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By Johnnie L. Roberts
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Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, and Gwen Stefani, superstar lead singer of No Doubt, may seem an unlikely pairing. But there they were, center stage at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, bantering for the audience about the new Harajuku Lovers digital camera, whose exterior was designed by Stefani. Fiorina complimented "our hippest product engineer," and Stefani described her camera fashion accessory as "very, very cute and very Japanese-inspired." HP will introduce it in May with a splashy ad campaign, timed to the release of the video for the next song from Stefani's debut solo CD. To capture the picture-perfect marketing moment onstage, Stefani held the camera at arm's length, leaned in next to Fiorina and snapped a shot.
Perhaps the only person flashing a wider smile in the overflowing 1,600-seat theater was Steve Stoute, the hip-hop-attired man in the front row who played matchmaker to these stars and who has built a remarkable record of arranging fruitful marriages between corporate America and pop culture. It was Stoute who linked rapper Jay-Z and Reebok. The result: the white-hot S. Carter Collection of RBK sneakers. He helped McDonald's sign up Justin Timberlake for its "I'm Lovin' It" jingle. Hilfiger's fragrance for Beyonce? Stoute again. Campaigns like these have put Stoute at the forefront of a new field many call entertainment marketing, which is gaining a fast following among artists looking for new revenue streams and corporations seeking the reflected glow of hip stars.
Stoute named his firm, fittingly enough, Translation. "He's the conduit between corporate America and rap and the street, and the music industry generally," says Jay-Z. "He speaks both languages." Or, in the words of Dennis Baldwin, Reebok's top marketer: "Steve is credible in the music and entertainment worlds. Then he can switch gears, walk into the boardroom of a Fortune 500 company and speak his ideas in a way they can understand."
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Credibility in the music business, especially hip-hop, is hard earned. But Stoute, 34, did it--as a top exec at Sony Music and Interscope and as manager to top stars (Mary J. Blige, Nas and superproducers Trackmasters). And he has Madison Avenue credentials; until last year he was a partner with adman Peter Arnell. That varied resume makes Stoute "the right guy for guiding brands in using the record industry to reach youth culture in a credible way," says Jimmy Iovine, CEO of Interscope Geffen records. Recently, Interscope acquired a stake in Translation.
Stoute sees himself as more than just a matchmaker with the Who's Who Rolodex; he takes an aggressive role in helping launch brands and generating marketing concepts (Stoute calls it "contemporizing brands"). "He's just constantly figuring out new ways of marketing," says Cammie Dunaway, chief marketing officer for Yahoo, a new Stoute client. After Stoute delivered Beyonce to Tommy Hilfiger last summer to pitch a new fragrance, True Star, Hilfiger asked him for more ideas. Hilfiger quickly acted on one--Stoute's suggestion to sponsor high-school cheerleaders to promote Hilfiger's Tommy Girl fragrances. "Cheerleading is sort of an underground cult for teens," Hilfiger says. Stoute sees it as an "all-American sport that aligns perfectly with the Hilfiger brand."
He did more than just align HP with Stefani. "Steve also had a big role in steering us to the camera, which hasn't been personalized," notes Doug Cole, HP's director of entertainment marketing. Also, Stoute instinctively knew Stefani would be willing to help make a digital camera cool, rather than, say, a Big Mac. "He edited out all the other things that didn't make sense," says Jim Guerinot, Stefani's manager.
Stoute's work for McDonald's had an intriguing twist. Typically, consumer brands will license a classic hit (the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" for Windows 95). But Stoute lined up Timberlake and superstar producing team the Neptunes to record a single titled--you guessed it--"I'm Lovin' It." Jive Records, the singer's label, released the record to radio. Then McDonald's launched the campaign with ads featuring Timberlake and images from the music video for the single. The campaign is "about music, entertainment, sports and fashion..." McDonald's wrote in its annual report.
Stoute's track record isn't perfect. He had a minor role in helping his then partner Arnell land Celine Dion for Chrysler, a debacle that riveted Madison Avenue after car sales failed to hit a high note. Embarrassingly, Stoute himself once provided fodder for the New York tabloids. In 1999, rap mogul P. Diddy bashed Stoute with a champagne bottle in a dispute over a marketing tool--a music video. They soon renewed their friendship, though, and each went on to become a master promoter of hip-hop culture. Last year Stoute helped orchestrate HP's gift of a diamond-encrusted HP iPod that was presented to Diddy at his post-MTV Video Awards party--more buzz for HP.
Still, Stoute's misses seem inconsequential in light of his hits. The biggest is Reebok and Jay-Z's S. Carter Collection, which has rung up $100 million in sales for Reebok, according to a source familiar with the business. "Steve understood the synergy between music and sports, athletes and musicians, and knew there was an untapped market for combining the two," says Paul Fireman, Reebok's CEO.
Various styles of S. Carter shoes help decorate Stoute's office in midtown Manhattan, along with the other products he's promoting. A humidor is crammed with Zino Platinum cigars, a venture between him, Arnell and high-end cigar maker Davidoff. Dozens of jars, tubes and bottles of beauty-care products by Carol's Daughter stock another shelf behind his desk. The skin creams and bath oils from Brooklyn entrepreneur Lisa Price have a cult following, and Stoute bought a stake in the firm. One recent afternoon he was on the phone trying to persuade Reebok's Baldwin to fly in for a meeting with Pharrell of the Neptunes to talk about Pharrell's new line of Reebok sneakers. "I know how important this guy is," Stoute yelled. "We cannot f--- this up. We have to fight for this deal."
Stoute knows that all that fighting pays off with the magic of genuine buzz. Back in Las Vegas, hours after HP unveiled Stefani's Harajuku Lovers camera, organizers of the trade show (not HP) held a panel discussion on marketing to teens. Early in the session, a teenage girl on the panel declared she wanted to buy not just any camera, but Gwen Stefani's. With endorsements like that, Steve Stoute is lovin' it.
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