13917: J.C. Penney Pulls Liles Simmons.

Advertising Age published a Bloomberg News report about J.C. Penney dumping Russell Simmons’ clothing line after allegations of sexual misconduct by the media mogul. According to a correction at the end of the story, the original piece ran with a photo of Kevin Liles versus Simmons. Oddly enough, it’s not the first time that Liles has been mistaken for Simmons. Hey, maybe the allegations against Simmons aren’t true and his accusers encountered someone else…

J.C. Penney Pulls Russell Simmons Apparel Line After Allegations

J.C. Penney pulled a Russell Simmons menswear line after the media mogul was accused by two women of sexual misconduct.

The department-store chain introduced the Simmons-created Argyleculture line in September 2016. The collection of sweaters, polos and blazers was part of the chain’s push to attract more young men to its stores. The products were being sold on J.C. Penney’s website and at about 80 of the chain’s 875 stores, according to a company spokeswoman.

“The company decided to discontinue selling Argyleculture in light of the recent allegations,” a spokeswoman says.

Simmons, co-founder of hip-hop record label Def Jam Recordings, said on Thursday that he would step down from his companies after a second woman—screenwriter Jenny Lumet—accused him of sexual misconduct, according to the Associated Press.

Simmons’ holdings include Rush Communications, yoga studio Tantris, energy drink Celsius and production company Def Pictures.

The brand’s products are still available on Amazon and eBay. Representatives for those companies didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

—Bloomberg News

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article included a Bloomberg photo that identified the subject as Russell Simmons. It was record executive Kevin Liles.

13659: Mickey D’s Uniformity.

Forgot to mention the previous post on Mickey D’s sales boost included references to new crew gear from Russell Simmons’ Phat Farm, Sean Combs’ Sean John and American Apparel. Um, isn’t American Apparel essentially out of business? The offerings from Simmons and Combs—combined with the pseudo-Black advertising that boosted sales—makes one wonder why The Golden Arches didn’t hire a minority shop as AOR.

13307: RushCard To Judgment.

From Adweek…

These Clever Mobile Ads Challenge People’s Perceptions of Black Men and Police

RushCard pushes the boundaries of tech and tolerance

By Marty Swant

With the flip of a phone, a mobile video debuting today challenges viewers on how quickly we judge strangers not just by the color of their skin but by the context of their clothing.

The video begins with a black man in a white tank top standing in front of a black backdrop. He speaks straight into the camera, candidly but earnestly.

“This morning before I hit the door to leave the house, my spouse stopped me and told me to please be careful,” he says. “Lately she’s been extra prayerful that I make it through the day. She know how these streets play, and she say because of the way I’m dress makes me target for public disdain.”

But when watching it on a smartphone, flipping the video from vertical to horizontal at any moment tells a different story. In its place is the same man, wearing a full police uniform speaking the same words. Regardless of what he’s wearing, the monologue continues.

“And my kids stomach this pain too because the TV entertains you with story after story of how men who look like me don’t make it home, may even have to listen through the lens of somebody’s mobile phone, all because my life is prone to strike this tone of fear because somehow I appear to be your enemy, your adversary, or too aggressively dangerous or scary that you find it necessary to take my breath away.”

The video—along with a second featuring a different person in the same clothing reciting a different monologue—is the first in a series sponsored by RushCard, the pre-paid credit card company founded by hip hop mogul Russell Simmons. The series, titled Making Moves, is part of a larger ad campaign rolling out this month. The campaign was created by Narrative, an agency also founded by Simmons. (The videos only work on mobile devices.)

According to Narrative CEO Tricia Clarke-Stone, the video is meant to create a discussion around the issues of racial profiling and violence that has swept the nation over the past two years. Future films will address issues faced by other minority groups, such as those who identify as gay, lesbian or transgender. However, she said RushCard noticed that its core customer base has been concerned with growing tensions in some areas between civilians and police officers.

“If you think about it, you can’t make moves if you’re inhibited by judgment, stereotypes and a lack of openness,” Clarke-Stone said.

Working with Narrative, the company wanted to lean into art and poetry as a means of addressing the subject in a way that was “really riveting and highly charged.” So they worked with Gillian Laub, an acclaimed filmmaker and photographer who’s spent her career documenting issues of race.

Clarke-Stone pointed out that people viewing a video on a smartphone usually start off vertically before turning from portrait to landscape to see a clearer picture.

“We said maybe this could work to show an actual shift in perspective,” she said.

To pull off the tech that allows for a seamless transition, Narrative’s engineers built a framework that leverages video tags and HTML canvas that allow for swapping between two videos based on the device orientation. Because this is usually easier for Android devices than for iPhones, Clarke-Stone said Narrative’s engineering team rendered the video through HTML5 canvas but then allowed for two videos in a queue that would bring up each video right at the point when someone flips the phone. They then had to figure out the weighing of phones, along with working with cellular providers to understand how the video would be served to each phone so that it wouldn’t be too large of a file. The videos, shot on an iPhone, were meant to capture the rawness of the spoken word.

Addressing race is a sensitive topic. So what made RushCard feel it had the authority to discuss it in an ad campaign? Narrative and RushCard wanted to drive conversation rather than to ignore an issue that’s important to its target market.

“My hope is that these videos will be a starting point for a nuanced discussion about issues that affect our community and the entire country,” Simmons said in a statement to Adweek. “I believe in the power of art to create change, and these films use art and technology to actually show that change taking place.”

13170: Russell Simmons Has ADHD.

Adweek reported Russell Simmons is launching a new creative agency to connect brands with hip-hop fans. Are White advertising agencies no longer qualified to handle hip-hop campaigns? But they love hip-hop artists and music!

Russell Simmons’ New Agency Will Help Brands Connect With Hip-Hop Fans

He’s targeting an ‘overlooked and underserved’ audience

By Christine Birkner

This week, hip-hop impresario and Adweek Brand Visionary Russell Simmons launched an in-house creative agency to help brands appeal to young audiences in a new way. The new agency, ADHD, will serve as an in-house creative unit of All Def Digital (ADD), Simmons’ web video platform and media company which manages a unit of social video stars, writers, actors and hip hop artists and has 1.4 million subscribers on YouTube.

Both entities’ acronyms are a nod to younger generations’ shorter attention spans, Simmons told Adweek. “The idea was, if you don’t have ADD, you’re not paying attention,” he said.

The goal of ADHD is to appeal to the increasingly diverse hip-hop audience, which so far has been misunderstood by brands and by Hollywood, Simmons said.

“No one really understands this audience. It’s multiracial, but singularly cultural. It started out 95 percent black, and now it’s 45 percent non-black, and that’s going to keep growing,” he said. “The audience we speak to is overlooked and underserved. A lot of the content Hollywood creates doesn’t serve this audience. We want to help brands frame their messaging in an honest way.”

Hip-hop is increasingly visible in mainstream culture, and brands need to recognize that, said ADD CEO Sanjay Sharma. “Last year, the three biggest media properties in America were Straight Outta Compton in movies, Empire on TV, and Hamilton on Broadway. We know that hip-hop is permeating American and global pop culture, through music, fashion and art, and language,” he said. “We’re connecting brands through authentic, immersive content experiences and helping them reach this audience in a way that a lot of traditional media outlets don’t do.”

ADD works with Samsung, Chevrolet and Nissan, as well as movie studios, and through ADHD, it plans to broaden its scope and offer brands work that’s similar to its YouTube campaigns for the releases of The Boss, Krampus and Barbershop 3, and Vine campaigns for Jurassic World and The Martian.

ADHD will be led by R/GA managing director Josh Mandel, who joined R/GA in 2013 after working at 72andSunny. “We feel like brands haven’t yet recognized the reality of hip-hop as the thread that unites this younger, multicultural audience,” Mandel said. “So many fans of hip-hop are white. Urban isn’t just a racial identity, it’s a cultural identity, and it’s three trillion dollars of buying power, and nobody’s thinking of the market in this way.”

The new agency will help advertisers crack the code in appealing to this audience through genuine content, Simmons said. “There’s a psychology associated with hip-hop culture that’s very brand-friendly. They’re the best brand building community in the world, and they’re also the hardest to reach. They have the best bullshit meter. You can’t patronize them. If brands don’t look honest to them, they’ll tear them down.”

11466: Russell Simmons, Brand Visionary.

Adweek named Russell Simmons as Brand Visionary in its 2013 Brand Genius Awards. Guess Adweek loves hip hop too.

Brand Visionary: Russell Simmons

One of Russell Simmons’ first stints at marketing involved him passing out fliers for college parties back in the ’70s. Things have changed a bit since then, of course. “Everything is different—the world moves faster,” he says. “When I started branding, there were no cellphones. You know, I’m old. I’ve been around for a minute, baby.”

At 55, Simmons isn’t exactly old, but he has come a long way from those fliers.

Some 30 years after starting out as a fast-talking club promoter from Queens, Simmons, this year’s Adweek Brand Visionary, has become a living legend in the spheres of media and marketing, a cynosure who’s created some of the world’s coolest brands—from Def Jam records to the Phat Farm clothing line. More recently, he launched the Web-video property All Def Digital. If urban culture has a godfather, then Russell Simmons is it.

“Russell’s great gift was to show that hip-hop was a true American art form,” according to Dan Charnas, author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop. “Russell’s refusal to do anything but present this stuff the way it needed to be presented—that ignited the fire that this entire culture became.”

In other words, it’s one kind of challenge to market a single product—and quite another to market an entire lifestyle. In the early ’80s, when the zeitgeist required black artists to soften their sound, lyrics and appearance to get airplay on pop radio and MTV, Simmons instead insisted on packaging acts like Run-DMC using their real street clothes and sensibility—not as black music, but as teen music with broad appeal. It worked, and quickly. By 1984, The Wall Street Journal had dubbed Simmons “the mogul of rap.”

In the decades since, Simmons has proven to be a serial entrepreneur, building his own empire and paving the way for other moguls.

In 1999, Simmons and business partner Lyor Cohen sold their remaining 40 percent stake in Def Jam Recordings to Universal Music Group for a cool $135 million. In 2004, Simmons unloaded Phat Farm for $140 million. Today, he’s at the center of a whole constellation of companies—men’s fashion label ArgyleCulture, yoga apparel line Tantris, the prepaid Visa product RushCard, news site GlobalGrind and All Def Digital, a YouTube network focused on urban music, comedy and the spoken word.

“ADD has been a constant exciting fun road,” says Simmons. “I can’t believe how much cool shit is coming through my office. It’s allowing me freedom to be like a super indie—shoot what I want, put out what I want and promote what I want.”

With partners like UMG and DreamWorks-owned AwesomenessTV, the new venture is an opportunity for Simmons to add to the list of talent that can thank him for helping launch their careers. That’s not limited to musicians: Def Comedy Jam, the popular HBO show Simmons produced in the ’90s, served as an early platform for actors like Chris Tucker and Martin Lawrence.

“I get into businesses where I have something to contribute, and that’s been my history,” says Simmons. “That’s what keeps me alive: giving.”

Simmons has given plenty—and that includes philanthropy. He’s an outspoken social activist whose causes range from ethnic understanding to animal rights. “I don’t want to be limited by the brand that the world makes me,” he says.

There seems to be little chance of that. —Gabriel Beltrone

9591: Rush To Judgment Of Lowe’s.

From The New York Daily News…

Russell Simmons tries to buy ad time on ‘All-American Muslim’ after Lowes pulls on-air advertisements

The hip-hop mogul brought attention to his plight on Twitter

By Joyce Chen, New York Daily News

Russell Simmons wants Lowe’s to own up to its mistake, and he’s more than willing to foot the bill.

The hip-hop magnate and entrepreneur offered to buy all the remaining advertising slots during TLC’s reality series “All-American Muslim” after the hardware giant pulled its ads earlier this week.

“Just purchased remaining spots for #allamericanmuslim for next week The show is now sold out!” he tweeted Monday. “keep your money @lowes and we will keep ours.”

Simmons said he planned to use the purchased air-time to advertise his prepaid Visa RushCard.

Lowe’s issued a statement earlier this week announcing their withdrawal, saying that the “program raised concerns, complaints or issues from multiple sides of the viewer spectrum” after the Florida Family Association lambasted the show as propoganda for the “threat of jihad.”

Simmons, 54, launched into a passionate rant against Lowes after hearing that the home improvement store had caved to pressures from the conservative group.

“This can’t happen in America; (Lowe’s) needs to fix this immediately,” Simmons told Entertainment Weekly. “They can’t get away with that, it’s ridiculous.

“There are American principles at stake here. I can’t imagine the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, the National Urban League or any organization that fights for their own rights will allow this to happen to any other group because they know they’re next.”

Later in the day, Simmons tweeted that all of the air-time was bought out already.

“I’m trying to buy ads during #AllAmericanMuslim airing this Sunday, but now they are saying they are sold out. I will keep trying…” he wrote.

Simmons is a chairman of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which promotes racial and interfaith harmony.

He called Lowe’s decision and poor explanation “a stupid thing to do.”

“If I go to work on this, they’re not even going to believe it,” he told EW. “This is not going to be a Muslim fight. I don’t want to take my time and start a boycott; don’t make me do that.”

Simmons already has his fair share of supporters.

“Shame on #Lowes and the #FFA,” one user tweeted. “They think suburban Muslim Michigan families are a threat to America? Ridiculous!!!”

“@UncleRUSH thank you for doing this! I had no idea who you were but will definitely be quitting Lowe’s & paying more attn to you!” another wrote.

8367: Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. (1915-2011).

From The Huffington Post…

We Do This For Young People: In Tribute to Sargent Shriver

By Russell Simmons

Co-authored by Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis

People throughout the world were blessed by the devoted service and outstanding commitment of Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. (1915-2011). The Kennedy and Shriver families have given so much to make the world in which we live a better place, it is a challenge to put into simple words what will express our profound respect and gratitude for the life-long impact of Sargent Shriver. He progressively touched and transformed the lives of millions of people in the United States and across the globe.

As the leader, architect and visionary for the Peace Corps and the War on Poverty, Sargent Shriver more than anyone knew the importance of striving to eliminate poverty not only in America, but in every village, city and nation. Shriver advanced the principle that establishing and maintaining peace in the world is inextricably linked to justice, equality and fairness to all people without limitation to race, class, gender, ethnicity, religion, ideology, sexual orientation, language or creed.

It is very important, in particular for young people, to know and affirm that social transformation in any society is contingent often on the activism and voices of those who cry out for justice and peace. Sargent Shriver believed in power of youth social action and giving back to the community. In fact, ten years ago when we established the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, our theme was and remains “Taking back responsibility.” We were inspired by the good work of the generation before led by visionaries like Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Fannie Lou Hammer and Sargent Shriver. These leaders knew that peace is not just the absence of war, but it is the presence of justice.

Today, we should rededicate ourselves to the universal principles of freedom, justice, equality and peace. The truth is there are more reasons today to re-launch the War on Poverty. Millions of Americans, and hundreds of millions more throughout the world are still suffering from abject poverty and misery. Even during this period of relative economic recovery, the plight of the poor and the impoverished hardly get any mention in the national and global debate.

It appears that as the pre-2012 national election season emerges on the political horizon in the United States, there are strong reactionary winds blowing within our society to take big steps backward from ending poverty, full health care coverage for all, environmental justice, immigration reform, racial and ethnic tolerance, high quality equal education, prison and criminal justice reform, full employment, financial literacy and grassroots economic empowerment. Shriver was proud of the face that in 2008, America witnessed the largest youth voter turnout in U.S. history.

One tangible tribute to Sargent Shriver will be for all of us to make 2011 the year of urgent preparation to make sure that our nation does not take societal and political steps backwards to a time when our country was less caring about the poor and marginalized. We will have to encourage young people and others who care to speak out again and take action to move our nation forward.

The hip-pop generation motivates aspirations to a higher standard of life and consciousness. We have got work to do. Sargent Shriver said it best when he said, “The way out of poverty was through human effort. People had to have motivation to move out of poverty.” Those words are still true now. Let’s show our gratitude to the living legacy of Sargent Shriver by motivating and organizing millions of new young people to register to vote and to take back responsibility in our communities to push forward for more justice and more peace. Let’s continue to “change” America. Let’s strive and mobilize anew to end poverty.

7595: Def Crime-Stopping Jam.

From The New York Daily News…

Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons returns to where he once sold drugs to launch ‘peacekeeping’ campaign

By Daniel P. Tucker
Daily News Writer

Hip-hop icon Russell Simmons joined leaders of a grass-roots movement in Brooklyn and Queens Saturday to kick off a “peacekeeping” campaign in some of the city’s toughest neighborhoods.

The Peace Keepers Movement, which started in Houston, tries to stop violence and crime by encouraging a strong presence of men from the community in unstable neighborhoods.

“For me, this is significant because I grew up here,” Simmons said at a rally in Queens Village.

“Not too far from here, I sold drugs,” he said. “I’ve had to change, and I’ve had leaders show me the way.”

Peace Keepers founder Dennis Muhammad says crime in the community can’t be solved with “an influx of police and more prisons.”

“We believe that men must be the role models for young men who kill each other senselessly,” he said at a separate rally in Brownsville.

Shawn Livingston, 23, who lives in Brownsville, agreed.

“To me, it’s a positive thing,” he said.

The number of murders was up about 23% citywide during the first 11 weeks of the year compared to the same period in 2009.

Murders spiked about 15% in Brooklyn and about 29% in Queens.

6064: Taking Care Of Personal Business.

Ringing in the news with a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Fred Goldman is seeking to nab O.J. Simpson’s Hall of Fame ring, as a Santa Monica judge ruled Simpson is prohibited from trying to sell it or give it away. Goldman continues his attempts to collect on the multimillion-dollar wrongful death judgment. Note to Goldman: don’t think about securing the ring while accompanied by buddies packing firearms.

• Russell Simmons joined mortgage consultants and entertainment artists at the Hip-Hop Summit at Clark Atlanta University to offer money advice. “There are opportunities out there, but people just don’t know about it,” said Simmons, insisting now is the best time to buy a home. “With financial stability, it’s a great time to buy when it’s low. It’ll pick back up in the long run.” Wonder if any of the rappers present succeeded in coming up with rhymes for subprime mortgage crisis.

• Mervyns is the latest retailer to fail, announcing plans to close all 149 stores. “We are disappointed with this outcome but the company’s declining liquidity position and the extremely challenging retail environment, together with the fact that we have exhausted all other possibilities, requires that we take this action,” said the chief executive of Mervyns. “We are confident that the deep discounts available through going out of business sales will drive significant traffic in our stores.” Maybe they could create cross-promotional efforts with Linens ‘n Things.

5551: Common Sense 101 At Advertising 2.0.

From AdAge.com…

Russell Simmons Eager to Talk Business
Hip-Hop Mogul Generous With Advice at Advertising 2.0 Conference

By Michael Bush

NEW YORK – “I see cool shit all the time, but no marketer does it on a consistent basis, and that’s the key to developing brand equity in the [multicultural] marketplace,” said Russell Simmons, CEO of Rush Communications.

Speaking at the Advertising 2.0 conference in Manhattan today, the hip-hop mogul was describing the multicultural marketing efforts of mainstream marketers.

Consistency in action
Dressed in his usual work attire of dark jeans, blindingly white sneakers, an oversized track jacket and an orange polo shirt topped with a New York Yankees hat, Mr. Simmons said that despite the growing influence, numbers and spending power of multicultural consumers, marketers still haven’t figured out how to effectively communicate with them.

“No one is speaking to these [consumers] in an honest voice,” Mr. Simmons said. “2050 is coming and the demographics [of the U.S. population] are going to be very different, and that’s not just going to hit [marketers] on the head one day. It’s doing it every day.”

Mr. Simmons touched on a number of other topics, including the importance of the digital space, the evolution of the urban consumer, the relevance of cause marketing and plans for his website Globalgrind.com.

He said the digital space is an excellent marketing tool and that marketers should use it to gauge consumer sentiment.

Listening online
“You can find out a lot about your brand online,” he said. “And by listening to what [consumers] say, you can figure out how to refresh it.”

Refreshing his own brand was something Mr. Simmons had to do when he realized the people who grew up entrenched in early hip-hop culture were now moving into their 30s (he refers to them as “Urban Graduates”) and could no longer wear the same clothes. “People who grew up on hip-hop can’t wear Phat Farm,” he said. “Sen. [Barack] Obama can’t wear Phat Farm.” The revelation sparked the birth of the Russell Simmons Argyle Culture.

Mr. Simmons said multicultural consumers also respond well to cause-related efforts. But he cautioned that when picking a cause, a company needs to choose one with an emotional connection to both the community and the brand itself. For Simmons Jewelry, he created the Green Initiative jewelry collection that includes watches, bracelets and pendants. Portions of sales from the first piece, the Green Bracelet, will go toward supporting educational efforts in Africa. Mr. Simmons attributes the success of the line to this cause effort, saying it was the only marketing the company has done for the line.

Marketing with heart
“There’s a benefit for any one of us who learns to give,” he said. “If you do the right thing, your ad dollars are not as effective as your philanthropy dollars. It can be a key to building a brand in the future, and it will always be a key to me. But make sure it’s a fit with your company.”

Looking ahead, Mr. Simmons said his next big project was the development of Globalgrind.com. On the social-networking site, visitors can link and share photos, videos and articles in a wide variety of categories including music, entertainment, hip-hop, news and a category called Politricks.

5184: Don’t Sleep On This.

Waking up with a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• A new study shows about 3 in 10 workers have felt very sleepy, or even fallen asleep, during work in the past month. The number probably increases dramatically at advertising agencies like Draftfcb. Check out this supplemental report via George Parker at Adscam.

• Russell Simmons is officially endorsing Barack Obama for president. However, Obama has not locked up the critical hip hop vote, as 50 Cent—and even Simmons’ ex-wife Kimora Lee Simmons—endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Essay 4408

Laboring through another MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• A U.N. report showed U.S. workers lead the planet in productivity, spending more time in the office, at the factory or on the farm than our peers in Europe and most other rich nations. “Rich nations” is probably the key term here, fellow workers.

• Rap mogul Russell Simmons is working on a new line of clothing targeting urban enthusiasts closer to his own age (49). The stuff will probably be produced in third-world nations by children nowhere near Simmons’ age.

• Dina Matos McGreevey, ex-wife of former New Jersey Governor James E. McGreevey, said she can relate to the wife of Sen. Larry Craig. Matos McGreevey had to stand by when her ex-husband told the world he was “a gay American” and resigned from office. “I was watching his wife the other day standing next to him, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, that was me three years ago. Now here we go again,’” said Matos McGreevey. “She’s a victim of the choices he’s made.” Um, somebody tell Matos McGreevey that Sen. Craig denies being gay.