HustleKnockin'

Secrets, postcards, weirdness

One of the creepiest, funniest and saddest blogs i've seen. POSTSECRET (http://postsecret.blogspot.com/) is all about anonymous folks airing their dark dirty laundry in the context of postcards... They seem pretty legit. Here's a couple examples:

Can you imagine being this twisted? I mean, this is your man, your luv and you take advantage of a handicap? Pretty perverted... then again i know a couple kids who did that for years to their very deaf mother--not the sex because that's nasty---but the other stuff (tricking her, saying stuff when they knew she couldn't hear, taking advatage of her during PTA meetings, etc..)

Genocide in Canada?! Uh-huh!

Looks like our peaceful neighbors to the north have their issues with race and landgrabs, too. Hmmmm....

Genocide in Canada: The Untold Story
by Rev. Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div.
hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca

An overview of the history and continued practice of Genocide in Canada.


Secretary, The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, “I believe the conditions are being deliberately created in our Indian boarding schools to spread infectious disease. The death rate often exceeds fifty percent. This is a national crime.”

Michael Jordan tribute

It's hilarious how much better some of the YT stuff is over the corporate official stuff. No creative briefs and presentations... no account folks... no goatees and baseball capped hipsters trying to win awards. just fun stuff.

and you wonder why folks like YT as a marketing vehicle.

Jive Turkeys... Jibbs clones

here's what happens when the kids get carried away with chains and poorly updated slavery minstrel songs. Thank you Jibbs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0VpeeJR9nM

now is this better than Borat from Khazakstan? I mean, by Sacha Cohen's identity the problem isn't with the kids, it's with our perception of the what the kids are doing here, right? That's assuming we have a problem with what the kids are doing. Which we don't, because it's just a song...

Hire Them!

6. Hire Them!

In early 2003, Tyrone Willingham, Notre Dame University’s first black head football coach, was asked what could be done to get more blacks in the NCAA’s still near lily-white Div. 1 coaching ranks.

His response: “Hire them. There’s plenty of qualified black candidates out there. Just hire them, it’s that simple.”

Even in 2006, there remains an oft-repeated notion that there simply aren’t enough qualified black business candidates out there, especially in the marketing, PR and adverting industries..

And guess what?

It's still a big pile of crap. I’ve seen ’em pounding the pavement in every industry and every city looking for a fair shot at every level.

How Soccermoms Killed Soccer

Why write about soccer? Because i think there's an interesting marketing component that few are afraid to discuss. It's lot easier to just bash soccer fans and ignore the sport. But can 2 billion people just be insane?

So here's my thoughts.

How Soccermoms clocked American Fùtbol.
By: Hadji Williams

It’s late summer. And once again Soccer fever has come and gone like a fart in the wind. How can the most popular sport on the planet (over 2 billion fans and causal players worldwide) lose out to poker stateside? As much as we love overhyped competition, swollen balls, and corruptive sponsorship ops, why do 300 million sports fiends continue to sleep on soccer? The only thing most Americans can recall about this past World Cup is that one WWF move that cost [some country?] the crown.

We’ve tried everything to make soccer hot in America: We dig up Pelè every 5-7 years. We over-hyped Freddy Adu... We flashed sports bras. We pretended Mia Hamm had a marketable personality... We threw in Nike loot (Truckloads of Nike loot!)… Not even Mr. Global Godbody a.k.a. David Beckham has been able to bend the masses to dribble with our feet.

The theories are many: odd scheduling, lack of scoring, lack of superstars, too many foreigners,… But I think it comes down to two simple factors: Soccermoms and Shot Clocks.

Brian Urlacher is a baby daddy. Again!

For all you sports fans and marketing heads here’s a fun one for you:

B-Urlacher, aka #54, the second coming of Dick Butkus himself, and one of the NFL’s superstars, is in court for child support.

For child number 3. Now he’s paying for his kids, but the women of course believe he should being paying more. Much more. 2 kids were from a marriage and this one whose getting 2G’s a month wants more. Her contention is that when a father pulls in $240,000 per game for 16 games a year plus endorsements, he can do a little more than one percent of his on-field salary.

What’s interesting about this story is that Chicago’s mainstream (white) media has all but ignored it. I found this one in the Chicago Defender, a historically black newspaper.

What’s funnier is, probably dude to journalistic standards and the fact that the Defender’s audiences is a little older, not once does the story use the phrase “baby daddy” or “baby mamma drama” or “triflin’ ingrate” or anything of the sort. But the attorneys for B did call “the mom of Urlacher’s son" (Babymama just flows better, doesn’t it?) a “gold digger”.

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.

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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.

Why Black Female Artists Still Suck!

I wrote this piece a while back on the struggle black female artists have. Now in honor of some of my fave slept-on folks of 2008--Chrisette Michelle, Meshell N'dege Ocello, Ledisi, Sharon Jones and yeah, India.Arie.—I'm running it back once again.

Happy Reading!

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Preach, Sistah Arie, Preach!

“She’s too preachy.” That’s what the music director of WBLS-FM in NYC says about India Arie in the June ’06 Essence magazine. I.A.’s got a new joint coming; it’s her third album. Despite her initial success, this one is considered by many a make or break for Arie. “You want to take her in small does.” Stacy Anderson adds.

Everybody in Hiphop hates Chris, but so what?!

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

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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).