to strategic consulting to new product development and beyond, everything we do upturns convention and shapes a brand’s place in culture.”
Indeed, a number of companies are listening. Stoute counts Samsung, McDonald’s, Target, Yahoo!, Hewlett-Packard, Anheuser-Busch, Nokia, Tommy Hilfiger, Verizon Communica- tions and State Farm among current and former clients. In one example, Stoute says a 1986 Run-DMC-headlined hip-hop concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden created a shock wave for executives of the shoe company Adidas when the group, performing its hit “My Adidas,” hoisted the shoe above their heads and exhorted the crowd to do the same. Stoute writes that executives of the staid German company realized at that moment that an immea- surable, untapped market existed for its product.
“Granted, the journey of
tanning…didn’t begin or happen solely with the advent of hip-
hop. But without a doubt the trajectory was significantly altered on July 19, 1986, at Madison Square Garden during one of the final numbers performed by Run-DMC. Unlikely? Yes. Even more unlikely, tanning history was made that night, all because of a sneaker,” Stoute writes.
Stoute contends that companies and brands must escape from past practices where their marketing and branding efforts would segregate people in order to drive revenue. At the time, Adidas was a brand whose marketing was narrowly focused on what it perceived to be a certain marketable clientele. Stoute says the Adidas example offers a case study of why companies need to be inclusive of diversity and not exclusive of it. Indeed, Stoute is harsh in his critique of how brands sought to market in the 1980s. “Madison Avenue in the Reagan years went back to the old habits of the ‘50s and ‘60s of dictating brand worthiness to consumers and then portraying those values in over-the-top fantasy settings,” he writes. Much of brand segregation hinged on companies’ percep- tions of “urban,” according to Stoute. But he outlines in the book that urban isn’t what it once was, citing a definitional change by the U.S. Census Bureau of the term, where, before the 2000 cen- sus, it referenced urban as “all territory, population, and housing units located in places with a population of 2,500 or more.” But subsequent to 2000, the Census Bureau pegs urban as a popula-
www.blackengineer.com
tion density of 1,000 people per square mile. Stoute writes that tanning comes to the fore via a generation
Helping to drive the tanning of the marketplace, Stoute argues, is social media. Technology platforms like Twitter and Facebook are breaking down walls, prompting consumers not only to talk to one another, but also directly to companies and brands.
of African-American, Hispanic, white and Asian consumers who share a similar “mental complexion” rather than a predisposi- tion to age or race. That complexion, based on shared experi- ences and values, renders constricted notions of demographics obsolete and is refreshing the American dream, he writes. While this hip-hop generation is buttressed by music, it also extends its influence more broadly into other areas of American life, according to Stoute.
Companies’ marketing long have associated urban to signify inner city youths and minori- ties, but in the new economy urban must only speak to density and not race or creed, accord- ing to Stoute. What has resulted is a generation of new, young consumers who eschew a culture where race is the dominant broadside. Companies must understand that these consumers see differences in people as being
unnecessary and irrelevant, according to Stoute. “My ultimate goal in writing The Tanning of America is to put an end, once and for all, to the boxing of individuals based on color,” Stoute writes. “The Tanning of America is more than a chronicle of how we arrived at where we are. I also want it to be a coming-out party for those of you in the generation stepping into adulthood in the new millennium who’ve grown up without the cultural stereotypes of the past.”
Helping to drive the tanning of the marketplace, Stoute
argues, is social media. Technology platforms like Twitter and Facebook are breaking down walls, prompting consumers not only to talk to one another, but also directly to companies and brands.
“Marketing must evolve beyond the monologue, to dialogue and to megalogue. No longer can advertising lecture or dictate to customers; interaction and exchange are vital. Add to that the so- cial networking media and technology that the millennials have understood since nursery school, and it means that marketing to the group conversation—the megalogue—must be seamlessly incorporated,” Stoute writes.
The bottom line for his book, according to Stoute, is that hip-hop has created an “atomic reaction” that goes well beyond the music, “blurring cultural and demographic lines so perma- nently that it laid the foundation” for tanning.
USBE&IT I WINTER 2012 81
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