Picture from the event

I always knew there was something super advanced and different about the Black Eyed Peas. My first sign was when I saw them perform at Intel’s private launch party for their Core 2 Duo processor at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (thanks to Marc Harrison – pictures below). It was the first time I ever experienced a collision of mainstream music, technology, celebrities, and media all in one room, at one major event.

Yesterday I read an article in the Rolling Stones by Chris Norris titled “40 Reasons To Be Excited About Music” and sure enough, coming in at No.1 was “The Black Eyed Peas – Will.I.Am and the Science of Global Pop Domination.”

The entire article is certainly worth a read for anyone that’s in to music, but the piece that really hit me was this…

“To Will.i.am, songs aren’t discrete works of art but multi-use applications – hit singles, ad jingles, film trailers – all serving a purpose larger than music consumption. Creatively, he draws no distinction between writing rhymes and business plans, rocking arenas and PowerPoint, producing albums and media platforms, all these falling under a cleareyed mission to unite the largest possible audience over the broadest range imaginable. It’s a mission he communicates with a combination of Pentecostal zeal and Silicon Valley jargon, suggesting a hybrid of Stevie Wonder and Steve Jobs.”

It’s the idea that media and music are really one in the same. That business and music are thought about the same way and are less complimentary but more interconnected.

Over the past year, the lines between technology, software, media, music, marketing and news has become increasingly blurry.

Here are just some examples:

• Meredith Media, a company that used to be a traditional publishing company is now acting as a fully integrating marketing agency.
• Global advertising holding companies like Havas, OMD, and Publicis are now looking to build their own technology units in house in an attempt to replace the need for Ad Networks and control the entire online advertising stack.
• Software is Media, says Fred Wilson in a recent post –  ”Media are the tools that are used to communicate. And software that runs on the web is part of the media landscape.”
• NBC recently launched a new program called “Behavior Placement” which is “designed to sway viewers to adopt actions they see modeled in their favorite shows.”

And even today there’s news about how Hearst, another traditional publishing company, is looking to buy the digital advertising firm iCrossing for $375M.

As are lives continue to digitize, the companies and artists that continue to take a longer, interconnected view on culture, technology and media, will be the ones that succeed. Will.i.am and the BEP are definitely on “that next shit now.”

Intel – Black Eyed Peas

Will.i.am is the Man – Creating a New Era of Music Media Platforms is a post from... Dan Reich - A Student - Learning, Living at the Intersection of Business + Technolog + Innovation + Culture.
Follow me on Twitter: @DanReich Facebook: Facebook.com/danreich

Things are getting tough, especially in the marketing world.

Marketers have to go way beyond conventional wisdom to drive results for their clients or personal business.

One, definitely not so new style, is what I like to think of as “F-U” Style Marketing. A style where one marketer or company completely bashes another.

I recently turned on a new NYC FM radio station 92.3 NOW FM, and about every 10 minutes I hear them bashing their competing station Z-100:

• “If you listen to Z-100, you hate the Easter bunny”

• “Commercial free because we don’t have to pay for Elvis Duran’s (the radio MC) hair gel”

There were some other somewhat cheesy bash-lines they had and can’t remember, but you get the point.

Are things so tough that people have to resort to dirty, guerrilla style marketing tactics? Is this just a good tactic to use anyway? I mean, we see it all the time in political campaigns, blogs, articles, reviews, books, music, and television.

I recently saw this video and couldn’t help but think that it was fake and done by a competing pizza company:…talk about “dirty” tactics…

“F-U” Style Marketing is a post from... Dan Reich - A Student - Learning, Living at the Intersection of Business + Technolog + Innovation + Culture.
Follow me on Twitter: @DanReich Facebook: Facebook.com/danreich