From burgers to booze, trainers to games consoles, hip-hop is the home of product placement, writes Stephen Armstrong
When McDonald's recently announced it would spend the summer of 2006 paying hip-hop artists $5 each time they mentioned a Big Mac, the idea came in for widespread derision. Product placement in song lyrics seemed to many to be breaking some kind of taboo. In fact, it has been a regular feature of the US marketing scene for almost 20 years and is now creeping across the Atlantic to find a home in the revenue streams of UK rappers and DJs.
"It costs a lot of money to put a record out these days," says Mervyn Lin, vice-president of marketing at Sony BMG UK, Lemar's record label. "When Sony and BMG merged in February, we set up a futures division to explore ways for working with partners on shouldering those costs. Brands like the idea. We're looking at working with, say, mobile phone companies to help with the costs of videos or recording sessions in exchange for exclusive tracks or alternate endings."
In the past, these deals have tended to sidestep record labels, usually being done between the brand and the act. The recent master of the strategy is the spirit Hypnotiq, a blend of vodka, fruit and cognac that launched in the US in 2001 and in the UK last year. Hypnotiq started from scratch in New York, sold into off-licences personally by the brand's founders Raphael Yakoby and Nick Storm. Storm had previously worked in the music industry and he started getting bottles to the urban music community, where it began featuring in videos.
By 2005, the brand had been either namechecked in or appeared in the video for 26 different tracks, including three by R Kelly, two by Missy Elliott, one by Lil' Kim and one by Usher. Memphis Bleek and Jay-Z even went so far as to record a track called Hypnotic. The drink went from selling 10,000 cases in 2001/2002 to 700,000 cases in 2003/2004 without the company having to spend a penny on TV or magazine advertising.
"The urban market is very quick to adopt brands, so the founders started in the New York area and it was like riding a rocket," says Justin Ames, Hypnotiq's senior marketing manager. "In media terms, the influencers in the urban market aren't looking at TV commercials, or consuming any conventional media. They watch videos and read magazines, so you could put a fortune behind your media spend and never reach them.When we launched in Mississippi, some way down the line, we sold out all our product in under a day - and that is not an especially urban state."
Hypnotiq is taking a similar approach in the UK, launching entirely through Jackie Cooper PR, an agency that specialises in liaising with underground DJs, club nights and artists. "We've already seen Hypnotiq cropping up in mix DVDs from grime DJs and we expect that to spread," says the agency's Rana Reeves.
Ames maintains that Hypnotiq does not pay directly for its presence in lyrics and videos, although it does employ "urban ambassadors". Hip-hop artists seem to make little secret of such arrangements when payment takes place. Last year, Seagrams Gin was namechecked in five tracks, including Petey Pablo's Freek-a-Leek, the number two hip-hop track of the year which garnered over 350,000 plays on US radio. It included the lyric, "Now I got to give a shout out to Seagrams Gin, cause I'm drinkin' it and they payin' me for it."
"IT'S A HANDSHAKE market," explains one UK urban marketeer. "It's very murky in that way and you couldn't write a case study on how to do it. Put it this way: Russell Simmons opens dRush, an ad agency. He wins the Courvoisier account. Shortly after, one of Def Jam's acts, Busta Rhymes, records Pass the Courvoisier. The only person who really knows how that deal worked is Russell Simmons. But rappers aren't stupid. They haven't been giving it away for free since Run DMC recorded My Adidas - and that was a Russell Simmons deal." Russell Simmons is hip-hop's Berry Gordy. In fact, he's more successful than Gordy by far. Simmons helms Rush Communications, a conglomerate that includes record label Def Jam, management company Rush Artist Management, clothing company Phat Farm, movie production house Def Pictures, television shows (Def Comedy Jam and Russell Simmons' Oneworld Music Beat), magazine Oneworld and advertising agency Rush Media Co. It's an open secret that he co-ordinated the My Adidas deal and many similar subsequent arrangements.
Of course, the US hip-hop industry is far larger than the UK urban scene. An average-selling hip-hop album shifts 4 million copies in the US, while a best-selling one barely touches 1 million in the UK. The UK does have its equivalent to Simmons, however, in Steve Gordon. Gordon owns Twice As Nice, the urban brand that operates clubs, a record label and a security company.
"Brands have been coming to us and paying for namechecks for a while," he agrees, "but the relationship can go deeper. We've gone as far as to produce a track for a mobile phone company which includes brand mentions. They came to us with an idea for a tune and we took it and made it more underground with the right artist. Brands also work with community radio stations - or pirates - where they pay for mentions. Basically, if you're listening to a pirate and the DJ mentions a brand by name, chances are they've been paid to do so."
GORDON HAS RECENTLY been working with PlayStation to develop new talent. Twice As Nice is choosing young urban artists and DJs in a project combining elements of new talent search and Battle of the Bands. Four performers will be selected on the back of their demos and PlayStation will pay for studio time as well as helping out with some live dates and marketing. PlayStation users will be able to download these tunes to use as soundtracks for the Wipeout game, allowing kids to race cars to music from London's East End rather than California.
It is this support for young artists, PlayStation's sponsorship and events manager Carl Christopher maintains, that has led to the brand's presence on tracks by The Streets, and to Dizzee Rascal calling himself a member of the "PlayStation generation". "Mentions in song lyrics give the credibility of peer group recommendations rather than an advertising message," Christopher explains.
Ames offers a word of warning, however, to marketeers hoping to purchase a bit of hipness via a "big up" from Jamelia. "There's a huge fickle factor in the urban market," he says. "The life span of most brands within that market is between six and 12 months. As soon as you're in, it's important to start broadening your appeal and go out and hit the likes of the soccer moms." Given the recent concern over obesity in the US, soccer moms may not be an audience McDonald's can negotiate with. Indeed, rappers may not be that eager to take the fast food chain's money. On an urban music chatroom recently, one fan wrote "Big Mac rhymes with heart attack, do you think they'd give me money for that?" Guess he isn't lovin' it. - (Guardian Service)