I posted this in "Lesson" last week and 2 people responded.
McDonald's Set to Buy Hip Hop Songs to Hype It's Big Mac by Davey D
If you were annoyed by Busta Rhyme's hit song oops I mean commercial 'Pass the Couversior' a couple of years ago, wait until you see what McDonald's has in store. The multi-national-corporation that is home to the Big Mac has hired a special marketing firm Maven Stratagies who will be going around enticing and encouraging popular rap stars to give props to McDonald's in their songs.
Before you get mad at the fast food giant, keep in mind they are simply looking at the numbers and moving in a direction that make good business sense. In the past artists like Lil Kim and Foxy Brown among others have increased the bottomline of the popular designers they mention in songs by as much as a third.
Artist like Jay-Z and Biggie who rapped about drinking Crystal and other expensive champaign had brought so much awareness that there was actually a champaign shortage. Luckily Jigga and company flipped their marketing power and brought their own liquor company. Same thing applies to all those artists who have wisely brought their own clothing lines after seeing how much influence they had on fashion.
But let's take this a step further. Many have wondered how Snoop Dogg has gone from gang banger tobonafide pimp has become such a popular pitchman for everyone ranging from XM Radio to T-Mobile SideKicks. Despite his controversial past and questionable current endeavors, Snoop sells. He increases the bottomline. So 'Micky Dees' is simply doing what everyone else is doing 'Trying to get paid'.
Now is this a good or bad thing? I for one don't wanna hear my favorite rapper flipping rhymes about McDonald's unless they're telling me NOT to eat there. But that's me. Folks should take some time out to read the full story on this which was penned by Advertising Age's Marc Graser (thanks Lisa Falger from Industryears.com for turning us on to this). They have a full game plan on how they intend to make this happen.
What's really going to be interesting is to see how these songs get placed in heavy rotation on radio. So I guess at the end of the day we better gear up to hear lots of rap songs hyping McDonalds's on our favorite radio stations while we still can't hear any of the scores of anti-war songs that have been recorded and put out by popular rap stars. At last count we have more then 120 recorded anti-war songs from everyone ranging from Mack 10 and WC to Daz to Knocturnal to Sage Francis to Dilated Peoples toTalib Kweli (bet y'all didn't know that) and that's not including the 4 anti-war compilation albums. But hey thats a whole other story for another time..
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