The Nets unveil the final ‘New Jersey Nets’ logo

The New Jersey Nets won't have new jerseys for their final season in New Jersey, but they will have a new logo to go on their old jerseys, one that celebrates the 35 years the team spent in New Jersey following time in New York, before they develop new jerseys for their move next year to New York.

With more accuracy and fewer annoying plays on words, the New York Times (via Pro Basketball Talk) sums up the addition:

The Nets will unveil a special logo as early as Wednesday to coincide with the announcement of the 2011-2012 season schedule. The logo is actually pretty snappy. In the center is a tri-color basketball with the Nets name written in 1970's era script, an homage to the team's A.B.A. past. The number 35 in the middle. Below are the years 1977 and 2012, bookends to the team's often-withered years in the Garden State. A tiny outline of the state is at the bottom in white.

It's an open question is whether true blue Nets fans in New Jersey will want to shell out $20, $30 or more for merchandise produced by a team that is leaving town in the spring. The Nets, however, feel that it is the right thing to do.

"It will be our farewell moniker," said Fred Mangione, the team's chief marketing officer. "As we go out, we want to go out the right way."

"Jersey strong, Brooklyn ready," though? That would be tough to take, even if New Jersey fans haven't exactly made the Nets part of their stately pride, so to speak, as the team has moved from East Rutherford to Newark.

Any move to recognize New Jersey, though, is a good one. The Nets upset some a few years ago when it moved to take the words "New Jersey" off of their uniform before prepping for the move to Brooklyn, and it's the least they can do in another quasi-rebuilding season (a shortened one, at that) to throw Newark a wave.

And anything that involves something remotely hinting at an ABA existence (the Nets won the 1974 and 1976 ABA championships as the New York Nets) is a major plus, in our eyes. Sound addition, Netsies.

Translation Planning to Split From Parent Interpublic

Growing Multicultural Firm, Which Counts Jay-Z as a Partner, Wants to Take on General-Market Agencies

Translation, the agency launched by marketing mogul Steve Stoute, is negotiating a buyback from parent Interpublic Group of Cos., Mr. Stoute told Advertising Age, as the shop moves away from its identity as a multicultural agency and seeks to rival bigger, general market firms.
 

The desire to recapture its independence comes as Translation is increasingly being tapped by blue-chip marketers for work outside of solely African-American marketing duties. Mr. Stoute said Translation is McDonald's agency of record for sports and entertainment marketing; is engaged on product development and packaging for Wrigley; and handles national advertising campaigns for State Farm, Estee Lauder, DSW and Target. It's also recently won assignments from Coca-Cola and Nokia as well, he said, though he declined to elaborate.

Still, Translation is currently is one of the smallest firms under Interpublic's umbrella of agencies. It had 26 employees before being acquired almost four years ago and has 65 employees today; in 2010, it posted $9 million in revenue, up from $6 million in revenue in 2009, according to Ad Age's DataCenter. Mr. Stoute partnered with rap mogul Jay-Z in 2008.

Interpublic, the fourth-largest advertising holding company, in October 2007 bought a majority stake in Translation for an estimated less than $15 million. As of April 2011, Interpublic owned 60% of the firm, an increased ownership stake compared to two years prior when it owned 44% of Translation.

Mr. Stoute says the deal hasn't gone as he had initially hoped, largely because Interpublic agencies haven't been willing to collaborate on campaigns.

"The experience, like any other relationship, has had its growing pains," he said. "I'd say that my desire to work with their clients, and my initial thinking didn't come to fruition. The agencies are clinging onto their relationships and don't want to open up." He added: "A lot of great talent is wary of holding companies and you don't have to worry about conflicts, which becomes important when you begin getting AOR relationships."

Interpublic, in contrast, was complimentary. "We continue to be supportive of and invest behind Translation," the holding company said in a statement. "We understand Steve's ambition to move in a new direction and look forward to continuing to work with him when possible, no matter what form an ownership structure may ultimately take."

One person close to the discussions noted that negotiations are ongoing but no transaction has been agreed to yet.

For Interpublic, this won't be the first time this year one of its shops will go down the buyback road. In January, PR agency MWW Group bought back its independence, saying it was driven by both emotional and business factors post-recession.

In Mr. Stoute's case, the decision seems to be driven by those factors, as well as not wanting to be pigeonholed as a specialty firm. "I don't believe in African-American shops anymore," he said. "African Americans are Americans and drive popular culture. But I do believe that work should have the opportunity to cater to specific groups through nuance that appeals to that particular group."

Tim Van Hoof, advertising director at State Farm, said Translation "seems to understand cross-culturalism as well as any group I've dealt with, and what I mean by that is how can culture bring audiences together rather than speaking with them separately."

Asked whether it matters to him if Translation is independent or owned by a holding company, Mr. Van Hoof had this to say: "It only makes a difference to me if it impacts their ability to develop amazing creative. At the end of the day no, but if it impacts either positively or negatively, one way or the other, then the answer I want the best from the agency. If it helps from a financial or talent standpoint, great, but if it hinders, as it sometimes does, well ... I just want the best work."

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Contributing: Brad Johnson of Adage.com

NBA's Nets Tap Translation to Burnish Move to Brooklyn

Agency Must Stoke Pride in Lackluster Team Moving to Stadium Plagued by Protests


NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- The foundation is in place, the steel is poured and the suite concourse level is starting to take shape. Still, the impending move of the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn and the opulent Barclays Center now under construction has been so fraught with controversy, the franchise felt compelled to hire a branding firm to help "position" the move.


New York-based Translation is charged with speaking to a variety of constituencies surrounding the Nets' move from New Jersey, including potential new season-ticket holders, current season-ticket holders, longtime fans of the team, local businesses and, perhaps most important, to a vocal though now dwindling group of citizens who have long opposed a new arena in Brooklyn, saying it will change the dynamic of the beloved borough.

"Our job is to remove all doubt that what's coming to Brooklyn is going to make Brooklyn one of the finest entertainment capitals in the country," said Steve Stoute, president of Translation.

Barclays Center expects to open its door in the summer of 2012, with the Nets beginning play there later that fall.



"Obviously this is a moment we've been waiting for for six years and we only get one shot to get it right," said Nets CEO Brett Yormark of the move to Brooklyn, which was first announced in 2005. "We figured we'd outsource some thinking. We like Translation and we like their leader and the fact that they have a deep bench. The initial work we've received from them has been dead on. They'll help us not only on the Nets brand, but also identifying the Barclays Center."

They'll need it, on both fronts.

Part of the branding struggle is that the Nets have been something of a nomadic franchise ever since coming into existence as one of the first American Basketball Association (ABA) teams in 1967. The club went from playing in Teaneck, N.J., to becoming the New York Nets when it moved to Long Island, and then went back to the New Jersey Nets when it moved to Piscataway, N.J., in 1976, the same year that several ABA franchises merged with the National Basketball Association.

In 1981, the Nets moved into the Meadowlands complex in East Rutherford, N.J., at what was then known as Brendan Byrne Arena, a 20,000-seat building next to football's Giants Stadium. Two seasons ago, they moved into the new Prudential Center in Newark.

As for the Barclays Center, the arena is part of a planned residential/retail development center known as Atlantic Yards. The plan has been under scrutiny and opposition ever since being announced, and only last year did the dismissal of several pending lawsuits pave the way for the development to break ground.

Norman Oder, an independent journalist and critic of the project who writes the Atlantic Yards Report blog, said he knew about the hiring of Translation. He also acts as a one-stop shop for every criticism of the move.

"I suspect they're trying to reinforce a sense of inevitability -- that the arena is coming -- after years of false promises about the timetable," Mr. Oder said. "That said, they likely have multiple audiences to play to. For one thing, they've only sold a small fraction of the luxury suites and they need those sales to pay off construction. They have the advantage of newness, being a new team in the market, but they also have to fill a building at a time when, at least for now, people have less and less discretionary income. The working assumption has always been that 30% of current New Jersey fans of the Nets would also attend games in Brooklyn. But the team has gotten worse [the sixth worst record in the league at 15-37], and it has been a very long goodbye. If that means fewer New Jersey fans, then they have to reach out as broadly as possible, geographically and demographically, in and around Brooklyn."

In fact, Translation plans on doing that very thing from two angles -- appealing to the nostalgia factor that the Nets would be the first major professional sports franchise in Brooklyn since baseball's Dodgers left for Los Angeles in 1958, and pumping up the Barclays Center as a world-class entertainment venue.

Expect Translation to play to a variety of multicultural audiences that reflect the team and the city of Brooklyn, including utilizing rap star Jay-Z, a part owner of the team, as well as the principal owner, Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. Brooklyn has a thriving Russian population in Brighton Beach and Sheepshead Bay.

"We have a brand, the arena, for housing great talent. And we have a brand, the Brooklyn Nets, and we need to make them a phenomenon in 2012," Mr. Stoute said. "We won't be treating this like a relocated team. We'll be treating this like a team that has a new brand value. Our work is going to be as diverse as Brooklyn itself."

Mr. Stoute said Translation's first work for the Nets is expected to break this spring.

"It's a delicate situation they have here," said sports marketing expert Drew Kerr, president of New York-based Four Corners Communications. "On one hand, you don't want to alienate New Jersey fans. On the other hand, they are headed to a genuine, beloved borough. With any kind of move, even just across the river, there are still a number of constituencies that have to be made to feel good."

STATE FARM HOLIDAY COMMERCIAL :: STARRING SELITA EBANKS & MEHCAD BROOKS

Shout out to Steve Stoute and Jay-Z for putting this together and the homie Tiffany Hardin over at Translation, LLC.

FIND JAY-Z'S MEMOIR AT A BOOKSTORE, OR ON A BILLBOARD

PRINT advertising by publishing houses tends to boast about books that are being bold and original, but that can seldom be said of the ads themselves, which generally consist of ho-hum photographs of the book and author, a brief description of the subject matter and laudatory blurbs.

But a new campaign for “Decoded,” the memoir by the hip-hop performer Jay-Z, promises to be a real head-turner. Beginning Monday, reproductions of entire pages of the book will appear unannounced in locales referred to in those pages.

“If in certain pages Jay-Z is talking about something related to Times Square, then those pages might be on billboards in Times Square,” said David Droga, creative chairman Droga5, the New York agency heading the campaign. Mr. Droga declined to reveal locations beforehand (including the veracity of the Times Square example), but did describe the campaign in oblique terms.

While about half of the pages will be displayed in traditional outdoor advertising like billboards, the rest will be offbeat, printed in one instance on the bottom of a hotel swimming pool, in another on the lining of jackets in a store display window, and in another on the felt of pool tables in a pool hall, said Mr. Droga.

Along with New York, the pages will appear in cities including Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami and London, and will continue to pop up until Nov. 16, when “Decoded” will be published by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of Random House, with a list price of $35.

The best way to search for the pages will be, appropriately enough, through a search engine. Microsoft will host a Web page, Bing.com/Jay-Z, that will function as an online scavenger hunt. That site, and the Bing logo, will be featured prominently in the outdoor ads.

The scavenger hunt, also scheduled to start Monday, showcases a regular Bing feature, a 3-D map based on photographs (like Google Street View), which enables users to click on a spot on a map, then amble around at street level and look anywhere, as a pedestrian might. Although streetscapes in Bing are based on photographs from before the billboards went up, visitors will see the “Decoded” billboards superimposed in the 3-D map. Players will follow clues to bring them in the general vicinity of pages, while a “proximity meter” on the screen will indicate when they are getting closer.

Players who are the first to discover the pages will be eligible to win a signed copy of the book and the grand prize, a trip to Las Vegas to see Jay-Z and Coldplay in a New Year’s Eve concert.

Pages may end up first being discovered either inside the Bing game or in the real world. Clues about page locations will be given on Bing, as well as by Jay-Z on Facebook, where his official page has more than 4.4 million followers, and through Twitter, where he has more than 256,000.

Players who are the first to discover the page on the Bing map can stake their claim online, while those who discover the pages terrestrially can stake theirs by sending a text message that includes a code printed on the page. (Players can also, of course, search virtually and physically simultaneously by consulting Bing on mobile devices.)

For Bing, which according to comScore accounted for 11.2 percent of searches in September, behind Google, with 66.1 percent, and Yahoo, with 16.7 percent, the promotion could propel many to the site for the first time.

“We want to drive users into this experience,” said Eric Hadley, general manager of marketing for Bing.

In fact, Bing — and not the publisher — is footing the bill for the campaign. Mr. Hadley, who declined to reveal how much Bing was spending, said that “there are some hard costs associated with the project, but I would describe it as mostly in-kind.”

Clear Channel, for instance, a media partner for the promotion, has not waived fees for its billboards, where many pages will appear, but is substantially promoting the book in many other ways without extra payment, including running promotional spots as well as interviews with Jay-Z during regular programming on Clear Channel radio stations, and featuring exclusive videos of the artist on its Web sites.

“From a case-study approach, it’s a unique opportunity where we’re utilizing all of our media touch points to reach consumers and really show the power of our company,” said Evan Harrison, president of digital at Clear Channel Radio.

Some businesses hosting pages, meanwhile, are not charging fees, since they also stand to benefit from the publicity when a local television news crew covers, say, a restaurant that suddenly has pages of a book printed on its plates.

“People were lining up to be part of this, like premium hotel brands and sports stadiums,” Mr. Droga said. “It’s a sincerely mutually beneficial partnership. At the center is Jay-Z’s book, but all the players at the table stand to benefit.”

While publishers naturally are guarded about copyrighted material, this is not the first time that Spiegel & Grau has released some material free in the hope of spurring purchases.

In 2008, the Spiegel & Grau author Suze Orman appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to promote the book “Women and Money.” Ms. Winfrey informed her viewers that they could download a free electronic version, and during a 33-hour window, more than two million did so. Sales then flourished, with the hardcover edition selling about a million copies, according to Avideh Bashirrad, marketing director at Random House.

The first printing for “Decoded” is 125,000 copies, and Ms. Bashirrad said she was optimistic that they would sell briskly.

“This is in a different stratosphere than what publishers generally can do for books,” Ms. Bashirrad said. “Publishers don’t generally have the budget to do advertising on this scale.”

Pages of Jay-Z's memoir will be reproduced in public areas around the country and beyond.

ROC NATION X SKULL CANDY VIRAL CAMPAIGN

UNICEF :: DIRTY WATER CAMPAIGN

STEVE STOUTE/TRANSLATION ADVERTISING FEATURED IN TIME MAGAZINE

Translation featured in TIME Magazine:

Translation Advertising: Where Shop Meets Hip-Hop

Steve Stoute, the marketing force behind boutique advertising shop Translation, has made a living by pretty much ignoring the barriers Madison Avenue has traditionally drawn around demographics and ethnicity.

Ten years ago, Stoute left the music business — just before it tanked — and jumped into advertising and marketing. He saw an opportunity to navigate the gap that existed between corporate America and the lucrative youth market, an estimated $1.2 trillion sector that companies are eager to tap into but frequently miss the mark reaching. “Brands don’t often speak to young people in a way that is representative of them,” says Stoute. “What I do is contemporize a brand.” But, he says, “I don’t take the brand away from what it stands for. I don’t change who they are in order to appeal to the next generation.”

CLICK HERE FOR :: STEVE STOUTE IN TIME MAGAZINE

JAY-Z JOINS NIKE, INC. AND USA BASKETBALL TO TIP OFF WORLD BASKETBALL FESTIVAL

On Thursday, August 12, NIKE, Inc. will bring together the world of sport and entertainment in an unprecedented way as one of basketball’s most prestigious teams shares the stage with one of the world’s greatest entertainers.

Music mogul and multi-platinum selling recording artist JAY-Z will take the stage at New York’s Radio City Music Hall for an electrifying musical performance following a one-of-a-kind, on-court showcase featuring finalists for the 2010 USA Basketball World Championship Team as part of the inaugural World Basketball Festival – brought together by Converse, the Jordan Brand and Nike Basketball.

“We’re excited to bring together the international prestige of JAY-Z and the USA Team on stage at famed Radio City Music Hall to open the first World Basketball Festival. This will be a historic night,” said Trevor Edwards, Nike VP Global Brand and Category Management. “We’re also honored to collaborate with JAY-Z on limited edition Air Force 1s that celebrate the countries participating in this inaugural event.”

Nike has distributed tickets for the Radio City Music Hall events to a number of New York area community groups and charitable organizations, as well as youth clubs and youth basketball leagues. Distribution to the general public has been driven through on-going promotions with radio station Hot 97 and through retailers Modell’s, Footlocker, Niketown and House of Hoops. Additional ticket information can be found at http://www.facebook.com/wbf.

The entire Radio City Music Hall basketball and musical performance will stream live on http://www.facebook.com/wbf beginning at 6:30 p.m. EDT until its conclusion. Following the event at Radio City Music Hall, highlights will be available online at NBA.com and USABasketball.com.

In addition to his performance at Radio City Music Hall, JAY-Z has joined forces with Nike to create an iconic collection of Air Force Ones – the All Black Everything collection inspired by the World Basketball Festival. Nike has donated the shoes to the Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation who in turn have linked up with eBay on a charity auction where the five unique pairs will raise funds for its mission to provide financial assistance to promising individuals upon acceptance into any accredited institution of higher learning.

One hundred percent of the funds raised will support the Shawn Carter Scholarship Foundation. The charity auction begins on August the 12, and bidders can visit www.ebay.com/jayznikewbf to enter a bid. Only two pairs of each of the five designs will be created, one for the winning bidder and one for the man behind the design, JAY-Z. The charity auction begins on August 12, at 9:00 a.m. EDT and ends on August 22, at 9:00 a.m. EDT.

After the tip-off event at Radio City Music Hall on August 12, the action moves uptown to New York City’s legendary basketball courts at Rucker Park in Harlem, Friday and Saturday, August 13 and 14.

The World Basketball Festival concludes Sunday, August 15 with an exciting exhibition double-header featuring the United States taking on France (1 p.m. EDT) and China meeting Puerto Rico (3:30 p.m. EDT) at famed Madison Square Garden. Tickets for the exhibition doubleheader, which start at $15, are available on the Web via www.Ticketmaster.com and www.thegarden.com, by phone at 1-800-4-NBA-TIX, and at the box office at Madison Square Garden.

The exhibition games are being utilized as part of the teams’ preparation for the 2010 FIBA World Basketball Championship in Turkey, August 28 to September 12.