Check out Hip Hop impresario turned full blown advertising mogul Steve Stoute’s latest interview with TIME magazine where he dishes about his immensely successful transition into the marketing world. Check out a few excerpts below

On Mary J. Blige:

Stoute’s ability to engage consumers with his clients’ messages was on full display when Mary J. Blige debuted her new perfume, My Life, on the Home Shopping Network July 31 to record-breaking sales. The fragrance sold 60,000 units in six hours. According to the network, it also drove 20% of new customers to HSN. While the numbers were remarkable, so was the fact that buyers hadn’t even had a chance to sample the fragrance. Rather, Stoute had gotten Blige to create a series of online video vignettes so customers could connect with her. He calls the perfume “Mary’s life encapsulated in a product.” The marketing came down to the power of storytelling, says Stoute. “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. It was a grand slam.”

On The Tanning Of America:

What he calls “the tanning of America.” The growing African-American, Hispanic and Asian-American populations together command an estimated $2 trillion in buying power. And they have become hugely influential trendsetters. Demographers know this, but Stoute sees the shift as a massive cultural transformation that most companies are missing.

According to Stoute, this seismic shift has ushered in an era of shared cultural tastes and attitudes. The tanning concept, he says, is built around not the physical reality of different racial makeups but rather what he calls “a shared mental complexion.” To make a brand relevant, companies need to understand that multicultural advertising is no longer a niche strategy: multicultural is what America looks like. “One of the things that made me realize right away that Steve was an innovative thinker was when I heard him talking about the tanning of America,” says Pamela El, marketing vice president of State Farm. “He said that advertisers and marketers need to follow the lay of the land, and the face of America is changing.” Stoute took LeBron James to State Farm, managing to make King James both relevant and funny in ads for insurance.

On Connecting Justin Timberlake With Mcdonalds

It was Stoute who in 2003 helped steer Justin Timberlake to McDonald’s for its “I’m Lovin’ It” campaign with a rather unorthodox approach: instead of McDonald’s simply licensing an existing Timberlake song, Timberlake recorded an original “I’m Lovin’ It” tune. The song got heavy airplay prior to the campaign’s debut, and by the time the ad, also featuring Timberlake, aired, the public already had a relationship with the song. It’s a strategy deployed by Bollywood filmmakers to create a musical 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.

Read full interview here

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