Why are we bringing you branding lessons from rappers? When looking for inspiration, it is often best to look outside your industry. Looking inside your industry for inspiration inherently means someone in your industry is already doing something you are not. Simply copying them isn’t a good idea.
However, looking outside of your industry brings all sorts of exciting ideas and creative opportunities.
Successful rappers are some of the smartest branders that you can learn from. Below are 4 things rappers are doing that you should be too.
They curate their image
Rappers build a persona, manage it and control it. They aren’t afraid to tell you where they are from and their personal stories. They share their upbringing with you, both the good and the bad. They are intentionally polarizing. They know the importance of photography, video, and point of view.
They understand brand architecture
Rappers are never just on their own. They are signed to labels, and the label has as much, and often times more brand recognition than the rappers themselves. Labels become umbrella brands for the individual sub-brands of the rappers. Labels develop a reputation, and own various segments of the market. The label provides recognition to the rapper and the rapper brings new exposure to the label. A win-win branding solution.
Rappers are affiliate marketers
Rappers understand cross promotion. They make songs together so that they both gain exposure from the others fans. Songs, even albums are “co-branded” and create massive exposure and hype. Think if Apple and Microsoft made a computer together, or BMW and Mercedes came out with a new car. How huge would that be? Well that’s what rappers do all the time to tremendous effect.
Rappers are great at extending their brand
The music is only part of the equation with rappers these days. Diddy owns Sean John and Ciroc Vodka. Jay-Z owns a sports agency, a music streaming service, and his own label. Beats by Dre? Dr. Dre sold it to Apple for a cool 1 billion. Billion with a B. Rappers leverage their fame to create new product lines in a variety of industries. Ciroc becomes cool because it is the Vodka of rap stars. Beats by Dre becomes the headphones for people serious about music, as serious as Dr. Dre, and Jay-Z used his fame to get the Nets to move from New Jersey to his hometown of Brooklyn. They are now the Brooklyn Nets, a cool, hip franchise as opposed to the also-ran New Jersey Nets.
It is amazing what you can learn from other industries about your business. Could you do something similar as it relates to cross promotion? Could you organize your brand and sub-brands to better effect? What other products or services could you offer because of a strong brand?
You may not like 24 inch rims and blinged out diamond necklaces, but those things don’t pay for themselves. Take note and it could mean a lot more money for your business.
