#stevestoute @time
Pardon me if I’m biased but I have a lot of respect for Steve Stoute, the music industry executive turned Advertising brain behind boutique ad firm, Translation.  He gets top billing in a new profile in the upcoming issue of Time Magazine…in other words a good look.  Translation’s philosophy is simple.  Push the advertising industry further than its ever gone with regard to ethnicity.

Although young consumers spend an estimated $1.2 trillion each year, many of advertising’s top firms have had hit and miss success effectively targeting these demographics consistently.  When Stoute left the music business ten years ago to start Translation he wanted to use his influence with Hip Hop’s mainstream celebrity to be the go to guy for reaching the youth on Madison Avenue. ”

Brands don’t often speak to young people in a way that is representative of them,” says Stoute. “What I do is contemporize a brand.” But, he says, “I don’t take the brand away from what it stands for. I don’t change who they are in order to appeal to the next generation.”

Prior to his success with Translation, Steve Stoute or “The Commissioner” as he was effectionately referred to as was Nas’s manager.  The two had a very contentious relationship from the rapper’s debut in 1995 to his signing with Violater in 2001.  Instead of hanging his head, Stoute had an exit plan and worked it to perfection or should I say, Translation.

Time describes him as “the hip-but-safe guy for large companies like Hewlett-Packard, Target and Samsung looking to grab a piece of the youth demographic.”  He recognized that music, fashion and culture were blending in the youth’s brand choices, and the Internet only intensified that lifestyle.

RESUME

McDonalds

2010 Super Bowl ad, which featured LeBron James and Dwight Howard’s remixed version of the 1993 can-you-top-this-shot commercials.

Justin Timberlake’s 2003  “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign.  Stoute got Timberlake to record an original “I’m Lovin’ It” tune and promoted it to various outlets so that it got mad burn on the air even before the song ever saw the light of day in the commercial.  The result:   the public already had a relationship with the song.  This strategy is one adapted from Bollywood filmmakers who regularly create musical compostitions that create a connection with audiences before a movie is launched. To date, the “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign remains one of the longest-running in McDonald’s history.

Hewlett Packard

Remember that 2005 HP commercial featuring Gwen Stefani promoting the company’s Photosmart R607 camera ?  Yeah that was Stoute too.  aign to promote the company’s .

“He blew apart the old model of the celebrity pitch,” said  James Edmund Datri, CEO of the American Advertising Federation.  Instead he replaced “it with a model that draws on celebrity, music, entertainment and culture to speak with audiences, not at them.”

Reebok

Consider it a coup of epic proportions. Despite coming to his sences recently with his new “All Black Everything” line of Air Force 1′s with Nike, believe it or not in 2003, with the help of Stoute (and a hefty check) athletic apparel’s second class citizen Reebok was able to land Jay-Z to endorse its shoes and a booty but exclusive S. Carter shoe line. If that wasn’t enough the also snagged a then emerging 50 Cent by offering him a now defunct G-Unit sneaker as well.

Home Shopping Network

Stoute and Mary J. Blige have a tight relationship dating back to his years in the industry.  The two recently launched a non-profit intitiative called FFAWN or the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now Inc.  But the two have also gotten money together as well.  Stoute recently turned heads on Madison Ave when Blige launced her My Life perfume, on the Home Shopping Network July 31 to record-breaking sales. The fragrance sold 60,000 units in just six hours and 20% of those sales were from brand new customers to HSN.  It showed the the power of her influence and his strategy especially considering none of the consumers had ever even sampled the produce.

Stoute’s plan had worked.  Weeks earlier he had gotten Blige to create a series of online video vignettes so customers could connect with her.

“I put Mary on air and let her speak her story, her life, her journey and showed footage of her being part of the process of making the fragrance,” he said.  “It was a grand slam.”

You can peep the entire article here and I encourage you to do so if you’re at all interested in the music business side of things and/ or advertising, public relationship and marketing.