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| (Def Comedy Jam Poster) |
In your comments I want you expound on Russell Simmons success and ways that he extended his ability to move the crowd beyond music and entertainment. Was his sweet spot becoming a multi-millionaire by selling his company or was his sweet spot gaining political and economic influence as a cultural industrialist and philanthropist that challenge the conditions that caused Hip Hop Culture to exist?
Things you should know
It's important to recognize that entrepreneurial opportunity is not about brick and mortar spaces or even starting a business from scratch. Entrepreneurship is about the having the vision and ability to capture opportunity where there is none. Hip Hop is about not only creating cool content, but also rebranding a concept, activity, or venture and making it cool again by "remixing it." You should walk away from this section with knowledge such as:
- Understanding the limitations of your business venture is necessary in order to create an effective exit strategy.
- Having an effective exit strategy can lead to new opportunities to strengthen your existing venture or provide you with the leverage to walk away from a situation that is no longer a beneficial component of your vision.
- Having the ability to create and execute a plan offers unique branding opportunities to be the authentic product or voice for an emerging market.
- Know what you and your venture are worth. Hence, hiring an appropriate business assessor will provide you with the information you need to be an informed player in the game of negotiations.
- Being smart and fearless is the best strategy for getting and staying in the game.
Russell Simmons had great cultural influence because he clearly understood who he was marketing to in each venture. He was able to move people because he understood who the people were and what their needs and desires were. In short, he mastered image branding through cultural understanding.
ReplyDeleteFor example, he refused to sell Phat Farm products to downmarket stores that are less prestigious, like V.I.M. and Dr. Jay's. He understood that keeping Phat Farms exclusive would create a "cool factor" in the hip-hop culture. It moves from being the fashion that everyone has to only the fashion the cool people have. This creates amazing brand loyalty through repeat customers that want to maintain their cool image. This focus on the image perceived by its customers was his sweet spot that allowed him to eventually sell Def Jam Recordings to Universal Music Group.
In our own ventures, how might we apply his mastery of image branding that is catered to a specific audience? And is this essential culturally engineering?
I agree with Eric's account for the most part. Cultural engineering played a huge role in the strategy Russell Simmons adopted to successfully market his venture.
DeleteIn terms of image branding, Russell had an upper hand cause he could very accurately determine 2 major factors. The net-worth of his venture, and his own worth, which are two crucial features in hip hop entrepreneurship that are highlighted in "The Big Payback". He knew that his worth belonged in the leagues of Jay-Z and likes, how did he know that? Cause he chose to think highly of himself. He created an oppertunity where there was none! Thats where his genius lay! Once he determined his worth, he made it his reality and automatically rejected offers from anything lower than the absolute best. In a way, he created an automated software system in his head that only filtered in information that was in accordance with where he valued his own personal brand and his ventures brand.
Eric I think you made a great point. Simmons certainly understood how to create the perfect image around his artists so that his demographics would grow attached to them. His religious attention to detail regarding the music, the fashion, and attitude of his artists demonstrated his keen ability as a marketer to not just predict what people wanted but show them what was supposed to be cool. For instance, in the book they describe his resentment toward the sloppily dressed and "corny" Fat Boys whom he countered with the consistently donned leather jackets, glasses, and white adidas sneakers of Run DMC. Simmons understood this was all part of the "package", it showed the cultural world starting to embrace hip hop that Run DMC was the epitome of cool. In business, this area of strategy is often referred to as user experience our user stories. Simmons understood that all of these separate elements fuel an underlying narrative that draws people into the product and encourages adoption. Furthermore, Rubin's stripped down and raw production style only added to the grittiness of Run DMC's music and persona. Both Simmons and Rubin understood that it was the rawness of hip hop that gave it such appeal. In my opinion, Simmons was the first major influencer of hip hop to implement such "cultural engineering" to a successful scale.
DeleteAfter reading Eric’s comment about “cultural engineering”, it reminded me of a term I learned while studying computer security last year. Social engineering within the context of information security refers to psychological manipulation for the purpose of uncovering hidden information. Baiting attacks are one of the most common ways to gain access to someone’s confidential information through social engineering. In a baiting attack, a hacker will leave a malware infected device (such as a USB drive or CD) in a location where victims are likely to pick up and use the device. After the victim puts the infected device into his or her personal computer, the malware will run, leaving the hacker with access to the victim’s personal data. In the popular new television show “Mr. Robot”, an attacker performs a successful baiting attack on one of the show’s supporting characters by urging him to listen to his mixtape, which ends up being a malware infected disc. This might all seem a bit far fetched and irrelevant to Hip-Hop, but I think that parallels can easily be drawn between these malicious attacks and the work of successful Hip-Hop artists, producers, and marketers.
ReplyDeleteUpon first reading the line in the above blog post saying, “Entrepreneurship is about the having the vision and ability to capture opportunity where there is none,” I was skeptical. After all, how is it possible to capture opportunity where there is none? I have decided that this phrase really implies that entrepreneurship is about capturing opportunity where the common person would not perceive any to exist. Returning to the concept of social engineering, I think that an important part of psychological manipulation is that achieving the desired outcome requires a fine tuned strategy. In the context of socially engineered hacks, an attack must be believable for it to be successful. An example of a poorly tuned attack is the classic Nigerian prince phishing attack. Something like that is relatively common, and people are more immediately suspicious to an email like that showing up in their inbox. However, if an attacker were to send a recipient a much more personalized and relevant email asking for similar payment information, the chances of success would be much higher.
In the context of Hip-Hop, we see the concept of fine tuning one’s brand when examining the correlation between an artist’s success, and his or her authenticity. An artist whose persona seems forced will not attract the same following as an artist who comes across as believable. Russell Simmons’ social influence is a product of his fine tuned strategy as it pertained to business and politics. In essence, the wealth that he obtained was a byproduct of his ability to read and manipulate the Hip-Hop crowd. Russell Simmons was a tactful social engineer whose ability to hack hip-hop enabled him to make millions.
The top of the game is a very elite place. It is surrounded by incredible people such as Russel Simmons (Def Jam), Jay Z (Roc Nation), and of course Sean John "Puff Daddy" Combs (Ciroc, Bad Boys Ent., Sean John). These elite people have one thing in common...THEY WILL NOT LET FAILURE BE AN OPTION. Each of them had a vision and they each kept at it until they "made it". Of course they have run into business ventures that are not as effective as others but they have never gave up. One of the beautiful things that these men did with their business ventures is that they did it their way and didn't conform to the normal white collar ways that people expect, they brought their own flavor to the party. Both Simmons and Diddy were known to speak in harsh terms. Simmons for example used terms like "fuck it" when describing how he felt about hurting someones feelings.
ReplyDeleteThe person in the light most of the time is Jay Z. He, incase it is forgotten, bought out TIDAL, a music streaming service for 56 Million dollars. Ladies and gentleman that is quite a sum of money. But when he bought it, he didn't just buy it and let it sit...he did something very few people can do. He put his Jay Z stamp of approval with it, which is worth more than its weight in gold. At first his streaming service didn't pick up hype, but he did something really interesting to change it up. He had a concert where he only played his songs he didn't rap live very often, and you could only see it if you were a TIDAL subscriber...adding incentive to buy TIDAL. In more recent events him and his buddy KanYe West (My personal favorite rapper in the game next to K Dot) did something that made a lot of people who like their music very upset. They decided to only release KanYe's new album The Life of Pablo on TIDAL and told everyone that Apple Music would never get the album. This was a great business deal to make, it would entice more people to bring their money to TIDAL and would also cause Apple and Spotify to take hits in their bank accounts. Although it makes me upset that I can not buy his album from iTunes it did make sense to do this as a business move. In revenue TIDAL is projected to gain an extra 15 million dollars this year just because of KanYe's Album and also since the launch they have more than doubled subscribers from 1 million to 2.5 million.
If Jay Z gave up on TIDAL or Roc Nation before it took off, he would have forget about the most important part of entrepreneurship....be relentless and be fearless to make your dream come true. Had Russel Simmons given up on Def Jam, we may have never seen the likes of Rhianna, KanYe, Mariah Carey, or NAS. Lastly if Diddy gave up on Ciroc just because no one drank it at first, then he wouldn't be the millionaire business tycoon that we have all grown to know and love. As a last note, all of these three have infuleneced hip-hop by (1) Staying real to the game (2) Never gave up (3) Used their power and knowledge of Hip-Hop/Hustling to revolutionize the Business and Music industry.
Russell Simmons' sweet spot in terms of his power as a mogul in the Hip Hop industry relates to his political stance on a plethora of issues. Professor Patterson said it best, "First you get the money, then you get the power". Russel Simmons has used his platform from creating his name as a mogul through Def Jam, producing movies such as The Nutty Professor, Phat Farm, etc. In agreeance to Yanis, I do believe that his tough skin to not let failure be an option has catapulted his career upward. His money has allowed for his power to proliferate. From even watching his appearances on 'Run's House' that ran on the BET Network from 2005-2009, Russel Simmons sticks to his values and there little to nothing that can compete with that! Looking at his political brand, he is an advocate for Ahimsa and vegetarianism, being that he has been vegan since 1999. He has received awards from PETA as well as recognized internationally as t Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Slavery Memorial at the United Nations. His brand only expands due to his continuous means to expand himself culturally. With that, his net worth sits at 340 million, and even his words of advice are essential to what hip hop's integrity sits on... "Stay on your hustle, don't quit"
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ReplyDeleteEveryone (in class) has done a superb job at appraising Russell Simmons’ ingenuity and aptitude for social engineering. But let’s not forget that Dan Charnas highlights Simmons’ successes and shortcomings. I’m attracted to the latter because it doesn’t take much to see where Simmons excelled. We can easily understand why his winning characteristics (namely, his vision and risk-taking) are admired. Charnas practically spells it out. As Dr. Patterson remarked, his fearlessness is surely the most fundamental attribute that engendered his career with longevity. And Simmons definitely understood the limitations and value of Def Jam Recordings — which is why he sought to sustain Phat Farm and implement Def Comedy Jam and Def Poetry Jam as subsidiary operations. He desired to keep the “Def” brand hot, even if Rick Rubin admonished the company with a funeral.
ReplyDeleteThis said, Simmons did not coordinate an effective exit strategy – that accomplishment should be designated to Lyor Cohen. Once Polygram purchased 50% of the company, Simmons irresponsibly reinvested in Phat Farm without guidance and professional consultation. Remember, Alain Levy encouraged Simmons to (1) speak with a financial advisor, (2) search for expert assistance to manage Phat Farm, or (3) relinquish the brand.
What’s more, Cohen, realizing that Simmons was never giving up his fashion pursuits, “resolved to tighten [the] organization” (Charnas 667). Cohen fired bad hires and assembled a tenacious team; he ensured the Def Jam company culture was centered on a tireless work ethic. While Russell seemed to have vision — the most important aspect of a CEO — he lacked organizational clarity. Presumably, without Cohen’s loyalty (and work horses like Carmen Ashurst), it is unclear whether Def Jam would’ve survived its 90s turbulence.
In short, Russell’s power stemmed from his cultural politicking and post Universal Music Group purchase in 1999. Until then, he was far too unruly and inattentive. If it takes smarts and risk to make it, it would seem that Simmons lacked the former quality (particularly, as it relates to tactical planning). Cohen’s understanding of business operations structured Simmons’ unclear vision.