The Tanning of America (3 page)

That was the kind of mirror I wanted to hold up. Which, I should add, still didn't convince my father that I had a real job. Try telling your parents that you make your living by translating cultural cues to Fortune 500 companies and helping them communicate more effectively with consumers. After partnering with advertising veteran Peter Arnell for a couple of years before our company was sold, I went on to launch my own agency—with the collaboration of some of the most brilliant individuals I've ever met. Our team comes from not only a mix of business worlds (including marketing, music, and media) but also a multi-generational, multiethnic mix of backgrounds: a literal representation of global tanning.

From the start, I recognized that the countercultural nature of hip-hop didn't lend itself to being packaged or regimented in the way that advertising campaigns run by corporate America move. But I also knew that there was a natural meeting place for the two. Uncommon bedfellows? No question. But they also each have something the other needs. My role was to be the conduit—the bridge. And so that was the thinking behind the name,
Translation,
that I chose for my company and to describe what we do.

As a kind of pop culture anthropologist, what I also do is help clients find relevant ways to reinvigorate their brand—whether, as a few examples, it's McDonald's, Target, Estée Lauder, Hewlett-Packard, Wrigley, Tommy Hilfiger, Verizon, State Farm, Samsung, a shoe company or two, or a host of public and philanthropic organizations. In a time of economic upheaval the likes of which we've been living through in recent years, marketers' connecting meaningfully to the new young consumer—the single most powerful purchasing force ever measured, who is currently driving the global marketplace—is a life-and-death brand survival act. This too has to do with translating. No, not in sending messages to be crammed down the throats of consumers, but in extending an invitation, communicating it with nuance and cool.

Others have pointed out, and I agree, that 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 social 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.

Translated, this has required a thorough housecleaning of the old demographic boxes—for example, the “black 18 to 24” box that you mark differently from the “white 18 to 24”—along with questioning worn-out assumptions about who
wants
what and why and, more importantly nowadays, who
needs
what and why. It requires an authentic, vibrant, hip, and, at times, reinvented means of storytelling—and a rejection of yesterday's rules. Why not, for instance, start with a hip-hop/pop superstar, produce a hit single by said artist, and invite millions of consumers to
pay
for it, to sing the words, and to dance to its beat in clubs and dance halls? With the stage thus set, why not then reveal in a similarly contagious upbeat commercial that it's a jingle—and blow everyone's mind? Translation has done it on more than a few occasions for blue-chip institutional brands, only as one element in multitiered campaign strategies. We employed the work of fashion's modern godfather, Valentino, to showcase Samsung products—marrying the timeless art of fashion with the immediate cool of cutting-edge technology, all in the middle of a New York City street. We conceived and launched new brands for the likes of Reebok, attaching them to signature lines based on the tastes of global hip-hop icons, transforming images stuck back in the day into ones being given a street pass.

Reflecting the changes in attitudes influenced by tanning, we celebrate the clash of cultures and generations in mash-ups that bring together often the least likely pairings from the worlds of sports and pop culture. A musical remix for General Motors with artists that run the gamut from hip-hop to rock to country. A McDonald's Super Bowl spot putting together multigenerational basketball icons like Larry Bird and LeBron James. A campaign making Gwen Stefani/Hewlett-Packard relevant to mothers with cameras. Making a connection in values to black audiences and communities of color for Disney's film
The Princess and the Frog
by aligning it with the most genuinely natural beauty line on the market to lend credibility to their first African-American princess franchise!

What I do for a living also involves assisting clients, the public at large, and my own team to find comfort in the discomfort of going where we have feared to tread before. This has involved representing the core values of artists while grooming them as entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and on the flip side bringing the worldwide creative directors of brands such as Gucci and Crest toothpaste physically into the inner city. It has involved having a voice in diverse media and educational forums to promote the need for seeking the same fluency in the boardroom as on the street. Comfort in discomfort.

At Cipriani on November 18, 2008, it was with great pride that I accepted the induction honor and, standing at the podium, was able to confirm to Dad, “Yes, I really do have a job.” No one present that day was any prouder than him, except maybe my mom.

Up until that moment, I had continued to feel like an outsider in the advertising world. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing either, if the goal is bringing fresh insights to the table. But that day there was no denying a new sense of belonging. And I realized then that it wasn't just about me or about the convergence of the worlds of hip-hop and mainstream marketing that had lit a spark with “My Adidas” and had been a magic charm for my career. It was about the positive, powerful potential of urban youth culture, which, when harnessed properly, managed to bring disparate groups of people together in ways that the combined energies of previous generations could not.

Lest there be any question about that proposition, I only had to think of how the planet had shifted on its axis a mere two weeks earlier with the 2008 presidential election. To my parents, their generation, and the generations before them who had marched for freedom and equality, this was crossing the river Jordan into the Promised Land—the end of the struggle. To us, generations raised post–baby boom and post–civil rights, it was the first true flexing of our political muscle—a beginning. The playing field had been leveled for everyone—black, white, brown, yellow, red, blue, green, rich, poor, educated or not, those with access and those without. For many who had never believed it possible, this was the first time they could honestly say, “Hey, you know what, maybe
I
can be president.”

Here's how Jay-Z put it, calling out to the legions, asking first, “
Roc nation, what up?
” and then going on to answer:

So there I was, twelve days after the election, at Cipriani, where I was celebrating a personal career highlight and a historical pinnacle for our country, when the dots connected for me that became the outline for this book. The premise was suddenly simple. If you stuck a pin in a place in time, not long after the dawn of the 1970s in the Bronx—where hip-hop would have its official birthplace in a rec room at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue—you could draw a direct line from that location to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where President Barack Obama took up residence almost forty years later. It's a journey that would have never been completed without the adhesive of youth culture and its embrace of a mind-set inclusive of racial diversity—a phenomenon wrought by the tanning of America
.

One of the complications in understanding how such a cultural revolution is propelled is that as it gathers individuals from different backgrounds into a more like-minded stratum, at the same time there is an equal and opposite reaction causing push-back and opposition to change. For that reason, I recognize that not everyone believes that what I have identified as tanning is actually happening or that there is this new mental melting pot that impacts all of us. And that is one of the main purposes I have in writing this book.

For anyone at any level of commerce, from corporate execs to aspiring entrepreneurs, from marketing directors to college students who will soon be entering the working world, this is therefore a cautionary tale: Ignore the globalization of popular culture at your own peril. Just as I believe passionately in pointing out there is such a thing as tanning that matters for marketing, I also think it is to the benefit of every sector of society to learn how we can better communicate with one another—which involves understanding code and learning to speak the language of tanning, which is not static and written in stone but is continually, rapidly evolving. From the point of view of sheer economics, this fluency is not only necessary for knowing and connecting to today's younger consumer (without losing existing, core consumers), it's all the more important for the generations who could be pulling the levers on the forces shaping the global marketplace.

My hope is that the audience for this book is as inclusive as the generation most influenced by the tanning process. You don't have to be a teen or tween or in your early twenties to take part in a culture that has gotten rid of segments ruled by color. Tan really has no age. And cool really is a state of mind. At the same time,
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. Putting myself in your shoes, I imagine that it would be empowering to have someone open the world's eyes to my generation's way of thinking, my generation's capacities that contrast with those of other generations—those dinosaurs who see society in columns and who hold on to beliefs bound by compartmentalized ways and behaviors.

Because I come out of the hip-hop generation and have the unique dual perspective of having worked in the music industry and in advertising, I have had a chance to both observe the cultural revolution of tanning and experience it. What I don't want to see happen is that we ignore its hybrid-power properties or that it goes by the wayside as disposable history or that credit isn't given to our generation and the next ones. We're the ones who will need to grapple with how to keep the American dream alive and well in our time—the dream that is still intrinsic to popular culture, our number one most profitable national export.

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. From a marketing standpoint, yes, I understand why the interests of an age group like 25 to 34 might be different from those of the 62 to 75 group. But color is no longer a determining factor in how people think. Run DMC and “My Adidas” proved that. The fact that the music, the language, the style, and even the belief system of hip-hop culture have gone global, spurring the next wave of tanning around the world, also proves it.

Oh, and I want to add that, yes, by pointing out that there is a belief system I am arguing that hip-hop has taken on the attributes of a religion. Not a name-brand religion practiced as such or one that's rooted in existing religious orders. But I do want to argue that a mentality that embraces all colors is godly. I also will argue that hip-hop can be seen as having the same markers that occur with all major religions—among them a connection to community, a connection to spirit through personal experience (in the music itself), a coherent doctrine and morality, code, ritual, an organization and hierarchy, and a mythology featuring heroes and leaders. History matters too, especially in the telling of how hip-hop rose up from urban ashes to elevate and empower its adherents in much the same way that the most enduring religions throughout history have come about.

If this point seems incongruous with some of the more sensational, more destructive aspects of rap music, I would further argue that those characteristics are not representative of the core values of the movement. While it is true that religion is only one component of culture—along with other connectors that include ethnicity, geography, customs, arts, language, legends, and lifestyle—I believe that the essence of the culture is what it provides that is meaningful to people's lives. At its best, a religion does that. At its best, hip-hop can too. Tanning shows us the way.

Because there is a parallel in the chronology of my career path and the three stages of the journey of tanning, I've personalized my experience of the phenomenon with my own stories and anecdotes. Also included are insights from several leading pop culture influences and marketing thought leaders who were willing to come along for the ride. In part 1 (which covers the seventies to the nineties) we'll gain an understanding of how tanning happened and how economic rules began to be rewritten. In part 2 (the nineties to the early 2000s) I'll report the lessons learned in the field from harnessing the unruly power of urban culture and its iconic representatives (stars and consumers alike). And in part 3 (2008 on) we'll explore where we're headed next in terms of shifting political, cultural, and economic crosscurrents, given the globalization of tanning.

No matter how far I've traveled in miles and time away from where I came from, it's never failed to amaze me how the spread of urban youth culture has outpaced me. A few years ago I decided to go on a vacation that would let me leave modern civilization and the fast pace of daily life behind. So I booked a trip that would take me through the French countryside. In a tiny village outside of Aix that was built in the 1700s I stayed at a beautiful hotel, Le Columne d'Or, with a restaurant known for the famous artists—Picasso and Matisse—who used to frequent it and who left behind masterpieces they actually painted on the walls. Walking through the village the first morning there, I was enjoying the charming narrow cobblestone streets and the shops carved out of stone when I came around a bend and, lo and behold, arrived face-to-face with a jewelry store that had its name emblazoned on its awning: BLING.