence Fishburne, to show her the light embrace her brains and push her to do her best which leads, to well, you know... [Insert Big Uplifting Finale here!]

Think Rocky meets Search for Bobby Fisher. Akeelah was a hot little movie. Too bad we all slept on it—which is precisely what makes it a “Good Buy Bad Sell” is the marketing.

And then the Lawd said...

Okay here's a fun bit of news regarding everybody's favorite +30, non-threatening to liberal america black actor. no not Denzel; but the one and only Samuel L. Jackson.

Yeah, that's right, I said Big L. Not Morgan Freeman or Sidney Portier. Trust me, if you can let Tarantino call you anything and put "n" in your mouth ain't nobody quakin' in they boots when you come through.

Secondly, when your flicks gross over $1.5 Billion worldwide, it ain't because the hood's holding you down in the face of Bill o'Reilly rants and mainstream tisk-tisks your style and focus groups in Iowa fronting on your very existence. No, no...Sam's loved by all. And that's ok.

So much so, that they're putting him down with the King.

JACKSON VOICES GOD
[16/07/2006 23:41]
http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/jackson%20voices%20god_1002655

Was this guy the answer?

On the one hand, I’m sorry to see anyone go. On the other hand, I’m a little frustrated, that something like this gets celebrated. I’m not sure why. Equality is never as one-sided as Black and White…
And maybe that’s what bugs me about it. That it actually takes a client, a so-called “suit” to push for something as innovative as inclusion and diversity, but only because it “makes good business sense.” And that our industry, which swears to be the most creative thing this side of Hollywood couldn’t get any more milquetoast if it tried.
Ironically, nothing’s gonna change until you get more Sam Thurm out there.
Or until people stop debating whether not equality has anything to do with business sense, “giving back” or political correctness and accept it for what it is:

Right.

With all that said, the business community lost what seemed to be a pretty good guy this week.
Remember business ain’t everything.
Go home and kiss your family and hug somebody you care about and thank God for breathing.
The buildings will probably be here on Monday.
You’re not promised tomorrow.

Would you like some white bread with your beer?

Okay, so I'm chopping it up with a buddy of mine the other day. Can't say he's my boy or my partner. Or een my dawg. maybe if it were 1999. but it's not and he's white. So he's just my buddy.

He'd be my bro if he were about 25; but he ain't so, buddy it is.

We joke like that. known him since college. Anyway...

He's in the beverage game. more proof that he's white. he says beverage. a lot. why harp on the "white" thing? because he calls me up, we talk about liquor--he's in the marketing biz--he tells me that some big dumb white client he works for is struggling to move cases.
again. he ads, "these guys are too white for their own good."

Finally, after Ted Ferguson bud guy.. umpteen incarnations of blonde vs. brunette jokes
SNL vs. Mad TV styled bits, somebody besides me, unprompted just says it.

They're too white for their own good.

So this is what teens want...

While on NPR last week, Deborah Patton of VNU Media fixated on the infamous "youth conference". after a little digging, i found out what she was talking about.

It's called What Teens Want. Should be called, WHAT MARKETERS WANT TEENS TO WANT. Beleve me, that's all this unholy hell of a farce will amount to. It takes place in NYC July 13.

www.whatteenswant.com for more.

Hadji on NPR pt.2

I've said once, and I'll say it again: Corporate America makes people soft. squeezably charmin, pillow soft... so soft they get "handlers"... they have "people"...

Corporate People lose their friggin' minds they go so soft.

hadji goes off on NPR!!!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5540573

i got into it with this chick from VNU Media. when i was on NPR the other day. News and Notes with Ed Gordon. She was pretty slimy. actually, just slimy. give a listen.

Teen Consumers and the Trials of Youth Marketing

News & Notes with Ed Gordon, July 7, 2006 · Next week in New York City, a group of global marketers will gather to talk about the challenges of marketing to teenagers. Ed Gordon talks with marketing executives Hadji Williams and Deborah Patton about how marketers sell to young people, and issues of corporate responsiblity.

what if the game got flipped?

I came across this article on stereotypes of a black male--misunderstood, but it's all good. (sorta.)http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Men_Surviving_Blackness.html

Once I saw, I couldn't help but start building on it. So, my comments follow. It just got me rolling a little bit. at once there's hope, then at once, there's not as much. It makes me wish I'd done more with my pen and less for some of my clients'...

maybe there's still time.

get your motor runnin'! or else!

Harley Davidson...vroom, vroom. they got issues.... 

Big Ben vs. K2

I'm a big football head. fun thing about marketing is the way we package athletes as brands. I came across this piece from Bomani Jones, a pretty strong writer out of Durham, NC. He contrasts the manner in which we as a society bashed Kellen Winslow II's motorcycl accident of a couple seasons' back with QB's Ben Roethlisberger's recent wreck.

As a marketer (Big Ben is the more marketable of the 2 being the Super Bowl winning QB), a Christian (Big Ben wears his faith proudly but not smugly), a Black male (Winslow is a brother), and fan of him and his ol' man (K1 was the best pass catching Tight End in modern history), I'm pretty conflicted here.

Image is everything. Marketing shapes us all more than we care to admit to... Read and weep.

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KTH.com is down until the 15th

Unfortunately, I have to make this announcement... KNOCKTHEHUSTLE.com is under repairs. Being revamped retooled. This time by actual web designers who know what they're doing. I hope. At least that's what they're being paid for. Same goes for Prodigalpen.com.

The company and the movement will launch once and for all for good this summer. Honest. I swear. I'm not making this up. I mean it. Truly I do.

Actually, this time, I'm excited to have professionals who are working under threats and compensation... There are wonderful crazy stories behind all of this hectic madness.

gay ads vs. black ads

There are those who say that race doesn't matter on Madison Ave... There are those who'd be goofy. Here's an example from The New York Times chronciling how Madison Ave--my beloved industry treats one group. Now contrast this with how it markets to Black folks.

This is a big key to why so much of what we call "black advertising" sucks.

-----------------------------------------

Hey, Gay Spender, Marketers Spending Time With You
By STUART ELLIOTT

FOR years, advertisers seeking to reach gay and lesbian consumers concentrated their spending in the print media. There were few effective or efficient alternatives among the media that offered the appealing attributes of sight, sound and motion.

To be sure, those advertisers could have bought commercial time on television. But spots during TV series that would seem appropriate — “Will & Grace,” for example — cost too much; the shows ran on mainstream networks and the audiences included so many heterosexuals.

Everybody in Hiphop hates Chris, but so what?!

Well, here's my 2 cents on Jigga vs. Chris...

----

How Cristal hustled Hiphop

By: Hadji Williams

After spitting its virtues for ten summers, Jay-Z and his hiphop minions are now boycotting Cristal, a hiphop staple after Frederic Rouzaud, the brand’s managing director made what many are calling elitist and racist comments against the hiphop community’s economic support of Cristal in a recent interview in The Economist magazine. (www.targetmarketnews.com).

Wow!!!

It's been an eye-opening last few months... I've got oodles of crazy experiences to share. About marketing. About advertising. (not the same thing.) About writing. (getting better.) About business. (be careful who you trust yours with.)

I'm hanging in there. It's all coming. Very soon. Gimme another week.

Alternet interview, final chapter!

LAST LAP, PEOPLE!! here's the final installment of my ALTERNET interview courtesy of the lovely and talented Celina De leon from Brooklyn! Much love to BK!Hope you enjoy it if you've read any of this. Enjoy!

---Page 1 of 9 http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/29717/#comments

Forget the Rat Race, It's All About the Hustle (cont.)

By Celina R. De Leon December 19, 2005

 

ALTERNET: How do you think whiteness affects consumers? Especially minorities and young kids of color?

HW: I can speak for Black folks, especially those I grew up around -- younger Black folks. What we associate with blackness is something that we buy. I think that's probably the big difference between being black in America as opposed to other ethnic roots or cultures is that so much of our culture has been just stuff that you can buy. It's the way that you dress.

N.Word... Son!

Still Thuggin’:

The Macho Coon Show continues

By: Hadji Williams

So I’m reading my Complex mag the other day and Nick Cannon’s got words for Bow Wow who’s been comparing him to Will Smith, which is what many in hiphop still do when you want to call someone soft or a sellout.

“If you check Will’s album sales to Wow Wow’s album sales, I’m gonna rap like Will Smith all day long,” Cannon observes. “There’s only so long you can rap about how hard you are. You’ve been in the entertainment business since you were 8 years old—it’s kind of hard to be a thug.”

Mr. 500 Club, now I can die in

Hardest thing about promoting your book is getting press coverage for it. Great reviews are everything. Still. And in Chicago, you sill want to have a Sun-Times or a Trib, an Ebony or an Oprah (Harpo’s just west of the Loop) say that you’re the ish.

But if you ain’t with a big label or a studio or a celeb, good luck. If you ain’t lining somebody’s pockets, well go kick rocks. That’s what the Alts and weeklies are for. They’re supposed to champion the little guys and gals.