The Obamas- Impacting Lives One at a Time

Last night as I scrolled down my Instagram feed, I came across a video that immediately forced a few tears into my eyes. This past weekend 106 year-old South Carolina native, Ms. Virginia McLaurin took a long awaited trip to the White House. She was invited for a Black History Month reception, after receiving a community service award in 2014, but unfortunately not being granted the opportunity to meet the Obamas then. She filed a petition, but the requirements were not met before the deadline. That didn't stop her!

For decades, Ms. McLaurin has volunteered and served her community in the Washington D.C. area. At 106 years-old she is still volunteering at local schools, where she helps students with disabilities and serves as a foster mother. She stated that she never thought she would live to see an African-American president, but as President Obama's presidency comes to a close and Ms. McLaurin's 107^th birthday approaches next month, she can cross that off of her bucket list. I crack a smile every time I play the video and watch her face light up as she lays eyes upon the Obamas. I'm sure President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, experienced this same joy (and a little worry) as Ms. McLaurin dances over with an enormous amount of excitement an energy to embrace them.

As the first African-American president, I feel that President Obama has done an outstanding job of reaching out and impacting lives of those who lived through civil rights movements and only dreamed of the day an African-American man would become the President of the United States. Ms. McLaurin says she can now die happy, a feeling I'm sure many others can share. Thanks to Instagram, YouTube, and blog sites, we are able to share these precious moments that aren't nationally publicized. We can collectively appreciate the efforts that the Obamas have made and are making to embrace a people who were never supposed to make it this far. 

Happy Black History Month!

Kanye West- Crazy, Genius, or Both?

Kanye West, self-proclaimed musical genius, fashion extraordinaire, and living legend has obnoxiously finagled his way into the limelight once again. I mean, when it comes to Kanye West, most either love him or hate him. I guess I fall in the middle. I am definitely not a fan and I don’t agree with some of his antics, but I do believe there is some genius in that brain of his, which at the same time makes me feel okay about thinking he's absolutely crazy! Well everything all started about two weeks ago when he engaged in a Twitter altercation with rapper, Wiz Khalifa. In about twenty tweets, Kanye expressed his distaste for Wiz Khalifa and accused him of inappropriately incorporating his wife, Kim Kardashian’s initials in a tweet. After attacking Wiz Khalifa, he went on to bad mouth his ex and Wiz Khalifa’s son’s mother, Amber Rose. Wiz Khalifa must’ve really ruffled his feathers because never have I have seen someone go so far as to needing to use “17^th of all..” in an argument. Days before this particular rant, both Kim and Kanye had been posting several Twitter polls pertaining to album titles, possible song lists, and possible album cover artwork. Could that somewhat pointless Twitter rant have just been a marketing strategy to gain a bit of publicity before the album dropped and the premiering of his new clothing line at the exclusive Yeezy Season 3 show? I think so, considering the next day everything was supposedly solved between the two rappers.

Now, let’s move ahead a few weeks. After the album drops and the show is over, Kanye takes to twitter to address song lyrics where he calls singer Taylor Swift out of her name and claims that her fame should be accredited to him. Fans, nor her brother, Austin were too happy about this (Austin videos himself throwing away a pair of shoes from Kanye’s line). Kanye claims that the word he used to describe Taylor (and his wife on a different occasion) is a term of endearment. He also claimed that Taylor and everyone mentioned in the song gave him the permission to discuss them in the song. But I’m not sure how true that was after listening to Taylor subliminally address the issue in her acceptance speech last night at the Grammy’s.

Most recently, Kanye has taken to Twitter AGAIN and has used it as a medium to ask for very generous ($1 billion generous) donations from Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page. He says that he is in debt $53 million and needs the money to continue to produce great art, while still being able to feed his family. That kind of sounds like a personal problem, Kanye! Mark Zuckerberg donates his money to charities, everybody knows that, so I’m not too sure what Kanye was thinking when he pulled this one, but I guess we'll see. 

I know this was kind of a lot, so to bring everything back in, what do you think Kanye’s purpose of all of this is? At this point, everyone is asking why? Why so many Twitter rants in less than a month? Is he really out of his mind? Or has he successfully shown us how great of a marketing genius he is by taking advantage of our thirst to be involved with the industry via social media? Although he's not the most polite and the exact opposite of politically correct, he has a purpose and a passion that no one can deny. He knows we're addicted to refreshing our timelines and he knows we're wondering what all of the hype is around. One way or another, he's going to get people to listen, watch, and possibly learn a thing or two. 

Good one, Budweiser

So, Super Bowl 50 was this past Sunday. I think everyone got the memo except for poor Cam Newton and the Panthers. Personally, I was super excited! I’ve been waiting to cheer on Atlanta native, Cam Newton in the Super Bowl since his Auburn days and as a marketing/advertising junky, Super Bowl commercials are kind of like Christmas presents for me. Oh and one other thing....Beyoncé! In my opinion, although the halftime show was phenomenal, the game was pretty boring and the commercials weren’t all of that, however something did stick out to me. That something would be Peyton Manning’s post game interview. In the interview, Manning discussed his celebratory plans, which included spending time with his family and drinking a lot of Budweiser. When Peyton Manning made this announcement, Twitter blew up (well at least my timeline did) with estimations of how much he was paid for the two-second mention of Budweiser. I mean it is kind of ironic to mention a specific brand name during an interview that 111.9 million are watching, right? Representatives from Anheuser Busch quickly took to twitter to clear up speculations that Manning was paid for the announcement. Lisa Weser, leader of marketing communications tweeted, “Hi internet. For the record, Budweiser did not pay Peyton Manning to mention Budweiser tonight. We were surprised and delighted that he did.” I guess Budweiser just got lucky. Thanks Lisa, but a lot of people weren’t buying it. Either way, whether Payton Manning was paid or not, Budweiser is now more desired than ever. Peyton Manning drinks Budweiser, so it must make you a champion! I'm curious to see how much Budweiser sales increase over the next couple of weeks and how the company uses this unexpected, but much appreciated promotion to its advantage. 

Got Twitter Beef?

Twitter beef has been around for a while, well ever since Twitter has existed, and every once in a while it gets even more interesting than usual. Twitter has been used as a platform to express any sort of discontent with products, performances, and people, which is what usually fuels the twitter beefs. Lately companies have figured out a way to sway away from serving as the center of the backlash and rather appear and promote in the midst of other's chaos and drama. 

Over the past few months, rappers Drake and Meek Mill have been “beefing”. I’m not 100% sure how the whole feud started, but the two have been going back and forth, expressing their dissatisfaction with each other via Twitter, Instagram, and multiple diss records for the past few months. As proven time and time again, when public figures are going at it PUBLICLY, the whole world is going to be watching. Many fast food restaurants recognized the enormous amount of publicity the internet fight was gaining and decided to get in on some of the action. Chick-fil-A, White Castle, Whataburger, and Burger King are just a few amongst the long list of companies who used this world wide “beef”, to promote for their own beef (or lack there of, in Chick-fil-A’s case).

 

The appearance of these brands during internet happenings that they would not typically be associated with, gives them relevance and makes them relatable. Their presence shows consumers that they are very much so aware and present. Not only are these brands humanizing themselves and building relationships with their customers, they're effectively doing what they showed up to initially do, promote. While refreshing twitter feed to keep up, you now want a burger!

YouTube it!

My best friend Destini always says, “If you don’t know how to do something, YouTube it!”  She can’t be more right. Over the past decade, YouTube has become the go-to teacher for aspiring chefs, gamers, hairstylists, and most recently make-up artists. Make-up has always been of interest to women around the world. And by make-up, I mean a little foundation, mascara, eyeliner, and maybe some blush, but thanks to YouTube we’ve seen quite an innovative shift in the way make-up is applied and designed. There are thousands of make-up brands available these days, all promising to transform women into celebrity-like, flawless beings. I like to attribute this growth of product lines to YouTube. Before YouTube, everyone wanted to look like a celebrity, but no one really knew how. Now the world knows thanks to a few pretty artists and of course, YouTube.

Today, women globally are consulting YouTube first pertaining techniques such as “contouring” and “baking”. Yes I said, “baking”, a technique that requires about 15 minutes of letting certain make-up components sit in order to allow the body’s natural heat absorb the products into the skin for a more flawless look. Who would’ve ever thought! When you type “baking make-up” into the YouTube search bar over 400,000 results are returned! The same goes for contouring, eye shadow and eyeliner techniques, along with various product reviews.
 

Not only is YouTube changing the way people apply make-up, it’s changing the way they make money! Famous make-up YouTube users are generating up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. How? Once users obtain a high enough number of views on a video or a significant number of subscribers, they are considered “influencers”. They are then sought out by companies that are interested in using the influencers to promote and bring awareness to their products. Did I mention these influencers are paid for this? One of my favorite YouTube make-up gurus, Desi Perkins, has over 1 million subscribers. She is constantly sent new products to promote and review and sent on all expenses paid vacations to try out new products. She's living the life, I would say. Most recently, she was flown out my Marc Jacobs to be one of the first to experience his new make-up collection. YouTube is creating careers!

In my 22 years of life, I have never seen anything quite like this. Young women everywhere are doing whatever it takes to keep up with the latest make-up trends. It’s fascinating to say the least. Thanks YouTube!