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Wednesday, January 21, 2009 | 11:36am
The Source Magazine To No Longer Accept “Booty Ads”
New Brass to eliminate Fat Back as part of a strategy to lure High End Ads and transform the oft raunchy image of hip-hop
Over the last few years we’ve seen Hip Hop’s iconic publication, The Source hit rock bottom as a result of bad management and poor choices. Although the magazine’s credibility has forever been tarnished, the new management is looking to once again rebuild the brand to prominence by this time making the right choices. As a result, the magazine is reportedly will no longer take ads for pornographic films, Web sites or escort services, which have been a mainstay for The Source, accounting for more than half the ads at times.
According to a story published this weekend in the New York Times, The Source’s strategy is to lure more mainstream advertisers that prefer not to have their ads adjacent what the magazine’s co-publisher L. Londell McMillan, calls “booty ads” (aka Fat Back.)
“I realize the risk that we’re taking,” said Mr. McMillan, 42, a partner at a major law firm, Dewey & LeBouef. “But I think when you have the more raunchy, seedy ads, you lose ads like financial services ads, some of the travel ads, the bigger corporate consumer ads like McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, technology, high fashion.”
McMillan’s vision is to maintain the attention of the core hip-hop audience while becoming more respectable as a publication “you wouldn’t mind your kids seeing.”
McMillan and his group of investors have controlled what some refer to as the Hip Hop “Bible” since 2008. His critics have described him as out of touch with the Hip Hop base claiming that although his moves on the surface may seem in the interest of good business, his underlying objective is to transform the image of hip-hop deep rooted in the sexual imagery. A tough sell to the masses.
“We don’t want to just glorify the lowest-hanging fruit,” he said. “There’s a lot of people that want hip-hop but don’t want some of the filth that some of the business carries with it.”
Talk about a roll of the dice. At a time when the state of the economy has been well documented, competition in the Hip Hop media marketplace has gotten thick and more magazines as a whole are dying out, it would seem they’d be looking to keep the clients they currently have. Perhaps the right strategy just the wrong time to implement it. His success however, far outweighs my experience at this current time so who am I to critisize but as a child of the culture, I am familiar with the behaviorial mindset and my guess is that once the Hip Hop masses catch wind of this new attitude at The Source it could spell all she wrote McDonalds ads and all.
FILED IN Business & Marketing, Fashion, Honeys, Music, News
Wow, I was just about to write about this. You beat me to it. Here’s another quote i was going to use from McMillian:
“It’s time the Hip-Hop industry stop advertising junk and be more responsible about what we sell to our readers. The Source has been much more selective about what we put in our magazine and created higher standards since we’ve changed ownership. We owe it to our readers and the parents who don’t want their children reading about the latest porn sites and seeing booty ads in the back of the magazine.”
It all kinda reminds me of a few months ago when WWE decided they were going to remove some of the more violent aspects (chair shots, bleeding) of there business in hopes of “being more responsible to their child audience”. What they really wanted was to be able to market to children more without being called on it. In the end the new watered down product has turned off a lot off long time fans.
The difference between the WWE and the Source is that WWE is flourishing. The Source has endured some very hard times recently and given the current economic landscape the future does not look any more promising. For them to chose a strategy like this at this time is irresponsible. While I don’t think it will piss readers off too much it will eliminate a major revenue source in HOPES of replacing it with another more lucrative one. I hope McMillian has good luck at the craps table…he’s going to need it.
Luckily I think the expectations are extremely low. In most people’s mind’s the Source is already dead. So there probably arent many regular readers left to piss off.
That’s what I’m figuring they’re banking on. There’s no place to go but up.
well good for them, off topic Bad Boy is officially exposed! check it out click the name!
yeah off the topic but definately some drama there. Thanks for the heads up.
i stopped buyin the sauce a long time ago. pains me too bc i used to buy it every month. cant stand it now.
what is that they want this magazine to look like, Vogue ? Cosmopolitan? how about adding Diet ads and mineral water ads, shampoo and stuff. Are we going to have hip hop artists posing in the garden or in front of a church too ?
I’d cancel my subcription if this magzine stars looking all those white magazines.
Those booty ads ain’t killing anybody.
I wrote Source magazine a long letter about this 10 years ago. A few years later a journalist that left the Source for XXL wrote about the subject in XXL, drawing heavily from my letter to make a counterpoint about sex and hip-hop. He did so without quoting me directly or even admitting that my letter existed. BUT his article was clearly in reply to me.
The same year they launched their shortlived Sex and Hip-Hop issue. I wanted to break their necks.
This is LONG overdue. Hopefully everyone else will follow suit.
Pingback: » [RANT] Is The Source’s Black History Talk an Anti-Hip Hop Ploy? | Highbrid Nation | Because Knowledge is Power
Pingback: » [RANT] Is The Source’s Black History Talk an Anti-Hip Hop Ploy? | Highbrid Nation | Because Knowledge is Power