15997: U Can’t—And Don’t Wanna—Touch This.

 

Hard to believe that Santander Bank and its White advertising agency could sink lower than a previous piece-of-shit commercial, but the culturally clueless corporate cretins managed to do so with this Scammer Pants spot. At least MC Hammer got paid.

 

14230: Do. No Hammer.

Command Brand went from MC Hammer to Tim Gunn…? That’s like going from Snoop Dogg to Snoopy.

13900: Holidays Are Hammer Time.

Looks like MC Hammer will be ringing in the residuals as Command Brand reruns its holiday campaign—presenting a stocking full of contrived references to Hammer lyrics!

13733: Bullshit Builds Momentum.

Adweek published patronizing puffery promoting IAM, the high school dedicated to teaching minority youth about the advertising industry—and ultimately recruiting them into the field. Momentum Worldwide CEO Chris Weil penned the pap, and it would be interesting to learn the diversity figures at his company. The only hint of inclusiveness and culture at the agency website can be found via the online store, where MoMo Hammer Pants can be purchased for a mere $179.99.

Want a Robust and Diverse Talent Pipeline? Check Out This High School Dedicated to Advertising

4A’s ‘IAM’ program is a model of how to foster equality early

By Chris Weil

Today’s graduation of the High School for Innovation in Advertising and Media marks the ninth year of the 4A’s foray into helping build the next diverse generation of talent in marketing and advertising through its high school student initiative.

The 4A’s partnered with the New York City Department of Education in 2008 to form the first four-year high school in the nation dedicated exclusively to preparing students for careers in the advertising and media industry. That school in Brooklyn, known as IAM, is helping to train the future practitioners in our industry.

We’ve all heard the lament expressed across our industry in recent years about our talent pipeline drying up—young people weren’t learning the right skills to enter advertising or marketing positions, other fields were attracting students who previously would have considered advertising and marketing, and the diversity of the talent didn’t jibe with the diversity of the country’s population.

Those conversations, to be honest, are still occurring because we haven’t done enough to fix the underlying issues—yet. For example, still only 19 percent of people represented in advertisements are minorities, despite the fact that 30 percent of the voting-age population is a minority. That’s just one example of where we still have lots of room for improvement.

Industries of every type—and advertising and marketing stand out because of the cultural visibility of our work—grow when they tap into the varied thinking only possible with a diverse workforce. Diversity leads to marketing messages that are far more effective because they reflect the reality of the society and marketplace. And in our view, diversity has to begin with education and access, which was one of the core issues we addressed with our school programs.

This initiative builds on the 4A’s Multicultural Advertising Intern Program, or MAIP, which has connected aspiring diverse entry-level advertising professionals with prestigious advertising agencies for the last 44 years. But while we have been addressing the diversity issue long before it became a common theme, we know that it’s an ongoing challenge that requires additional solutions.

As we look to the 2017 class at IAM—graduating today—we can see that the program has been a success—and not just for those of us in the field of communications who want to see a more prepared and diverse pool of prospects making their way to our offices. It has been a success for the students.

What has, to me, been the most exciting development of our programs—which includes partnering with the City University of New York in 2014 to launch the first P-Tech (Pathways in Technology Early College High School) of its kind and the Manhattan Early College School for Advertising, or MECA—is that the kids are the biggest winners.

How do we know that our multipronged approach is reaching these students? Some 25 percent to 30 percent of IAM and MECA graduates are entering the advertising field—a generation of students who might otherwise never have even considered the possibility of advertising and marketing. While we can look on those recruitment numbers with pride, it’s also true that the graduation rate at our schools, which is trending at 78 percent, compared with about 64 percent at the average NYC public school, is the best reward.

It would be a dream to see 100 percent of the students enter our business, but by showing the thousands of students who have passed through the halls of the schools that creativity matters, that you can take your passions and turn them into careers, that there are myriad ways to do more in life, that is a reward that we can all celebrate.

By partnering with these schools, we are in effect expanding our society’s creative class—helping more people understand what a career in creativity is all about, inspiring more of them to consider advertising as a promising career opportunity and to understand all the ways they can be a part of a creative industry. Showing a student that his passion for social media can lead to a career or that the gamer playing video games could turn her interest into a life of building digital experiences for others is one of the most important aspects of these programs.

By next year, almost 1,000 ninth through 12th grade students will be studying advertising and marketing. At the same time, the MECA students will also be entering the community college part of their six-year program. They follow a regular high school curriculum—yes, with algebra, English and science—along with an additional specialty in marketing, advertising and design. Their curriculum includes soft skills such as presenting and storytelling; by their junior year, they are certified in Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative. For six years, the students will study not only every part of the agency and advertising ecosystem, but skills that will serve them in any creative field.

While a handful of individual companies have supported some schools, IAM and MECA are the first public schools in the U.S. to earn the support of an entire industry. The 4A’s uniquely offers this support by helping to create the advertising curriculum, teaching the classes, bringing students to agencies and creating mentorship and internship programs. Additionally, we are bringing in marketing clients such as Spotify and Reebok to introduce real-world briefs for the students to solve. This reinforces that the opportunity in our industry is to create work alongside brands that people love and impact our popular culture on a daily basis.

The students who chose to come to these schools have an interest in what we do, and we have a vested interest in keeping them engaged, sharing the excitement of our field and sharing our experiences. They matter more than ever—either as our future communications colleagues or our future customer population—and the more we can connect with them now, the better we will all be for it.

Chris Weil (@chrisweil) is the CEO of Momentum Worldwide; he sits on the 4A’s board of directors and serves as chairman of the 4A’s High School Initiative Advisory Board.

13598: MC Hammer’s Command Performance.

Didn’t realize the terrible in-store display was part of a campaign including terrible TV commercials. Pray there are no plans for a pool-out.

13470: 2 Legit 2 Quit.

Now you can hang with MC Hammer for the holidays!

11131: TBWA & GQ Have Low IQ.

TBWA in Brazil created a campaign for GQ—and displayed its low IQ in terms of cultural cluelessness.

From Ads of the World.

9449: Ed Lee Is 2 LEGIT 2 QUIT.

Vote Ed Lee for San Francisco Mayor on November 8.

6942: U Can’t Touch This, Madison Avenue.

Madison Avenue executives perpetuate the industry’s exclusivity by insisting there is a lack of qualified Black talent. Yet in this column from Adweek.com, MC Hammer—yes, MC Hammer—demonstrates more digital savvy than most advertising agency honchos. Go figure.

It’s Twitter Time

By MC Hammer

Social Media is quickly becoming a vital tool for brands, especially those driven by a celebrity. The use of social media outlets effectively shortens the distance between the content that is created and produced for a brand and the consumer like no other medium.

The same is true with celebrities, artists and entertainers like me who are now closer to fans than we’ve ever really been before.

While new social media platforms seem to pop up every day, I’m strongly behind Twitter, a micro-blogging tool that has become a game changer for me. The platform offers celebrity brands the means to build and develop relationships in an intimate and personal way. The friendly and efficient interface links to video and audio and integrates with various other social media outlets with ease. That means my brand can live on a wide variety of platforms where fans might find me.

The short, 140-character tweets give brands the power to quickly bond with consumers, point them to projects or products that they can interact with without interpretation or personal interjections messing up the communication flow.

Additionally, Twitter gives power to the users by allowing them to track the brands and celebrities they choose, whether or not they follow back. Twitter followers tend to be a loyal and engaged audience who are more likely to continue to spread the brand’s buzz when they feel they are part of it.

I was an early adopter of Twitter and currently have more than a million followers. I have used my Twitter feed to discuss events in my personal and professional life, to encourage various behaviors, causes and initiatives that I get behind (i.e., “Respect Women Wednesday” and “DJ Appreciation Day”). Additionally, unlike many celebrities and brands, I follow many of my followers back, encouraging one-on-one dialogue. I follow more than 26,000 people, which I think is pretty atypical of a celebrity or brand account.

My love of social media is being integrated in a big way into my A&E reality series Hammertime. We are displaying my tweets on screen so viewers can see how I interact with the platform, and my Twitter account is a major feature on the official Hammertime Web site — www.aetv.com/hammertime — which also includes videos, some of my wife’s recipes, a fun online board game, a widget and plenty of other digital bells and whistles.

Digital media has become such a strong part of my life that it was a given to put Twitter to work on the series. In fact, I am working closely with the network to use social media to bring attention beyond the show itself to promotional efforts around it, like a recently posted YouTube video that features 60 people dancing, dressed up in “Hammer pants,” during a recent flash-mob stunt at a Sunset Blvd. store. That little clip went viral and is nearing 2 million views.

According to Guy Slattery, senior vp of marketing for A&E, who I talked to for this column, the watercooler has been virtually replaced by social media. “Word of mouth all starts online these days, and for a new television series to succeed, it needs to become part of that conversation,” he told me. “For Hammertime, we had the Hammer pants, the Hammer dance and MC Hammer the Twitter feed. We knew that if our campaign was done right, people would be buzzing about the show before it even hit the air.”

Amen.

Understand that the value in marketing and promotion dollars that a brand with substantial followers brings to the plate is immense. Brands and celebrities can benefit from utilizing the platform in the days leading up to an opening weekend, a premiere or release date by connecting fans with links, trailers, contests, video and photo content, and each other, just like we did for Hammertime.

Brand marketing, promotion and distribution via 140 characters…a digital triple threat!

Threat in the negative sense is the fear of the unknown. But while social media may be seen as a daunting and unknown to some, the most savvy businesses, brands and celebrities are adopting the platform to establish a one-on-one dialog with their consumers and fans. Those who aren’t will surely be riding the “fail whale” in the near future.

Don’t forget to check out my series Hammertime and follow me at www.twitter.com/MCHammer

I’m a tweet away.

MC Hammer stars in the weekly reality series Hammertime on A&E.

6832: Throwing Down The Hammer.

From Adweek.com…

A&E’s ‘Hammer Pants Dance’ = Viral Gold

By Mike Shields

NEW YORK A&E has a viral sensation on its hands thanks to the gold pants and retro dance moves of rapper MC Hammer.

The network, as part of an extensive digital promotional effort for its upcoming reality series Hammertime, commissioned a group of 60 amateur dancers for a flash mob. The group entered a Los Angeles clothing store on Sunset Boulevard, collectively donned Hammer-inspired pairs of gold baggy pants, and performed the artist’s unique set of horizontal moves to the tune of his 1990 hit “U Can’t Touch This”—all before a group of somewhat startled shoppers.

The clip, Hammer Pants Dance, has generated over 900,000 views on YouTube in the past week, as well as another 200,000 or so on both MSN and Break.com. A&E plans to create a similar public dancing spectacle at New York’s Grand Central station as part of its Hammertime promotional push.

As part of that push, the network has rolled out Twittertime, a collection of MC Hammer’s Twitter entries, and watchhammertime.com, where fans can sign up to receive text messages and phone calls from the rapper, who once famously claimed that “I’m dope on the floor and magic on the mic.”

Hammertime premieres on A&E on June 14 at 10 p.m. EST.

6542: Supermercado, Super-Size, Superstar.

Weekend news with a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• This summer, Walmart will unveil Supermercado de Walmart, the retailer’s first Latino-focused stores. Located in Houston and Phoenix, the stores will feature products with Latino appeal, as well as bilingual staff. The Minutemen are not expected to attend the grand-opening event.

• A new study shows building a fast food restaurant within 500 feet of a school will increase the student obesity rate by at least 5 percent. It would be no problem if all the obese students wound up having successful careers like Subway’s Jared.

• MC Hammer is being sued for accepting a $61,000 publisher’s advance, but failing to deliver on a book about fatherhood. Talk about being a delinquent dad.

Essay 4913

Time for a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Looks like it might be Hammer Time after all. Stanley Burrell—a.k.a. MC Hammer—is launching a Web site called DanceJam.com. The site will let visitors share and watch dance videos. Burrell will act as co-founder and chief strategy officer. “There is no high-tech lingo or business strategy that you can talk that is above my head,” said Burrell. “I breathe this stuff.” He’s too legit to quit.

• The New York KFC restaurant that gained notoriety when a video showed rats scurrying about the place has been replaced by a T-Mobile store. No word if customers can add a rodent to their Fave 5.

• Supporters of presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich are pissed off at Pizza Hut for a commercial that includes the Democrat making a comment about UFOs. Kucinich received unwanted publicity when he revealed he once saw a UFO. “I am going to encourage all Kucinich supporters to boycott your restaurant until you change your ‘debate’ advertising,” wrote an online supporter. “That was a low blow to a viable, electable presidential candidate. Consider the word OUT! I also think Pizza Hut should publicly apologize to the Congressman!” Anyone who believes Kucinich is an electable candidate must be from another planet.