Understanding Cultural Marketing
Modern marketing initiatives in todays consumer driven economies is primarily based on Information that tracks quantitative data sets including demographic details, consumer psychology, behaviour and taste. Marketers have used this type of analysis to great effect and have delivered substantial returns of investment for many shareholders while establishing various brands to iconic status in the marketplace. Yet it is becoming more and more obvious especially in small markets like the Caribbean that while traditional marketing tools are effective, it presents an incomplete picture of consumer behaviour and taste and most importantly the motivation behind a relationship with a product or service and the consumer. What is missing in this mix is the cultural or ethnographic perspective that has profound effects on consumer behaviour and choice. As Jure Kelpic notes, “By paying attention to these cultural insights, marketers can get ahead of the curve and offer messages that anticipate changing consumer attitudes rather than simply responding the present needs and wants of consumers.”
Marketers in the Caribbean have relied for far too long on consumer insights from market research which tracks the motivations, behaviors, needs and psychology, of consumers. A fatal mistake has also been the reliance of anecdotal evidence and personal hunches or worse what works in developed countries for example the United States. Luckily this approach cannot be labeled as normative but in some instances I have seen this type of unscientific approach being utilized far too often for comfort. Consumer information for the most part is based on quantitative analysis of the market. Unfortunately for the major of companies who are international conglomerates, and the top tier companies in manufacturing, retail, distribution and financial services the scientific data invariably does not originate in this market. Yet it is expected to fit the consumer patterns of the region. We have seen the cookie cutter and culturally incongruent marketing that are constantly used to limited or no effect. We have also seen nationally produced campaign that has annoyed consumers instead of creating a desire for the product or service. Marketing disasters of epic proportions are legendary in the Caribbean and date back as early as the 1980s. The effect of this approach is to create a disconnect between suppliers and consumers with suppliers not understanding the relationship between the consumer and their product which ultimately leads to poor sales and a loss of market share. So while standard market research can deliver results, through the development of marketing strategies aimed at reaching their target markets, many have been miserable failures, resulting in significant loses and disconnect between product and consumers.
With cultural insights added to the mix of traditional marketing research and strategies companies are more able to understand in a more deep way the importance of culture and cultural trends in affecting the ever changing consumer behaviour, loyalty and needs. How does this type of research methodology works? Well ethnographic consumer research is about the culture of the consumers. Consumers are a part of our society and are influenced by societal norms, values and attitudes, religions and behaviour, superstitions, tribe influences and taboos. Describing culture marketing Kelpic states, “This matrix influences how messages are received by individuals in a way that is hard to quantify and fit into a strategic marketing plan.” With cultural marketing strategies, valuable information can be gleaned about current and future trends occurring in the marketplace, which almost impossible to discern from standard quantitative market research.
As Mary Douglas declares, “product is neutral, usage is social,” this statement underscores the significance of utilizing ethnographic tools in the marketing research strategy and that relying on traditional quantitative approaches is insufficient. To prove this point one only has to take a look at the uses of one Jamaican product, Blue soap, which in our society is used in multiple ways, not intended by the manufacture and the marketing strategies employed by its suppliers. The soap is marketed a detergent cake of soap, yet consumers have used It as a bleaching agent for white clothes, some use it as a cosmetic product (known for giving your face a smooth and cool appearance) it is also used to maintain and restore the elasticity of a particular female organ and of course a bleaching agent for skin toning.
While it would silly to expect the manufacturers to market this product to capitalize on the social uses of its product. This underscores the fact that culture plays insignificant part in the use, relationship, and social capital of a product. Cultural marketing helps a business understand where it product or service fits in the everyday life of the consumer and hence how it is valued in reality. Consumer marketing paradigm has shifted from product branding and profit maximization towards cultivating a loyal and satisfied customer. Companies must understand that culture is a critical driver of demand for products and services, hence it is critical that companies realize they have to be creators of cultural trends instead of continuously responding to it.
Did Morrison open the Doors for Marley?
In February, 1966, Bob Marley, after wedding Rita Anderson, left Kingston for Philadelphia to join his mother Cedella Booker in Delaware. In his book, Catch A Fire, Timothy White writes: “Bob did not like America and complained about ‘everything too fast, too noisy, too rush –rush’ in Delaware.
While in Delaware, Marley held several jobs: waiter, lab assistant, forklift driver and assembly line worker in a Chrysler motor vehicle plant. He longed to hang out and reason with his brethren; it was work and more work, no time for anything else. Bob spent a lot of time strumming his guitar and working on songs which he recorded in Jamaican exercise book.
In September 1966, Jim Morrison and the Doors rock group went into the studios to record their first album with the brilliant producer, Paul Rothchild. The album was completed in two weeks on a four track machine and took another five weeks to mix. The album consisted of 11 tracks- nine originals and two covers.
The Doors was released in January 1967 and went gold but not before the second single, Light My Fire, became a number one hit. On one of her visits to Delaware, Rita Marley met up with their old friend Dream who had been spending time with friends in Brooklyn.
He drove down to Delaware to hook up with Rita and Bob. During a jam session, Dream was shown some of bob’s new compositions which prompted Dream to bring on his next trip to Delaware, the Beatles’ new album, Revolver. When the song Eleanor Rigby was played Bob was reportedly mesmerised by its quality and spent the rest of the day listening to the song and was totally captivated by it melancholy overtones. By 1967, Bob was back in Jamaica and went back to recording at Clement “ Coxsone” Dodd’s Studio One with Bunny Wailer and Peter Tosh.
About the same time, Morrison and the Doors were becoming big stars in America with songs such as When The Music is Over, The End and Love Me Two Times. In December1967 Morrison became the first rock ‘n’ roller to be arrested on stage. Before his performance that night, a police officer had mistakenly maced him for an idler backstage.
A riot ensued, as the fans wanted to see the Doors. Morrison was charged with breach of the peace, resisting arrest and indecent or immoral exhibition. The charges were eventually dropped but the Doors became the band that America love to hate. Their music was regarded as dark, sexual and strange. They abhorred anything that smacked of commercialism.
At the same time the Wailers were in a similar predicament. They had a rude boy street image and resisted the attempts of Coxsone to keep them middle-of-the-road by doing cover songs and dance tracks. By the time of their fall-out with Coxsone, they were outcasts whose music did not fit the ska and rock steady mould that was popular at the time.
Bunny Wailer spent 14 months in prison for ganja possession and Tosh was arrested several times. It was said that the police were determind to imprison all the Wailers after an altercation between Coxsone, Bunny Wailer and Tosh which resulted in police escorting the two out of Studio One.
On stage, Jim Morrison was explosive; he aped James Brown’s moves and provoked his audience. He was sometimes offensive but very engaging. This caused constant run-ins with the law. His mode of dress was equally provocative for the times. The Doors wore no costumes; and leather pants and tight-fitting shirts were trademarks of Jim Morrison. Marley was similar in dress and his movement on stage were equally frenetic as Morrison’s. While Marley did not talk as much on stage, there was a power to his performance that provoked pretty much in the same way Morrison did.
The similarities between these two great groups are uncanny. Could there be a direct correlation to Marley and Morrison? Could Marley have been aware of the Doors while living in Delaware and liked what he saw? Were the Doors one of the forces that influenced Bob Marley, just as the Beatles, Curtis Mayfield and Bob Dylan did?
When one looks at the similarities between Marley and Morrison and the Doors, it is not far-fetched to assume that the former was influenced by them.
Thieves, Charlatans and Scholarship
There is an anti-intellectual trend that persists pervasively in Jamaica, which is so unfortunate. It is common to disparage people with university training. Misnomers such as “book bright” and “book smart” which are usually used to describe anyone who has university training and having the audacity of making a mistake or display any form of inexperience. Another argument is that many of the most successful persons in Jamaica as well as internationally did not go to university or dropped out. It always follow that “you don’t need a university degree to be successful”. There is no disputing that fact and intellectual snobs who believe that they are special due to their qualifications are rightly put in their place when they are confronted for their hubris. Many business people in Jamaica do not have degrees so it suggests higher learning is a complete waste of time. Just what is the source of this anti-intellectual attitude? I want to suggest that many of the most successful citizens did not get the privilege of higher education due to the barriers imposed on certain classes in Jamaica owing to the colonial oppression of our recent past. Hartley Neita writing in the Sunday Gleaner wrote:
Jamaican young women who were educated at secondary schools went afterwards to Duff’s and other secretarial training institutes. Those who were brown and white joined the staff of the commercial banks and firms such as Bryden and Evelyn and organisations such as the Jamaica Tourist Board and the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce. Those who were black joined the Civil Service.
Other girls who only received elementary education went to Carron Hall
Vocational School, Shortwood and Bethlehem Training Colleges for teachers,
and the Kingston Public Hospital to be trained as nurses. Some were
employed as sales clerks and cashiers.
Young men with an elementary education either joined the Police Force or
went to Mico College for training as teachers. Those with a secondary
education, and were brown or white, were articled to solicitors and
surveyors. Brown and white young men who joined the Civil Service were
placed in the Colonial Secretary’s Office while those of a darker shade
were posted to the Treasury, Collector-General or Public Works departments. (February 9, 2003)
The business class comprised of self made men and some women, who loved to point to the fact that they did not go to university and yet they were successful. Fast forward to the dancehall era when many inner-city youths became millionaires. Many were high school dropouts and many barely educated. With the rise of dons and the drug trade teachers were hard pressed to sell students the totally misguided admonition of going to school, pass exams then get a job. In the face of the apparent success of dons, deejays, traders and a bazaar economy posing as if Jamaica had a real capitalist class, no one was buying it. Higher learning was a waste of time especially when in the 1980s a former Prime Minister appeared on television and famously declared that the University of the West indies was not meeting the need of the society and essentially was a waste of time. This is the lasting legacy of the embrace of the neoliberal agenda of the 1980s. Presently this phobia for critical thinking has reached ridiculous heights. It is popular to hear that Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Michael Dell were all university dropouts. This to prove that there is no need for universities. But the folks who argue this are missing the fact that these few individuals were supremely bright, and qualified for some of the most prestigious universities in the world. Getting accepted to their hallowed grounds is a feat in itself. These individual were also on trajectories, which through their own brilliance, training at universities and financial support had the privileges of dropping out. The average Harvard graduate can afford to drop out due to the privilege position that they are from, it is not easy to afford ivy league education, just ask Barack Obama. However is it funny that these successful dropouts never hire their fellow dropouts, but recruit the best and brightest from MIT, Harvard, Yale, Oxford and UWI. Those who can afford due to a wealthy background and race, can afford not to go for higher learning; the rest of us better take the self made route or beat the books. It’s really nice to be a self-actualised successful person but this does not always translate into social standing and an appreciation of the finer things that life have to offer, as professor Nettleford once noted, “a bhutto in a benz is still a Bhutto”.
But consider some successful folks who have University training. Douglas Orane (Harvard), Michael Manley (London School of Economics), Deejay Charlie Chaplin, Deejay Tifa, (UWI), Singer Peter Lloyd (UWI), Warren Buffett, Financier (Columbia School of Business, Master’s in Economics) Danny Glover, Actor (University of San Francisco), Lionel Richie, Singer/Songwriter (Tuskegee University), Lisa Hanna Miss World MP (UWI), Rachel Maddow MSNBC (Oxford) doctorate , Tiger Woods, Golfer (Stanford), Ronald Reagan, Former US President (Eureka College), Gerald Ford, Former US President (University of Michigan), Phil Gramm, US Senator (University of Georgia, PhD), Don Quarrie, Olympic Champion, Track & Field, (University of Southern California), Ted Turner, CNN, Atlanta Braves/Hawks (Brown), Arnold Schwarzenegger, Body Builder/Actor/Governor (University of Wisconsin), Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones (London School of Economics), John Elway, NFL quarterback (Stanford), Mario Van Peebles, Actor/Director (Columbia), Patrick Ewing (Georgetown), Jennifer Small (UWI), Dionne Warwick Singer, Humanitarian (University of Hartford) PhD
The nerds are the cool people who are changing the world as we speak, smart is the new sexy. You don’t need university training to be successful and to lead a productive and wonderful life but critical thinking and what Rastafarians call consciousness are essential to a successful life. Pretending that higher education is not a good thing is just silly. We enjoy all the great things that were produced, theorised and invented by the products of higher learning. Can you imagine life without a cell phone, I-pad, PC or your high performance SUV? Street smarts is overrated, in fact street smarts is more about chicanery, con, insecurity and hubris. The world is being ran by incredibly smart university trained people. It is time we stop this backward trend and use our brains effectively to move the world forward.
Top Ten Dancehall Producers
1. Henry “Junjo” Lawes
Henry Lawes is the father of modern dancehall music and lifestyle he than most defined the genre in term of musical direction and lifestyle
2. Lloyd “King Jammy” James
King Jammy is the most prolific hit makers and innovator of dancehall in the 1980s and early 1990s. Jammy was responsible for the introduction the digital sound to Jamaican popular music and made dubplate an essential accessory of sound system culture
3. Clement “Coxsone” Dodd
One of the fathers of Jamaican music, Downbeat kick started dancehall with the music of Lone Ranger, Michigan and Smiley and Sugar Minott. His label Studio One, was responsible for the first dancehall album Live Loving Sugar Minott and dancehall classics such Nice up the Dance and Rub a Dub Style
4. Tony Kelly
The most prolific hit maker of the 1990s and early 2000s in terms of national and international output. Involved in major hits such as Flex Cobra Ghetto Red Hot Super Cat plus countless big songs such Chi Chi Man, King Of the Dancehall. Tony does not get the credit he deserve.
- Dave Kelly
He made the most fun oriented dancehall songs as writer and producer, along the way giving dancehall a major hype. The 2000s belonged to Dave Kelly who despite his impact in Jamaica the Diaspora and the a Caribbean did not score a lot of big hits internationally
6. Steelie and Cleavie the most creative and innovative producers reintroducing traditional artform like mento, revival and pocomania in popular music. The duo drum track from Poco man Jump was the foundation of reggaeton in Panama and Porto Rico. They provided the most backing track for dancehall and did work for many international artists including Billy Ocean.
7. Bobby “Digital” Dixon
Noted for his signature sound and seamless production values, Bobby ruled the 1990s and 2000s with hit songs galore from Shabba Ranks, Admiral Tibet Garnet Silk and Sizzla.
8. Donovan Germain
Noted for his work with Buju Banton, Wayne Wonder Tony Rebel and Cutty Ranks, Germain is known also for his seamless production values and his discography is an amazing blend of reggae and classic dancehall gems.
9. Sly and Robbie the best international producers of Jamaican music hands down the incredible catalogue started in the 1980s and continues into the present providing dancehall with an eclectic mix of sound and styles. Like dancehall fusion, One Pop and latrengae.
- King Tubby
There could be no Dancehall genres without King Tubby, the Ruddock techniques were the essential toolkit for early dancehall and he also contributed the early digital sound. King Tubby not only redefine Jamaican recordings but also he changed the way music is produced and represented globally prefiguring Pro- tools technology.
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