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PUBLICATIONS FINANCIAL FIRMS GOVERNMENT/NGO (New This Month) |
AUTOMOTIVE Chrysler Motors MCorp. General Motors Mercedes-Benz NA Mercedes-Benz MUSA Mitsubishi Motor MSales Nissan North MAmerica Volkswagen of MAmerica Harley-Davidson TECHNOLOGY ENTERTAINMENT CONSUMER PRODUCTS
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You people have no idea. Pimp my this...Pimp my that. Well, the life of a pimp has nothing to do with pop idiom or the catch phrase of the moment. Let me drop a little knowledge on you about the world's second oldest profession. As a work of literature, it is arguably one of the most influential autobiographies ever written. In a scant 214 pages, Robert Beck provided a prototype for several generations of urban youth that still holds strong for such pop icons as Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Ice-T, Jay-Z and scores of others who claim allegiance to "The Life." Robert Beck was a "man of leisure" in Chicago for more than 25 years, including several years behind bars in Levenworth and Cook County jail. Conversely, he attended Tuskegee Institute briefly in the mid 1930s, at the same time as Ralph Ellison, noted author of "The Invisible Man," whose landmark novel he outsold by several million copies. When I met Robert Beck, I was managing a club called Foxy's in Chicago. I had no idea who he was, or who he had been. He was introduced to me by "Mr. T," who was at that time a bouncer at a Northside disco called BBC. The card he gave me presented him as a District Sales Rep for Cutty Sark Scotch, which was evident by the brand new yellow and green Caddy parked outside the club with the sailing ship emblazoned across the trunk. He described the car as his Christmas bonus. He was the top selling salesman in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. And what a salesman he was. It wasn't until Mr. Beck's third sales call that Mr. T had spilled the beans as to his friend's former identity. Like almost everybody else in my generation, I had grown up in a broken home dominated by a no-nonsense matriarch. "Pimp" represented a Black man who lived by his own rules and dominated (rather than being dominated by) women. "Why should anybody pay for what they can get for the price of a drink and a smooth conversation?" was how he put it. He knew the sexual revolution was coming and the battleground was to be the neighborhood bar or nightclub. In fact, it was Robert Beck who first introduced the concept of the "ladies night" in the Chicago clubs, a phenomena that fast spread across the country and caused a spike in liquor and condom sales nationwide. "Iceberg Slim" retired from The Life at 40, when the proliferation of television made young girls smarter and easy credit made Cadillacs a dime a dozen. But the art of what he became famous for still lives on in the ways in which we in advertising seduce our audiences. I learned a great deal about human nature on those cold Chicago evenings when Mr. Beck (I always called him Mr.) would stop by at closing time with two or three beautiful women who would never say a word but would find themselves an out-of-the-way table and wait patiently for the finger snap that signaled their departure. These are some of the things I learned from Mr. Beck that still hold true today: Nothing sells like uncertainty. If people think there are others like them who want something, they will not be so concerned about price or particulars. Music is the great seducer. Keep it low. Just barely able to be understood. People will pay much more attention to something they can't quite understand. And when they finally get it, they will remember it. Perfect beauty is boring. Flawed beauty is irresistible. I never use models. I prefer actors. Character is far more compelling. People are intimidated by flawless beauty. Yet they are intrigued by beauty that is in some way flawed. Women want to be in control. But men who can be controlled are not the ones they listen to. It is easier to resell an expensive item that has been used than an expensive item that is new. People trust things that have a history. People don't care about quality. People care about making other people believe they care about quality. A Volvo will never outsell a Cadillac. Men will never understand women as long as they believe there is any difference between the sexes. Women don't want sex without sexy. Men don't understand sexy without sex. Older women will always be more demanding than younger women when it comes to getting the best value for their money. Women shop. Men buy. Women select. Men settle. And on and on it goes. Of course I keep the best ones to myself as Mr. Beck counseled. Iceberg Slim. What a great ad man he would have made.
Stay tuned.
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