What's The Formula Yo? (audio)

It's Formula 5-0.

I wouldn't be a writer/marketing guy/artist if I didn't try to tastefully point out my satisfaction in being able to post audio that seems synergistically tied to a theme currently in the news / on Gawker.

A couple weeks ago I jumped on the Krucoff story. This week the theme is 50 Cent.

In the spring of this year, myself and a few other music professionals were asked by the incredibly smart people at Snap Marketing to help them brainstorm an experiential marketing campaign. One that would link their client Glaceau/VitaminWater with the forthcoming Anger Management Tour and VitaminWater spokesman 50 Cent.

And not having been a drinker of VitaminWater's "Formula 50" up until that point, I remember thinking, "this guy has nothing but a story about being shot nine times, and an ability to rap, and he is everywhere and into everything." Cause I don't know about you, but for me 50 Cent and the VitaminWater brand doesn't immediately spring to mind as a natural symbiotic connection.

It showed the power of a good story, tied in with a proactive, open-minded, and creative approach to marketing and self-promotion.

And I think since I was in the process of getting my CD finished, and rebranding myself as a solo artist, and reading about how stories are the essence of good marketing, and perhaps life in general, I really embraced the lesson.

I used to think self-promoter = asshole. But now here I am trying to tell my story to anyone who'll listen/read, and Nerve.com calls me one of the "best self-promoters we've ever met."

I guess I still think a lot of self-promoters are assholes (including myself), but I realize now that if you do have a good story, whether it's for the kids or not, the asshole part isn't determined by self-promoting, it's determined by the story/product behind it. Selling isn't the problem. Selling shit is.

The only thing that concerns me with the 50 phenomenon, is that I don't see enough winks. I don't see enough knowing smiles. Perhaps it's just brand commitment and solidarity. Kind of like the Republicans during a presidential election year. Your actual premise/content matters less if you have tons of people uniformly supporting it.

So if Fifty doesn't let up on the violence. That's just good business. Focused niche marketing. And I can't hate on that, my feelings about the hip hop image beginning to shift away from "empowerment through criminality" notwithstanding.

But I like to think I take the more difficult road.

The safe model says put yourself in a box and stick with it, so people know how to classify you. When you want sexy(?)-thug with a violent street edge and poppy hooks, you want 50 Cent.

With TAN, now three months in, you're probably still not sure what you're going to get. Maybe some jokes, maybe some philosophizing, maybe some audio, maybe some panhandling with the bloggerati. My formula's a little different.

See I don't know if my writing skills, or rapping skills, or humor skills are remarkable in and of themselves. But I do think the range of things I bring to the table is fairly unique, and has the potential to make a great story.

One that is in progress and hopefully landing in Show Me The Moneyville sometime soon.

So anyways. After the Snap Marketing brainstorm, i wanted to show off those hip hop skills, and make a little something something that incorporated Snap and VitaminWater and Formula 50. It seemed odd to me that you would have a rapper for a spokesman but not have a song or something done by him. So TAN stepped in to fill the void and knocked this ditty out in less time than it takes to read the funny copy on a Glaceau label.

And quite frankly, when considering the VitaminWater brand: sarcastic, witty, intelligent, layered, approachable, conversational, modern, independent, does things different, tongue and cheek, don't you think TAN would make a much better representative for VitaminWater than 50Cent. I mean, come on.

Only problem is I don't have millions of people buying my record. But I'm working on it.

So with that intro I present, "What's The Formula Yo?"

the cast of characters this time around includes:

Dave, Abe, Ed, and Arron over at Snap

Darius Bikoff who formed Glaceau and the VitaminWater brand in '96.

And I guess that's it.

Well aside from the unnamed girl who is the subject of my favorite line:

"I told the girl it was nutrient enhanced
yo, she put her booty in my hands..."

drop it like it's hot, drink it when we say so




you done it again TAN, where's those lyrics



tell VitaminWater TAN should be taking 50's place


more TAN audio

Now go drink a vitaminwater
.