Continuing on with the campaign being created between Soho Pixels and Meta, we met up with a young up-and-coming music producer from North West London. Such a cool kid with an interesting story and outlook on life as he navigates Uni, his ends and creating the canvas for some of your favourite musicians to write to.
It has been a little over 3 weeks since season 3 of ‘Top Boy’ has been released, and what an impact it has made culturally and socially. Ask most people if they know who Dushane and Sully are, and we’re confident they’ll say they’re characters from ‘Top Boy,’ as everyone and their aunt seemingly has watched it. The gritty urban drama has certainly ventured out further than just to a predominantly black audience this time around, and for good reason.
More than just gangs, guns and drugs, the well thought out script and narrative focuses on the human element of impoverished London, touching on the socioeconomics and family, or lack of, as to why kids get drawn in to this murky world. Being released 6 years after season 2, season 3 has fully been embraced by social media with memes and captions of clips and dialogue regularly being seen in tweets and posts on the time line; with “Daily offender, crazy Eastender,” being one of the prominent ones, as said by Modie (played by newly crowned Mercury Award winner Dave) during his jail break scene.
Having waited 6 years, it seems like everyone is already craving Season 4, so did Netflix miss a trick here by releasing all 10 episodes in one go? Yes we realise this is their business model, but had they released an episode every week, it would have been a brilliant 10 weeks of ratings for Netflix as each episode left you on a cliff hanger. This leads to our train of thought at Soho Pixels on brand partnerships with this drama franchise, or at least the huge potential of it.
So with the anticipation of Season 4 already on everyone’s lips, will it equate to big brand synergies for this urban drama, or will the violence and reference to drugs and gangs scare them off? My question is, what’s the difference in the violence to say a ‘Game of Thrones’ episode? What is the difference to gang and drug reference that a number of the ‘James Bond’ movies had? Oh wait, let me guess, they’re fictitious characters right? Well, one show centered around true life events featuring gangs, drugs and violence was the BBC’s critically acclaimed series ‘Peaky Blinders,’ yet this hasn’t stopped brand endorsements and even a festival put on just recently in the shows honour.
All it takes is for one big brand to be brave and attach themselves to what is shaping up to being an iconic TV show. Cool adverts or clever content pieces for product placements could be very lucrative for both the show and any brand. Maybe the real problem is the brand execs are scared about ROI and paying Sugar his money if the show flops. Tell them don’t worry, it won’t, and he’s dead!
Last year the figure for homicides in London was in or around 132. We are only in August and there has already been 86 deaths that can be attributed to knife or gun violence in the capital, so before we break a decade old record, the Government has decided to do something other than deploy more police on the streets, but their latest effort has picked up some serious backlash.
In targeting the demographic that are seen to predominantly engage in street violence, the latest strategy of the anti-knife crime campaign has seen it target chicken shops. The likes of Chicken Cottage, Dixy Chicken and Morley’s are onboard and have allowed the Government to release chicken boxes in an all black covering with the campaigns #knifefree printed on the outside, and positive stories from young people who have chosen to avoid gangs and using weapons on the inside.
Now the initial feedback from this part of the campaign that was launched this week seems to be directed towards it being racist from prominent MP’s and other influential figures. So was it the right strategy but just poorly executed?
Though knife crime isn’t monopolised by an urban following as statistics will show, it is however centered around a certain ethnic group and age in inner cities. As a result, I believe the analytics that were deployed for the campaign would have shown that a fast food establishment, chicken shop, is possibly where this demographic would usually hang out. But could only using what we call ‘ma and pa’ establishments in the roll out for this part of the anti-knife campaign have hindered the effectiveness of the strategy and the subsequent backlash? If they had gotten the likes of McDonalds, Nando’s, Burger King and KFC involved – places that this group hangout too – would that have been seen to be more inclusive and then not seen as ‘racist?’
Whenever campaigns and content in particular are targeted towards the ‘urban’ demographic, brands or institutions can ill afford to make haphazard stereotypes or inauthentic representation of things.
What the government maybe should have done was subtly introduce the brand message as a product so it seems less intrusive and feels cool. A cool striking video asset that featured the black chicken boxes in it, like the chicken boxes were products being placed in strategically may have faired better, as when the supposed demographic now go to their local chicken shop and actually see it in there, it would have engaged them and the brand message be driven home. But not only in an inner city environment that is predominantly home to a core black population, the video asset would have to include other cities that are predominantly white populated where knife and gun crime are rampant, like Liverpool and Glasgow. Or places with a strong Asian following like Leicester and parts of Luton and Birmingham. The video asset would need to show the UK that it is a ‘country’ problem, and they’re aiming to solve it up and down.
They have previously shot videos for this #knifefree campaign, but this one including the chicken boxes would have initially been rolled out simultaneously on notable blog platforms and the pages of influencers on social media that cater to an ‘urban’ audience. Traditional media outlets such as billboards, newspaper and TV adverts should have been the final destination for the roll out after the online roll out picked up traction.
Great ideas can sometimes be ruined by poor execution and come in for unneeded criticism, and it feels like now the press team for the government’s campaign will be more concerned with fending off the ‘racist’ backlash that seems to be attached to the campaign, rather than concentrating on the promotion of #knifefree.
With Stormzy recently headlining Glastonbury over the weekend, and a host of other urban acts performing at what is known as a predominantly ‘guitar/rock band’ festival, is urban culture the preferred go to in our society?
Music, film, sports, fashion, no matter where you look in popular culture, you can’t help but notice major influences that can be traced back to urban culture. Even in ad land when marketing to consumers, brands have certainly leaned towards an urban makeup within their content. With Nike releasing their iconic ‘Nothing Beats A Londoner’ advert last year, featuring the crème de la crème of the urban music and social influencer scene mixed in with notable Nike ambassadors, it seems their closest rivals Adidas have pulled from the same creative pool with the launch of their new kit deal with Arsenal Football Club.
The £300 million kit deal was launched today with a clever ad paying homage to when Arsenal used to wear an Adidas kit in the 90’s during a more successful period for the club, whilst mixing conversation back and forth with the current players and a few legends like Tony Adams and Ian Wright. What was striking though, was that the voices of the current players that featured in the promo were substituted largely for ones with more urban slang and expressions, making the ad on trend, and had it stand out like Nike’s ‘Nothing Beats A Londoner.’ Being a London team in the heart of Islington Borough, It wouldn’t sound foreign to hear local youth talking with the dialects and slang used in the ad. Check it out for yourself https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VLZeTOID0jU .
Where Adidas were spot on, other brands have certainly failed in trying to incorporate urban culture, whether it be the language, fashion or even mannerisms. This can make or break hitting your intended target as authenticity is very important when using and targeting an urban audience.
We predict we will see many more urban driven campaigns from major brands over the next five years as pop culture continues to gravitate towards all things urban, as the key purchasing demographic continue to be influenced by the urban culture.
In to its fourth year now, the Rated Awards is arguably the most influential urban award ceremony when it comes to honouring those creating the current sound of youth radio and things of the urban culture.
At least 70% of the music being churned out now on mainstream radio stations like BBC 1Xtra and Capital Xtra are from artists who won big last night. A lot of these artists are becoming faces of national campaigns for brands like Adidas and Nike, with their music being synced with adverts and TV programmes like Sky Sports live football matches.
As the urban scene continues to grow and the music continues to get popular with a mainstream audience, there’s no better time like now to align your brands with these popular artist. As we work with many of them and are specialised in urban activation, why don’t you get in touch to see how your brand can benefit.
