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The Millennial Male Is Not Who You Think He Is

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It’s the best time in the world to be a millennial man, to hear baby boomers tell it—let your parents or your girlfriend pay the rent, maybe start a useless tech company, watch marketers trip over themselves trying to reach you. But talk to guys in this highly desirable demo yourself and you might discover a disenfranchised group with little disposable income, a love of niche culture and an upbeat outlook that belies the economic hand they’ve been dealt (two-seven offsuit). They’re not opposed to advertising, but they also love being obscure—it’s the first generation that would starve trying to order a pizza (or deciding where to order a pizza from). Not your dream clientele? Well, get used to them—they’re the biggest generation in history, and if you can’t reach them, somebody else will.

First, a few statistics on U.S. millennials, or Gen Y, or Those Damned Kids, depending on who you ask: Collectively, they carry $1 trillion in student loans. Only 62 percent of them have jobs, and only half of those work full-time. Median net worth among people under 35 has decreased by more than a third since 2005. Barely one-quarter of the men have bachelors’ degrees, despite all that college debt (many didn’t finish). More than one-third live at home with their parents—double the number from the previous generation.

Jonathan, a bartender, is 28. He lives in a small town in the mountains of North Carolina—not with his parents but with several roommates—and works at a wine shop since being laid off from his bartending gig, which he loved, earlier this year.

“I do not have cable,” says Jonathan. “Never have, actually. We have Netflix, we have Hulu, and we have an Apple TV that combines those.” What does he use them for? “I like long-format television shows—Mad Men, House of Cards, Boardwalk Empire.” But how does he get Boardwalk Empire without cable? (Do you have to ask?) “Uhh, it’s pirated,” he says, embarrassed. “I’m so stupid about technology now, so unless it’s recording equipment I don’t know how to use it. I just get my roommate to download it for me.” The rest, he emphasizes, is “mostly rented. I’m pretty fiercely loyal to my local video shop as well. I rent The Newsroom from them, rent the other HBO shows and stuff.”

Jonathan and many like him do not generally mind being marketed to, contrary to popular belief. It’s not a question of principle—it just sometimes seems unnecessary. “I use Netflix basically for TV shows and stuff like that, so I don’t have to look at commercials and it’s not edited,” says Steve, an itinerant DJ who’s been on what he calls “an eight-month freedom journey across the country.” Neither he nor Jonathan has health insurance. One of the men interviewed here uses food stamps. Another works for a company in a big city that pays him half the industry average for his job.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. One guy has an Ivy League education, another works for an entertainment conglomerate, a few have studied under top professionals in their fields. They’ve just had a hard time finding good jobs. The reality is, these anti-millennials are coming of age during a historic moment when the gap between productivity and real hourly compensation has never been wider, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Put plainly, those who can find jobs are doing more work—a lot more work—for far less money.

All pride themselves on being outliers, on having really nerdy, wonky interests that they know everything about—but which don’t really have that much in common with the gen pop. “I platinumed Warhawk,” says Steve proudly, “which is the No. 1 hardest game on the Sony [PS3] to platinum.” (It’s hard, incidentally, to “platinum” any game—that is, to get every last one of the cleverly named virtual trophies for performing a stunt.)

There’s a perception among advertisers that millennials are “digital to the core,” as one exec puts it. That’s not actually the whole story—they’re also thrifty to the core. They have to be. Steve, 31, has a hard time paying the bills and only watches cable when he’s at a friend’s house. He does love the movies, though. “I like anything with a main character that has to go through some sort of awakening process,” he says. How many films does he see in the theater? “I’d say at least 10 a month.” Like everyone else interviewed, he loves his DVD collection.

“Cord-cutters” and “cord-nevers” may be the bane of the cable industry, but interviewees said that problem simply boils down to math. For a household of four people, says MediaVest evp, research director David Shiffman, a full telecom package is much too expensive. “You have cable, plus phone, plus two mobile devices—maybe a tablet. That’s probably $450 a month,” Shiffman estimates. Indeed, the average cost of a cable bill is nearly double what it was in 1996. “They don’t have that money when they’re making $30,000 a year and have all this student debt.”

“Cable is just far, far too expensive, especially for the quality of programming,” concurs Max, who just turned 29 and is getting his MBA at night. “We’d be paying a ton of money a month. I looked it up once. It was, like, unfathomable.”

Price indexes, too, have skyrocketed. So the question becomes not simply “How do we reach young men who don’t have cable?” but also “How important to marketers are consumers without much discretionary income?”

For example, these guys don’t want a new car. At all. “They go, ‘I’ll have to spend $500 a month?’” says Shiffman. (Last year, the average monthly car payment was $550.) “It’s something that a lot of marketers are trying to wrap their heads around.” He clearly has a point. “A $500-a-month car payment?” gasps Max. “That’s terrible. I’d pay, like, $285, and that’s high.” He pauses. “I don’t like seeing luxury cars advertised,” he says, thoughtfully. “I don’t know if that’s because I’m poor.”

But for marketers, not seeing un-millennials as a growth opportunity is risky, in that eventually they’re apt to turn the corner. If you don’t market to them, someone else will. Says Shiffman: “You can’t ignore them. They’re helping shape and define a lot that’s going on. But you have to know that it’s a long-term growth proposition. They may not be volume drivers.”

Max says he’s fine with cultivating brand loyalty. “I love ads,” he says. “I love marketing campaigns. I love to see what kind of demographic I’m supposed to be in.” Social media callouts piss him off—the whole “hit us up on Twitter” thing sounds like it’s asking for a favor to him (which, of course, it is).

Meaning the question remains how to market to this group. Viacom evp, integrated marketing Dario Spina thinks he has the answer. “Comedy as a genre seems to be No. 1, above and beyond everything else in terms of what millennial males relate to, share and go to first,” he explains. “Funny is the new rock ’n’ roll.”

Ivan, a 27-year-old freelance copy editor and guitarist from Queens, remains quite serious about his rock ’n’ roll, but he does like the funny stuff (“Who would say they don’t love comedy?”), and he’s highly engaged with media in general. Ivan is nostalgic for shows that came out before he was old enough to appreciate them. “With Breaking Bad and Mad Men [again, on Netflix], it’s just exposition between cliffhangers, and part of the enjoyment is sort of being a little disappointed by them and talking about their shortcomings,” he says. “The Sopranos and early seasons of The Simpsons, they’re just masterpieces.”

Un-millennials have no illusions about what brands represent: companies that want their money. That’s fine if you’re providing a service, but increasingly the means of delivering ads—networks, ISPs, cable providers—all seem like annoying intermediaries who block or restrict users’ access to the things they actually want. If un-millennial men can be said to have a single economic value beyond ethical concerns, it’s the purity of a given transaction: How many middlemen am I greasing with this purchase? How much money is going to people who actively make my life (or someone else’s life) worse?

It’s one reason Indiegogo and Kickstarter campaigns resonate so strongly with these guys. What separates you from the herd is not which gatekeepers you went to college with (or, more likely, which gatekeepers’ kids), but how good you are. And it gives the consumer an opportunity to directly reward the artist. Ivan managed to raise enough dough from friends and fans for his band Sweet Fix to professionally record its first album.

If that suggests that millennials themselves are the best marketers to millennials, you won’t get any argument from Lance Fensterman, head of ReedPOP, which holds conventions like this week’s New York Comic Con and several other anime and UFC events around the country. Niche marketing, Fensterman says, is his thing. When asked how one markets broadly to millennial men, he replies: “We don’t do broad. … You’re talking about a passion, not a demographic. Parents of children under the age of 5 is a demographic; guys who like watching [UFC fighter] Anderson Silva beat the shit out of someone, that’s a passion.” And yes, there’s overlap between the two.

It is possible to tap that kind of passion, especially for artists. “I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money,” proclaimed comic Louis C.K. when he posted his set Live at the Beacon Theater on his site. “I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me.”

Ivan says he’s fine with ads if the value proposition is similar to the one C.K. makes. “I am basically on board for advertising if it makes things like FM radio and television possible and free,” he says. “That is a trade I am happy to make.”

(C.K.’s production pulled in $500,000, incidentally. By paying the requested $5 and entering an email address in exchange for the download, fans could also opt to get future communications from C.K.—or not, by clicking on the option “No, leave me alone forever, you fat idiot.”)

A couple of those interviewed admit to occasional pirating, but all are embarrassed by it, and Steve and Ivan have harsh words for pirates, who, they say, helped destroy an industry they’re trying to make it in. “Everybody talks about the shitty contracts record companies used to give to bands,” Ivan says. “Having a shitty contract is now an unattainable goal for me and many musicians that I know.”

Meanwhile, Shiffman points to the optimism of his generation of lost bros. “They’re smarter, they’re more informed,” he says. “They’re looking for brands that really understand what they’re passionately connected to, and it’s about a value component.”

“They’ve got some challenges, but they’re very optimistic—and you know, kudos to them,” Shiffman says. “I’m a Gen Xer. I would have been bitter.”


Hunkvertising: The Objectification of Men in Advertising

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Call it hunkvertising.

The objectification of men in advertising (as with women) is not new. Consider icons like the Marlboro Man and Old Spice’s sexy pitchman Isaiah Mustafa. And yet, a disproportionate number of buff, often-shirtless studs are lately popping up in ads for everything from salad dressing to air freshener—in other words, consumer products not normally associated with sexual imagery.

As ever, sex sells—even the hirsute sex, apparently.

Many ad experts and social critics see the whole thing as a harmless turning of the tables following decades of bikini-clad babes in beer commercials. Double entendres abound when dissecting the trend, the overriding feeling being that it can’t be taken all that seriously because, after all, we are just talking about guys here. “We’re all in on the gender-reversal joke,” explains Lisa Wade, associate professor of sociology at Occidental College. “It’s funny to us to think of women being lustful.”

Adds Steve O’Connell, ecd and partner at Red Tettemer O’Connell + Partners: “Objectifying men doesn’t really upset anybody. You really can’t offend the white male.” O’Connell’s agency helped pioneer the manvertising trend last year with print ads for Renuzit featuring small product shots alongside a parade of beefcake. (“Now that is gorgeous. And the man is not so bad either,” reads the copy in one ad.) O’Connell says, “It’s tongue-in-cheek and calls itself out. The hot guy clearly had no business being there. Because it’s guys, you get the extra safety net of it not being too offensive.”

Renuzit refreshed the campaign last month with a whole new batch of dudes. The new push from Pereira & O’Dell, themed “Choose Them All,” introduces eight handsome new “Scent Gents” who personify the brand’s aroma palette and promise “a good-looking man in every room.” Each a master of the come-hither stare. The Gents also star in a branded reality show featuring Joan Rivers called Romancing the Joan, presented by the site SheKnows TV.

And, they’re a hit. “Our digital banner CTRs are 25 percent above CPG averages and are driving users to our Facebook page where our likes have increased significantly,” reports Jeanne Howard, home care brand manager at Renuzit’s corporate parent, Dial Corp., a unit of Henkel AG.

But while largely seen as good-natured fun, others argue that this trend bears as much scrutiny as advertisers using women as sex objects. One detractor is marketing and media critic Åsk Dabitch Wäppling, who maintains, “Studly Steve is as bad of a stereotype as Doofus Dad. They’re stereotypes, and that’s by definition not original. When can we return to product-as-hero advertising? When will we stop insulting people?”

On her Adland blog, Wäppling savages the poster boy of the pecsvertising trend, the hunky model Anderson Davis, best known for his shirtless (sometimes pantless) pitch for Kraft Zesty Italian salad dressing. That campaign, created by TBWA’s Being, bowed this past April with an eye-popping spot casting Davis as a chef who adds Kraft Zesty Italian to a hot skillet. As flames shoot progressively higher, he asks the viewer, smolderingly, “How zesty do you want it? A little? A little more? How about a lot more?” Ultimately, his shirt catches fire and is singed right off his body, revealing a chiseled torso in all its glory.

Once again, man candy proved a winning strategy. The clip garnered 2.5 million YouTube views and shot Davis and the brand into the chat-o-sphere, with fans able to share his image on social media via Zestygrams.

“I would be lying to say I knew it would be that successful,” says Patrick O’Neill, ecd at TBWAChiatDay, Los Angeles, who oversaw the campaign. O’Neill strove to create “the ultimate chef” to engage the brand’s female demographic—fans of Sex in the City, Bridesmaids and 50 Shades of Grey who are tired of purely “functional” ads and hungry for spicier fare. “It’s nonthreatening and playful,” O’Neill says of the campaign, leaving “viewers in control” to concoct whatever fantasies they choose. And, he argues, “It was never meant to be taken seriously.”

Just Say No to Nud*ty
But some took it quite seriously, most notably the group One Million Moms, which raised all kinds of heck about a Zesty Italian print ad that ran this spring in national magazines such as People, Cosmopolitan and Glamour and that featured Davis sprawled with a picnic blanket covering his croutons.

“Last week’s issue of People magazine had the most disgusting ad on the inside front cover that we have ever seen Kraft produce,” howled OMM, an offshoot of the conservative group the American Family Association. “Christians will not be able to buy Kraft dressings or any of their products until they clean up their advertising.” OMM was widely ridiculed for its uptight use of asterisks to censor terms like “g*nitals” and even “n*ked”—all of which served to give the campaign fresh legs, with Davis’ Zesty Guy doing a late-summer encore in a fresh flight of ads.

As Wäppling sees it, OMM might have a point, as she, too, finds the ads shallow. And as a mother herself and part of the target audience, she doesn’t feel they speak to her. Moreover, she contends that by objectifying men, Zesty Italian actually does female consumers a disservice by reducing them to voyeurs on par with guys ogling models in ads that sexualize women.

The critic draws an analogy with the controversy over Titstare, an app (that turned out to be a joke) exposing men gawking at women’s cleavage. “We might as well make an app called Ab-Stare, where Bethenny Frankel and the Good Morning America ladies fawn over Anderson Davis’ abs and share those images over social networks,” Wäppling says. “This is, in fact, exactly what these women did when Anderson Davis visited their shows—they posed with their heads next to his abs.”

And yet, the Zesty Italian campaign isn’t even Davis’ hottest gig. This year, he also went shirtless for Beam Inc.’s Sauza Tequila in a marketing push by Havas Worldwide Chicago that appeared around the same time as his first Kraft ad.

Sauza’s “Make It With a Lifeguard” spot finds Davis at the beach on a sweltering summer day, suggestively squirting suntan lotion into his palm and rubbing it in, at times in slow motion. He prepares a Sauza-Rita, with time-outs for rescues and peering through binoculars to see his own hunky image staring back. The commercial was a sequel to 2012’s “Make It With a Fireman,” which starred Thomas Beaudoin. “The brand wanted to target women, which was pretty revolutionary for the tequila category,” says Havas cd Ecole Weinstein. “So we figured, what better way … than with a hot, impossibly perfect man?”

“Don’t overthink it,” says Rebecca Cullers, a copywriter and AdFreak blogger. “It means that heterosexual women like to look at fit, attractive men. It shouldn’t be a shocking revelation. I’ve heard that heterosexual men like to look at attractive women, too. And in general, people like to look at attractive people.” (Obviously, there are men who like to look at the hot dudes, too.)

Still, Cullers sees obvious pitfalls. “What should worry men about these portrayals is that there’s really only one kind of guy being held up as ‘hot,’” she says. “It’s dangerous to limit the notion of attractiveness to a single model and, in the case of Kraft Zesty and Sauza, the same exact model.” (While the debate rages, indications are that the ads may be helping cash registers ring. Beam reported an 8 percent gain in global sales to $1.2 billion in the first half of this year, with Sauza a key performer, up 5 percent worldwide.)


Getting Cheeky
Injecting the studly ads with humor may help to offset any controversy—and Zesty Italian, Sauza and Renuzit all do to some extent. The Scent Gents have a light touch but don’t exactly bring the funny. Other hunkvertising campaigns make more of an effort.

“There’s a difference between the Liquid-Plumr daydreaming girl, who swoons over the hardware store man as he drills a piece of wood, and the Zesty Guy who keeps losing his top,” says Wäppling. She views Kraft’s effort as “pure objectification,” but praises Liquid-Plumr as “situational comedy, recognizing that even suburban housewives have an active imagination.” The everywoman heroine of the Liquid-Plumr spot, called “Urgent Clear,” fantasizes about Peter, a handyman who promises to satisfy her with a seven-minute cleaning of her pipes. That effort followed the brand’s similar “Double Impact” commercial from 2012, featuring a pair of hunks.

Some critics find Liquid-Plumr’s push safer and more appealing than the Zesty Italian or Sauza campaigns because it includes women in the silly narrative, clearly establishing that they are the ones indulging in fantasy. “We were able to put a twist on a key insight into our consumer—her take-charge, get-it-done attitude,” says Stacey Grier, chief strategic officer at DDB California. “We weren’t trying to make a statement or lead an advertising trend. We were just trying to use humor to communicate the benefits of Clorox products.”

Elsewhere, a Diet Dr Pepper ad from Deutsch LA pushes the self-awareness envelope and pokes fun at studvertising itself. Josh Button, who rivals Davis for pure pulchritude, frolics shirtless in the sand and surf.

“Millions of guys are born good-looking,” his voiceover begins. “But not many are really good-looking. Even fewer are really, really, really, really, really good -looking. At least, that’s what I’m told. I’m Josh Button, and I’m one of a kind.” A countdown appears on-screen during his spiel, running from 70,611,600 to 1.

“We’re poking fun at ourselves and the trend of hot guys in advertising,” said Dr Pepper svp, marketing Jaxie Alt when the spot launched in May. Deutsch creatives Xavier Teo and Erick Mangali say the spot caught on at least partly because the setup is played as a goof from the get-go.

Davis, appearing more sexually aggressive and subversive (he is one hot dude, to be sure), invites criticism from groups such as OMM; meanwhile, Button’s broader, over-the-top approach is more accessible and likely helped mitigate any complaints, say experts.

Some marketers are digging through the vault to take advantage of this whole sexed-up-man boom. Take Diet Coke, which chose to revisit its famous construction worker spot from the early ’90s that (very) briefly made a star of the hunky model Lucky Vanous.

For the reboot, BETC London cast Brit Andrew Cooper as a hardworking, overheated landscaper who catches the attention of some female onlookers, one of whom rolls a can of Diet Coke his way. Cooper promptly pops the top, salaciously spraying himself with product. And like Lucky Vanous before him, Cooper became overnight watercooler fodder.

“The sexual imagery is obvious to the point of being silly,” notes Occidental’s Wade, pointing out “the sweating Diet Coke can rolling in the grass, the phallic tower in the background, the ejaculation imagery with both the spewing grass cuttings and, of course, the exploding soda.”

Sweet Six-Pack
Some hunkvertising has moved past comedy into the realm of the absurd.

A 12-foot-tall fiberglass statue of Colin Firth promoting the BBC’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was erected in the middle of a lake in London’s Hyde Park this summer. (In the miniseries, the actor, who portrays the aloof Mr. Darcy, takes a swim in his shirt and emerges sopping wet.) Even more curious, Dove Chocolate whipped up a sculpture of TV personality Mario Lopez (just his torso, actually) to introduce its Mint & Dark Chocolate Swirl variety. The huge hunk of chocolate was served at an August event in Los Angeles to drive home the message that Dove’s latest confection “tastes as good as it looks.”

Perhaps what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, and does hunkvertising, in fact, amount to equality of the sexes?

“As women gain in education and the workplace and men take on more household and childcare responsibilities, there’s more gender parity” versus a generation ago when Lucky Vanous strutted his stuff, offers Ann Mack, who follows popular culture as JWT’s director of trendspotting. “This trend is symbolic” of a more even playing field, she says.

Then again, maybe it’s all much baser than that. “This has nothing to do with equality—though equality is a good excuse for looking at hot men if you’re the sort of woman who needs an excuse,” argues blogger Cullers. “It had to do with equality back when Cosmo picked Burt Reynolds as the first nude male centerfold. At this point, looking at some abs while drinking Diet Coke is hardly a feminist revolution, particularly when it’s a remake of a popular spot from decades ago.”

Occidental’s Wade concurs. “I wouldn’t call it equality—I’d call it marketing, and maybe capitalism,” she says. “Market forces under capitalism exploit whatever fertile ground is available. Justice and sexual equality aren’t driving increasing rates of male objectification—money is.” 

Men’s Fitness Lets Readers Sample Scents

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Scent-loving guys will find a bonus in the November issue of Men’s Fitness: fragrance samples in the editorial pages.

Global sales of men’s grooming products have grown an average of 6 percent per year since 2006, per Euromonitor International. To capitalize on the trend, the American Media Inc. title recently transitioned from a workout to a lifestyle title, adding content about cooking, fashion and grooming.

For its fragrance guide in next month’s issue, the magazine decided to up the service quotient with two samples courtesy of Coty: Eternity Aqua by Calvin Klein and Guess’ Guess Night.

Men’s Fitness readers are “young, stylish, body-conscious men who value looking—and smelling—good,” said David Zinczenko, AMI’s consulting editorial director. “This was a chance to actually empower them and give them some buying power before they walk into the store.”

The execution was tricky. The magazine had to produce the edit pages, then send them to Coty to insert samples. Coty then sent the pages back to the publisher to insert into the book. Men’s Fitness chose one fragrance maker to keep the process manageable. Coty is an advertiser, though Men’s Fitness said its editorial decisions were independent of that.

Such edit could help Men’s Fitness get more grooming ads where the title has already seen strong growth—the category was up 25 pages, or 44 percent, in 2013 versus 2012. It also doesn’t hurt the case for print to do something that can’t be pulled off online.

The Empire That Is Adam Carolla

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Aspiring entertainers often pay the bills waiting tables or serving Starbucks. Adam Carolla used to punch the clock as a boxing trainer, carpet cleaner and rebuilder of earthquake-damaged homes. With so much elbow grease in his past, Carolla’s Joe Six-pack bona fides were established, distinguishing him as an unimpeachable man brand. The 49-year-old comic has parlayed a cool cable TV run (MTV’s Loveline, Comedy Central’s The Man Show) into a podcast and even a signature-cocktail empire. As if Carolla needed any other manly credentials, Patty Newmark, whose agency helps the funnyman secure sponsors, let slip that Carolla actually does the podcasts from his garage.

How Michel Gondry and BBDO Made Muscle Music for Gillette

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IDEA: Listening to music is crucial to most people's workouts. But what if you could make music through exercise itself?

Gillette tries just that in an experimental two-minute video (which doubles as a deodorant ad) from BBDO, New York, and director Michel Gondry. They recruited NFL players and other high-caliber athletes, closely recorded their movements in a gym—actually, a recording studio outfitted like a gym—and built a musical track, beat by beat, layer upon layer, muscle upon muscle.

"Every guy listens to music to pump themselves up and make them train harder and better. That's where the idea was born," said BBDO creative director Brian Wiesenthal.

From there, it was mostly a matter of infinitely challenging sound design—a task made easier in the end by the inspiring setting, which held the echoes of countless legendary recordings.

COPYWRITING/SOUND: The video begins with the athletes filing in, starting up their exercise equipment and getting down to business. There is no dialogue. The sound starts off spare—e.g., the footsteps on a treadmill. Slowly, other athletes join in, and the sound grows— rowing machine, punching bag, speed bag, bench press, even a guy pounding a sledgehammer on a tire.

Sound engineers chose the "instruments" like they were scouting locations—testing different ones and sending sound bites to the creatives before the shoot. "It was a dream team of instruments," said BBDO creative director Jake Shaw. On set, the athletes listened to the others' rhythms through headphones and timed their own movements accordingly. The music reaches a crescendo before going silent.

Two lines appear on screen at the end—"Built to perform" and "Built for training"—along with a product shot of Gillette's Clear Gel deodorant.

FILMING/ART DIRECTION: Gondry, who rarely shoots ads, was drawn to the experimental nature of the project. He wanted to shoot in a recording studio, not a gym or a warehouse, and ended up filming for three days at Ocean Way Recording in Hollywood, where everyone from Frank Sinatra to the Beach Boys made records.

"It's just such an amazing, magical place. You feel it when you walk in," said Wiesenthal. "There were all these geeky things we discovered. If you look at where our sledgehammer guy is, literally Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson were standing there once upon a time singing 'We Are the World.'"

The wooden floors and vintage equipment set the tone for the video's visual aesthetic, too, which is much more muted, shadowy and refined than your typical sports ad. At the same time, Gondry wanted the guts of the recording process on display—that's why in the video, amplifiers, wires and microphones can be seen everywhere, and the recording engineers are seen adjusting them throughout.

"On one of the punching bags, we actually used Frank Sinatra's original microphone," said Shaw. "They kept calling it the priceless microphone."

TALENT: The NFL players featured in the ad are Champ Bailey and Kayvon Webster of the Denver Broncos, BenJarvus Green-Ellis and Giovani Bernard of the Cincinnati Bengals, and Mike Golic Jr. of the Pittsburgh Steelers. There were 16 athletes in all.

"Finding 16 guys who can keep time and work together as a team, that's a really big ask. A lot of the time was spent experimenting and training and practicing to get the perfect end result," said Shaw.

YouTube viewers have been raving about the speedbagger in the spot. "We were searching on YouTube and discovered a thing called punch drumming. And one of the best punch drummers in the world is this guy Matthew Santiago," said Wiesenthal. Added Shaw: "He had such a unique skill set that he became a big part of the team."

MEDIA: YouTube and Gillette's website. It is BBDO's last Gillette work currently running, as the account recently shifted to Grey.

CREDITS
Client: Gillette
Title: "Training Tracks"

Agency: BBDO New York
Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars
Executive Creative Director: Toygar Bazarkaya
ACD/Art Director: Jake Shaw
ACD/Copywriter: Brian Wiesenthal
Executive Producer: Brian Mitchell
Music Producer: Loren Parkins
Producer: Cordelia Kipp

Account Director: Ben Griffiths
Account Executive: Alfredo Lang

Production Company: Partizan
Director: Michel Gondry
Producer: Rafi Aldin
Producer: Grace Bodie

Post House: Final Cut NY
Editor: Adam Rudd

Sound Design Company: Henryboy
Sound Designer: Bill Chesley
Producer: Kate Gibson
Composers and Arrangers: Phil Mossman & Liv Spencer

FXX Is Bulking Up Its Subscribers

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It’s Champagne time for the latest cable network to rebrand and relaunch. 21st Century Fox’s male-skewing FXX took the place of Fox Soccer Channel on Sept. 3, and in that time has managed to add 12.7 million subs, elevate its ratings to a 58,000-viewer average (a year ago it wasn’t a third of that) and start building a brand.

Millennial men, said Horizon Media’s research guru Brad Adgate, still rate among the most desirable and elusive demographics on TV, and FXX’s median age is an impressive 34.5. “Putting out another entertainment network kind of mirrors what Turner is doing with TBS and TNT,” observed Adgate. “The first month, all things considered, is pretty respectable. It’s getting a huge spike in subscriber counts, and it’s getting more acquired and original series.”

The number of networks that have tried to reach young men with scripted comedy is large, while the number that have secured respectable ratings doing so is not. The goal, after all, is to increase share, not just to move viewers around. But The League and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (and, as of next season, Wilfred) were among FX’s biggest comedies, and with those programs anchoring the new network, it actually stands a fighting chance of succeeding where others have failed.

In any case, if the scripted content doesn’t work, the parade of jokey reality shows on Spike and TruTV proves that one can stay in business and retain stable viewer bases. There’s little doubt it would work on FXX, too, if needed. 

Barbershops Are Making a Huge Comeback

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Even though he’s in the barber-shop business, Jim Valenzuela is not a barber—and he’ll tell you how it happened. “I couldn’t find a great barbershop that would take me back to the memories I had of going to them with my dad,” he said. So Valenzuela decided to open his own shop in Phoenix. He filled it with all the classic trappings—big porcelain chairs, a hot-towel machine, ceiling fans. That was 14 years ago. Today, Valenzuela has expanded nationwide. “I was way out in front of this movement,” he said. “We’re starting to see others.”

Indeed so. After suffering near extinction in the 1980s and 1990s as unisex salons took over every Main Street and shopping mall in America, the barbershop has made a roaring comeback. They’re back not just as stand-alone hipster havens like the new Fellow Barber in New York’s SoHo district, but also as chain systems (often franchised), which allows them to hold their own in a world of unisex behemoths like Supercuts. Seattle-based Rudy’s Barbershop now counts 15 locations on two coasts. Wisconsin-based The Barbershop has spread to six states and plans to open its 26th location at month’s end. And Valenzuela’s barbershop—named V’s—has 20 locations with another eight slated to open in the coming months.

These new brands have carved out a niche by making an unabashed gender play, giving men not just a decent haircut at a fair price but a social space they lost when salons came to town. “The full-service salons that came along in the ’80s didn’t make sense to a lot of guys,” said The Barbershop founder Todd Degner, who added that his salons put each barber chair in its own room because “sometimes, a guy just doesn’t want to be talked to.” V’s barbershop features LCD TVs at each cutting station (tuned in to the game, of course) where the services include all the old-timey stuff: a hot towel, a straight-edge razor shave, even a shoe shine. “When I started these places, I had a pretty good idea of what guys wanted,” Valenzuela said. “The quick-cut places are convenient, but they don’t engender male commonality.”

In Brooklyn, where Rudy’s Barbershop has its newest outpost, company CEO Vy Le said that offering a local hangout is why customers will actually wait up to 90 minutes for a haircut (and why, she adds, 30 percent of them are women). “You’re coming in for a $29 haircut,” she said, “but at the same time, we’re your own community center.”

Indeed, while entrepreneurs like Degner don’t necessarily feel cutting-edge (“I didn’t invent this concept,” he said. “I just repackaged what the customer was looking for.”), Le sees the barbershop resurgence as a healthy retort to the alienation of the digital age. “Technology gives you the illusion of being connected, but people are lonely,” she said. Well, they can make new friends at Rudy’s—and get a shave and haircut, too.

A $20 Magazine for the Guy Passionate About Living the Good Life

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Specs
Who Founder Alan Maleh
What Niche lifestyle magazine
Where New York offices
Once considered a mark of being gay, male fashion has gone mainstream. Enter Man of the World, a slick, oversized lookbook of travel, fashion and culture for the guy who can afford the good life (or at least the $20 cover price). “Guys want to know more and more how to rock their own style,” said Alan Maleh, who founded the magazine a year ago as an expression of his passion for vintage collectibles. “It’s about wearing the Red Wings with their suit, and guys need guidance on doing that without looking clownish or foolish.” The magazine just started taking ads, with the likes of Hermès, Zegna and RRL in the current issue. 



Using the Familial to Sell the Familiar

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Brands have long recognized the value of finding the perfect masculine embodiment for their products, be it Theodore Roosevelt touting the steady aim of A.H. Fox shotguns in 1909 or Brad Pitt flashing his stainless-steel TAG Heuer wristwatch a century later. The effect seems to work best on those occasions when a legendary man is pitching a brand with a comparable pedigree. Was it not just a wee bit more stirring to see Mikhail Gorbachev riding in his limousine athwart a Louis Vuitton duffle than, say, Fabio praising the creamy goodness of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter?

Effective as the solo pitchman may be, however, there’s an even deeper level of branding—one almost instantly more interesting, emotional and credible—to be had when the leading man brings along his father or his son for the photo shoot. For whatever reason, few brands have attempted this—branding’s equivalent of the quadruple axel. But, as the ads here show, the results can be inspiring.

“Executed the right way, fathers and sons as advertising subject matter is brilliant,” said Peter Madden, president, CEO of marketing firm AgileCat. “There’s something naturally complex about the father-son dynamic, a beautiful tension that acts as a catalyst to raising the brand’s awareness.”

Best of all, the brand in question can be a liquor like Jim Beam or a trendy designer like John Varvatos, who’s dressed up Willie Nelson and his boys for the fashion brand’s fall 2013 campaign. So long as the product itself occupies the same stylistic ground as the father/son stars, a kind of alchemy often results. The brand leaves the confines of its packaging to become part of the unspoken narrative of family respect and roots.

Start with this 1972 ad for Jim Beam. Perhaps JB isn’t everyone’s first choice for a fine bourbon, but what’s it matter? When famous songwriter Burt Bacharach clinked a tumbler with his famous author father Bert Bacharach, Beam ceased being merely a liquor and morphed into a symbol of bonding, continuity and tradition—eliminator of the generation gap, as the slogan suggests. Four decades later, the pricey threads of John Varvatos occupy the same magical milieu between country legend Willie Nelson and his two equally musical sons. If the clothes are beautiful, they’re also nearly invisible in that dark-paneled parlor—and the effect is perfect. “The image creates a new level of intrigue and interest,” Madden said. The juxtaposition of the elder Nelson’s brooding, all-knowing stance clashes subtly with his sons’ own quixotic stares, suggesting a deep and complex, multigenerational story that accentuates the mystique of the clothing. In this way, Madden said, “The brand becomes an extension of the family unit.”

Whatever the endorsement fees, that’s a lot of branding for the buck.

Women’s Fashion Brands Are Rushing to Design for Men

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Women’s fashions have long taken a cue from menswear. But a dude in La Perla? Not as outlandish as you might think, as a growing number of women’s apparel brands put the focus on men.

Recent years have brought an unprecedented boom in men’s fashion. In fact, the growth of the menswear market in the U.S. is outpacing that of womenswear. In 2013, menswear retail sales hit $60.8 billion, up 5 percent year over year, according to market research firm NPD. Meanwhile, the women’s category grew 4 percent during the same period, ringing up sales of $116.4 billion. “Men are finding the need to build their wardrobe again as they find that buying electronics doesn’t get their social life moving forward,” as Marshal Cohen, NPD’s chief industry analyst, puts it.

Coach | Photo: Nigel Parry

Men, it is clear, have outgrown the stereotype of the reluctant shopper. “There was always a fashion market—what they used to call a ‘metrosexual’ market—that could sustain designer brands in a healthy way in bigger cities in America, but in the last few years there’s been a much wider acceptance of fashion among regular guys that previously were shy about it,” says Esquire’s fashion director Nick Sullivan. “There isn’t the stigma attached to making an effort that there used to be.”

The shift in men’s perceptions about fashion can be attributed to a number of factors. Men’s style blogs like The Sartorialist and A Continuous Lean have become must-reads. Online shopping has made designer apparel more accessible, while helping guys avoid dreaded trips to the store. And as they’ve become more fitness conscious, men are now more invested in what they put on their backs.

Celebrities are helping, too. Actors, not just actresses, are now name-dropping designers on the red carpet. At this year’s Golden Globe Awards, all nine celebrities donning Prada were men, reported The New York Times’ Vanessa Friedman. Even more importantly, many athletes—the ultimate guys’ guys—are becoming nearly as well known for their style savvy as their sports skills. “Every time we shoot an athlete, they want to talk fashion with me,” says GQ’s creative director Jim Moore.

Michael Kors | Photo: Nigel Parry

It’s hardly any wonder, then, why brands that have exclusively or mainly catered to the fairer sex are ramping up their efforts to reach gents. Consider Tory Burch, the popular women’s designer, which recently hired Coach’s former svp of men’s design, Jeffrey Uhl, to oversee a new men’s accessories line, set to debut as early as spring 2015. Michael Stars, known for its women’s knitwear, is launching its first men’s collection this month, something co-founder Suzanne Lerner calls a “natural next step for our brand.” Clover Canyon, purveyor of women’s apparel and swimwear featuring bright, graphic prints, previewed menswear during New York’s Fashion Week.

Not just American designers are jumping on the trend. Moschino showed its first men’s collection in June, as did luxury lingerie line La Perla, which is readying a line of silk kimonos and other garments that the wives of its male customers may well find themselves coveting. Whistles, a high street chain in the U.K. that recently dipped its toe in the U.S. market, is launching a line of men’s apparel this fall. Even Spice Girl-turned-footballer’s wife-turned fashion designer Victoria Beckham was quoted in the British press last February as saying, “I’d love to do menswear at some point, absolutely.”

Some of the biggest investment in menswear is happening at companies that see potential in growing existing albeit limited men’s lines. Take Michael Kors, which has already found massive success in the accessible luxury space with its affordable yet aspirational women’s apparel and accessories. While the brand has included a smattering of men’s pieces among its expansive women’s offerings for more than a decade (menswear represents about 5 percent of its sales), the designer is now making a play for a bigger share of the men’s market.

Last month, Michael Kors CEO John Idol announced the company’s intention to grow its menswear into a $1 billion business by 2017 with the help of Mark Brashear, its new head of menswear and the former CEO of Hugo Boss. Idol detailed plans for Michael Kors’ first freestanding men’s store next year, noting that as many as 500 male-focused retail shops could be in its future. Meanwhile, the company’s forthcoming flagship store in New York’s SoHo will include a full floor dedicated to men. 

La Perla | Photo: Nigel Parry

While Michael Kors looks to menswear to bolster its already booming business, rival Coach hopes an expanded menswear offering will help turn around its sluggish sales. Last year, it hired former Mulberry and Loewe designer Stuart Vevers to lead its transition from a mall brand into one with more fashion credibility. After adding some much-needed refinement to its women’s accessories and showing its first women’s apparel collection during New York’s Fashion Week, Vevers is now turning his eye to the men’s category. This fall, male shoppers will find a much more stylish and luxurious selection of shoes and leather goods. By next year, one can expect to see a full line of men’s apparel.

The retailer’s focus on men is already helping the bottom line. In an August earnings call, the company reported that while overall sales slumped 7 percent to $1.14 billion in the fourth quarter, men’s sales showed significant growth, reaching $700 million for the year ending in June versus $100 million in 2010. By 2017, CEO Victor Luis projects that number will rise to $1 billion.

A similar tactic is being employed by brands like Prada, which plans to nearly double menswear sales to €1.5 billion (about $2 billion) in the next three to five years and open 50 men’s stores to make up for declining women’s sales. Luxury conglomerate LVMH has spent $135 million to expand its luxury footwear label Berluti into a broader apparel and accessories brand. Richemont, the owner of luxe brands like Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Montblanc, decided last year against selling off smaller labels such as Dunhill and instead increased its investment.

The obvious question in all this: Will men be willing to wear a Tory Burch shirt or La Perla loafers or a Victoria Beckham suit? “I think it depends on the brand and how feminine it is in terms of people’s awareness,” says Sullivan. “I don’t know that men will buy Tory Burch because it’s a famous women’s brand, but I don’t know if they will automatically be put off of it, either.”

Marketing will be key, adds Moore. “I think you really have to be in it to win it if you start designing menswear,” he says. “In the past, when some of the womenswear designers did men’s, they would just sprinkle it into their women’s boutiques, hoping to entice women to buy a little something for their man. If someone like Tory is looking to build her own men’s business, she’ll have to figure out how to set it apart from the women’s business on a retail basis. I’m not so sure that guys are going to go deep into a women’s store to find something for themselves.”

Designers and retailers are taking note. Some, including Kors, are opening more men’s stores or creating men’s-only spaces in flagship stores. To lure even the most reluctant shopper, many are creating a club-like atmosphere and adding features like the cocktail bar inside the Tod’s Milan flagship or the barbershop at Dolce & Gabbana’s men’s store in London.

Even men who prefer to shop online (according to NPD, online purchases of men’s apparel last year grew 19 percent year over year and now represent 14 percent of all men’s apparel sales) are getting the guys-only treatment. Women’s e-tailers like Net-a-Porter and Shopbop have spun off Mr Porter and East Dane, respectively, men’s sites that combine a vast selection of designer goods with editorial content to help guide men in their shopping journey. “Some men are definitely still more comfortable with hiding behind their keyboards to make their choices, but it also requires them to know more,” as Sullivan puts it.

Those retailers who do it right may see a rich payoff. As Moore explains, “Men are completely different customers than women. If they find something that they love, they will keep going back to that designer. With men, it’s all about loyalty.”

Michael Strahan Interviews Carmelo Anthony About Sports and Business [Video]

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On a sultry September afternoon, a stream of stylists, photographers, TV cameramen, publicists and editors converge at the gymnasium in New York’s 14th Street Y to capture a moment in time: the bringing together of two of the city’s greatest sports heroes under one roof.

Entering first is Michael Strahan, co-host of Good Morning America and Live! With Kelly and Michael and a professional football Hall of Famer following 15 phenomenal seasons as sack king of the New York Giants. Like the charismatic morning show host he is, Strahan lights up the room, encouraging everyone around him to pick up a basketball and shoot hoops. Amid the hubbub, a dapper, low-key Carmelo Anthony, scoring machine for the New York Knicks, quietly slips in.

Strahan catches up with Anthony on LeBron James' decision to return to Cleveland, paying college athletes for playing ball, his venture capital firm Melo7 Tech Partners and the entrepreneur who inspires him.

After you watch the video, be sure to check out the full interview.

Michael Strahan and Carmelo Anthony Sound Off on Basketball and Business

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On a sultry September afternoon, a stream of stylists, photographers, TV cameramen, publicists and editors converge at the gymnasium in New York’s 14th Street Y to capture a moment in time: the bringing together of two of the city’s greatest sports heroes under one roof. Entering first is Michael Strahan, co-host of Good Morning America and Live! With Kelly and Michael and a professional football Hall of Famer following 15 phenomenal seasons as sack king of the New York Giants. Like the charismatic morning show host he is, Strahan lights up the room, encouraging everyone around him to pick up a basketball and shoot hoops. Amid the hubbub, a dapper, low-key Carmelo Anthony, scoring machine for the New York Knicks, quietly slips in.

Photo: Miller Mobley; Styling, Strahan: Victoria Trilling; Styling,
Anthony: Khalilah Beavers; Makeup, Strahan: Lisa Hayes

It’s game time.

The two superstars—and cover subjects of Adweek’s annual Men’s Issue—are role models to millions and the embodiment of the modern man. Both have full lives that extend beyond their sports personas. Strahan was born in Houston and raised on a U.S. Army base in Germany; he moved back home to play high school then college football for Texas Southern University. Since retiring from the NFL in 2008, he has served as a Fox NFL Sunday analyst. At 42, Strahan also has his hands full as a partner of SMAC Entertainment, a talent management company focusing on entertainment and sports, as well as an investor in athletic shoes and apparel company Asics and a spokesman for Meta, a new line of wellness products. He is also the father of four.

Anthony, 30, who in July re-upped with the Knicks to be their centerpiece for another five years and a reported $124 million, has had a similarly meteoric rise. But his journey could easily have taken another route. Born in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., his father died when he was just 2 years old. Six years later, the family would move to the mean streets of West Baltimore. There, Anthony stayed out of trouble, played ball, won the NCAA national championship for Syracuse, then, in 2003, signed with the Denver Nuggets. It was Anthony’s decision to join his hometown team the Knicks in 2011 that ignited the media frenzy that now follows his every move.

It’s been a whirlwind. Married to reality TV star La La Anthony and father of a 7-year-old son, Anthony’s passions range from collecting art to fine wine. He is also a major gadget guy. Those interests spawned his new venture capital firm, Melo7 Tech Partners, which he co-founded with former NBC and Bertelsmann exec Stuart Goldfarb. Already, Melo7 has seeded a slew of early-stage startups, including smart-kitchen company The Orange Chef, a storytelling app for kids called Hullabalu, the sports and entertainment ticket search engine SeatGeek, and the voice-messaging startup Cord Project. Anthony also has endorsement deals that include Foot Locker and Isotonix, and has his own signature Jordan Brand sneaker, Melo 10, to boot.

Let’s listen in.

Adweek responsive video player used on /video.

Photo: Miller Mobley; Styling, Strahan: Victoria Trilling; Styling,
Anthony: Khalilah Beavers; Makeup, Strahan: Lisa Hayes

Strahan: You signed a new five-year contract with the Knicks, about which I have two questions for you. One, does that put any more pressure on you as a player? And two, can I get a loan?

Carmelo Anthony:[laughs]

Strahan: Which part are you laughing at? The first part of the question or the loan part?

Anthony: The second part.

Strahan: OK, so that means no.

Anthony: When I get it.

Strahan: When you get it. OK. Alright.

Anthony: You’ll receive it.

Strahan: I’m patient.

Anthony: All right.

Strahan: Alright, I like a man who’s willing to discuss things and work through problems and issues. But do you think it puts more pressure on you, undue pressure, because you’re already under a lot of pressure playing in New York.

Anthony: I think it adds more pressure if you allow it to. ... For me, I think I thrive on the pressure. I welcome the pressure. I live for it. 

Strahan: [On being a pro athlete in New York] Not only on the court, but off the court, you’re the leader. Everything you do is more scrutinized. You have to be more careful than anybody else. And watching LeBron [James] go back to Cleveland, did that affect your decision on staying in New York, and did you learn anything from watching LeBron go back home?

Anthony: No. Honestly, I think it was the other way around. I think he saw when I came back home to New York and saw the response and saw the reaction and saw how at peace I was when I came back home. ... I’m pretty sure he looked at that moment and saw that that was a very special moment, and he had the opportunity to go back home himself and regain that love.

Photo: Miller Mobley; Styling, Strahan: Victoria Trilling; Styling,
Anthony: Khalilah Beavers; Makeup, Strahan: Lisa Hayes

Strahan: Yeah.

Anthony: With those fans, you know, who kind of disowned him a couple of years ago …so now he’s back home and …

Strahan: Disowned him? They were burning jerseys!

Anthony: Yeah, so he’s at peace now. 

Strahan: Knowing that you’re here—and you’ve learned to deal with it—but this is the toughest city in the world to play.

Anthony: In the world. 

Strahan: Anything. To do anything, period. Forget about just playing.

Anthony: It’s the belly of the beast.

Strahan: Because it’s so much. It can be so negative at times.

Anthony: All the time.

Strahan: And somebody’s always a critic. But what do you say? How do you respond to people who sometimes question your motivation because maybe you’re not a rah-rah guy?

Anthony: Yeah. I kind of don’t pay attention to it.

Strahan: ... Which is ... it’s hard to do.

Anthony: The media wasn’t easy on you either.

Strahan: No.

Anthony: So how do you handle it? You’ve been here your whole career. 

Photo: Miller Mobley; Styling, Strahan: Victoria Trilling; Styling,
Anthony: Khalilah Beavers; Makeup, Strahan: Lisa Hayes

Strahan: Yeah, man, because I think I’m … I’m somewhat insane. It kind of drives me crazy, but then you just …

Anthony: Well, you almost have to be insane to do what you do.

Strahan: Yeah, well, they say, “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.”

Anthony: That’s true.

Strahan: I truly believe that and for me I went through the phase where I read the newspapers. It affected me. It made me sick to my stomach. Because you want to please everybody.

Anthony: Yeah. 

Strahan: You want to make everybody happy. But then at some point I realized that you can’t make everybody happy. If you’re great, somebody’s always gonna tear you down. And if you’re not so great, they’re gonna tear you down anyway.

Anthony: Yeah.

Strahan: So I just stopped worrying and I started caring about enjoying the game.

Anthony: Uh-huh.

Strahan:You were a great college player and this summer EA Sports agreed to pay $60 million to players whose likenesses were used in [video games], and you’re looking, like, that there—that could have been me.

Photo: Miller Mobley; Styling, Strahan: Victoria Trilling; Styling,
Anthony: Khalilah Beavers; Makeup, Strahan: Lisa Hayes

Anthony: I’d have been licking my chops.

Strahan: I would have been licking mine, too. I’m so old, I was on that old game where those little blocks were just moving.
Anthony: Tecmo Bowl.

Strahan: Tecmo Bowl! I am on Tecmo Bowl.

Anthony: I know [laughs].

Strahan: You didn’t have to say you knew that. Now you really hurt my feelings, man. How do you feel about college athletes getting paid for playing?

Anthony: I think you have to. As a collegiate athlete, you have to be compensated for something. I mean, these universities, they’re making millions and millions of dollars off of merchandise, off of game tickets. I think athletes should be compensated for that. 

Strahan: I agree with you. ... Now, you’re quite an entrepreneur. That’s what I respect about you, and I keep up with a lot of stuff that you do. You produce documentaries, you designed your own Jordan Brand shoe. Now you have the Melo7 Tech Partners. What kind of companies are you guys looking into with that partnership?

Anthony: A lot of startup companies ... not just basic tech companies. We’re into the wearable tech space. We’re trying to get into consumer products, building products and making products—not just invest in other companies, but also build our own products as well. That’s coming soon. 

Strahan: So developing your own stuff.

Anthony: Developing my own stuff because that’s where the game is going and that’s where our society is going. Because if you look at it, you know, maybe look at 10, 15 years ago, [there were] no smartphones. 

Photo: Miller Mobley; Styling, Strahan: Victoria Trilling; Styling,
Anthony: Khalilah Beavers; Makeup, Strahan: Lisa Hayes

Strahan: Seeing that you’re this entrepreneur, is there a businessman out there today or somebody maybe in the past that you look up to or looked up to?
Anthony: One guy that comes to mind is Elon Musk.

Strahan: Oh, yeah. Brilliant, brilliant man.

Anthony: Fantastic. I believe that he’s the smartest man on the planet, just his mind-set, his vision for our society, for our world—technology, where he’s trying to take it. What he’s doing with Tesla ... .

Strahan: And he also has SpaceX, where they’re sending rockets and carrying stuff for NASA.

Anthony: That’s what makes him who he is today. He’s not scared to take a chance in the tech space.

Strahan: Do you think that people stereotype you?

Anthony: The only stereotype I get a lot is when I do these other business ventures and it’s like, “Oh, he’s an athlete.” I don’t like that. 

Strahan: And it eats you alive, doesn’t it?

Anthony: I hate to hear that: “Oh, he’s just an athlete. He should just be focusing on playing basketball.” And for me, you know, I try to do a lot of different stuff, from fashion to tech to art, just trying to broaden my brand. But basketball is my foundation. Let’s not get that misconstrued. I kind of use that as a launching pad for everything else.
You have an entertainment company as well. You have a couple of shows going on right now, and I’m pretty sure you have some in production as well. Where do you see yourself in the next five or seven or 10 years?

Strahan: You know, we have a production company or a management company and we have a lot of stuff that we’re producing and working on. I got three shows I’m on now. And I see myself in five years on a yacht in the Caribbean. Done! [Pauses.] I’m joking man [laughs]. ... Hey, we’ll share the boat, we’ll share the boat!

Anthony: I wish.

Photo: Miller Mobley; Styling, Strahan: Victoria Trilling; Styling,
Anthony: Khalilah Beavers; Makeup, Strahan: Lisa Hayes

Strahan: But you know, I love to work … it’s like, you’re investing in all these things and you’re putting a lot of time and energy into it, and when you retire from basketball you’re gonna be young.

Anthony: Yeah. Absolutely. 

Strahan: I was 36 and I was an old guy. I played 15 years. But I can’t imagine being early or mid-30s, even 40, and sitting at home with nothing to stimulate you. So for me, in five years I hope to just continue expanding what I’m doing and just kind of take opportunities as they come, because I think what I do now is nothing near what I’d imagined I would be doing.

Anthony: That’s right.

Strahan: Because an opportunity just came that I was able to take advantage of and, you know? It kind of goes back to what you said when people stereotype you and go, “Oh, you’re the football player.” 

Photo: Miller Mobley; Styling, Strahan: Victoria Trilling; Styling,
Anthony: Khalilah Beavers; Makeup, Strahan: Lisa Hayes

Anthony: Yeah.

Strahan: That’s when I first started doing Live! “Oh, what’s the football player doing on there with Kelly Ripa?” It made me mad. And even as a player it upset me when people go, “Oh yeah, you’re that football player.” Because you want to define yourself outside of what you do. And you know that you’re more. And for me, I just want to continue to show that and hopefully over the next five years can do it in a bigger way.

Anthony: Sure.

Strahan: I want to talk about passions. You talked about one of your passions earlier and I want to expand on that. Art, big passion?

Anthony: Uh-huh.

Strahan: And also, you’re passionate about wine.

Anthony: Love wine.

Strahan: How did that develop?

Anthony: For me, it was a luxury. I’m in love with luxury. And what I mean [by] luxury, I don’t mean, like, mansions and all these fancy cars. There’s more to luxury than that. You know, art is a luxury, music is a luxury, fashion is a luxury, wine and cigars are a luxury. These are all the lanes that I try to tap into. All of that stuff is part of my culture, it’s part of my lifestyle, and they all intertwine with one another. Just like music and sports intertwine.

Strahan: I feel like I’m talking to myself. Yeah, I feel like I’m talking to myself right there. ... We’re on that trail. And also you’re in great shape, man.

Anthony: Thank you.

Strahan: You lost a lot of weight. What’s the secret?

Anthony: There’s no secret to be honest.

Strahan: Are you vegan or something now?

Anthony: No. You know, I dabble with my diet here and there. But since last summer when I started training for last season, I haven’t taken any time off after the season. I took maybe a week or two weeks off. So that training from last summer continues right now. So this is not just a transformation from the past two months. This is the transformation over the past year. 

Strahan: Yeah [laughs].

Anthony: I wish I knew how to get in shape like that—lose everything that I did and be fit like that in a month. ...
I get asked all the time: “Melo, how are you involved in all these things? You got to wake up in the morning early, you got to train, you got to focus on basketball, and you still have to do all of this stuff.” But you have been doing it for a while now. I mean, you get up at 4:30 for [Live!] and you had two photo shoots today. How do you manage that?

Strahan: My attitude is the key to everything. I go into everything understanding that and enjoying it, because the experiences that I’m getting most people would never get. And also, I work out, man. I take care of myself. So on the days when I only do one show in the morning, I’ll work out in the morning and in the afternoon. So I’ll do two a day. On the other days, I work out once a day, so I may put in six or seven workouts a week. And I watch what I eat. If you go to a photo shoot or something, those chocolate chip cookies will be looking at me going, “Yo! What’s up?”

Anthony: I don’t eat snacks. I don’t do snacks.

Strahan: ... I love sweets. I love ice cream. I have it in my freezer—but I have not touched it. I’ve been good. But then when my twins ... I blame the kids. Like, “Y’all want some ice cream?” “Yeah, yeah, daddy.” “Good, because daddy really wanted some too.” But yeah, man, that’s what I do. After you’ve seen so many guys when they retire who neglect their health and all those injuries and all those things, all those little nicks and stuff, they get worse. And I feel better now than I felt when I was 25 years old, which is amazing because I never thought I would feel that good again. And I know it’s because of my diet and what I eat and how I work out. I take care of myself. So, I have a question for you. How many pairs of shoes do you own? You’re designing shoes, the Jordan Brand shoe, your own Melos. First of all, what size shoe do you wear? 

Anthony: 14.

Strahan: And before I hear how many pair you got, whenever you’re tired of ’em, I wear a 14.

Anthony: I’ll get you a couple.

Strahan: Thank you. I appreciate it, man.

Anthony: I’ve got a whole row, a whole rack for you in storage.

Strahan: We got this on tape.

Anthony: I know.

Strahan: OK, I’m all good with that then. Well, how many pairs do you have personally?

Anthony: I stopped counting after like …

Strahan: After what?

Anthony: A thousand.

Strahan: After a thousand?

Anthony: But you’ve got to understand …

Strahan: A thousand pairs of shoes?

Anthony: I’m a real … I’m a real sneaker head, though. You know that as athletes we get free sneakers and free stuff ... I can take my storage and start my own sneaker store, like Melo’s Foot Locker or something like that.

Strahan: OK, answer this question, though: Who has more shoes, you or your wife [La La Anthony, who stars with her husband on the VH1 reality series La La’s Full Court Life]?

Anthony: I think I got her beat. She has a lot, but I think I have her beat.

Strahan: ... Your wife, La La, who’s a sweetheart, man, and talented. I love the acting—she’s as diverse as you are.

Anthony: Absolutely.

Strahan: And an incredible host, everything. And I admire the fact that she’s just been able to, like, do everything. But how comfortable are you with your life played out on TV in a reality show?

Anthony: I had to get used to it. I had to set some standards. You know, we’ve been together going on 11 years now.


Strahan: Wow.

Anthony: She knows me. She gets the fact that I really don’t like being in front of the camera [on a reality show]. I’ll support it, but I’d rather that be her thing. I actually produced the show ... my company produced it, so it’s definitely a support system there. But she knows that it’s not my thing—that’s her lane. If I need to come on and support her once in a while, I’ll come on and support her, but we kind of keep that …

Strahan: Separate.

Anthony: Kind of keep that separate. And that’s what makes ... that’s what makes us happy. 

Strahan: I think, you know, happy wife, happy life, man.

Anthony: Absolutely. And she … I mean, she works. I like to say that I work pretty hard ...

Strahan: Yeah.

Anthony: She works harder than me. She’s one of the hardest working people I will ever come across.

Strahan: You respect that.

Anthony: I respect it.

Strahan: That’s really awesome, and it’s paying off for both of you. And you know, you grew up on Myrtle Street in West Baltimore and it’s considered …

Anthony: Murder Lane.

Strahan: Yeah, and so for any young kid who’s in that situation—not in an ideal, perfect world, in their house or right outside their front door—what advice do you have for them to be positive and make it out of that in a positive way like you have?

Anthony: It takes time. It takes a commitment. I only can speak from my experience. Like for me, I had to be committed to trying to get up.

Strahan: Did you have people trying to drag you down the wrong path?

Anthony: Yeah, I was just one of those kids. I was just a product of my environment. Those things that went on in my neighborhood, I was a part of until it came a time where I really had to figure out which way I wanted to go. Did I want to stay a product of my environment or did I want to, you know, move on and try to do something different and make something out of my life? And you know, it was some luck. I got lucky.

Strahan: Of course.

Anthony: I mean, I wasn’t destined to be sitting here talking to Strahan today.

Strahan: Strahan wasn’t destined to be sitting talking to Anthony.

Anthony:It was definitely a lot of luck. I had some luck on my side.

Strahan: And you have a 7-year-old son, Kiyan. Now, what’s the hardest part about being a father to a 7-year-old son?

Anthony: Knowing that my past and the way I grew up made me who I am today and knowing that he would never, ever, ever experience that. You know, so sometimes I find myself, like, “You’ve got to be tougher” ...

Strahan: Yeah.

Anthony: But I know I’ve got to back up off of that so I don’t … I don’t want to be too hard on him. I go to some of his basketball games, I go to baseball games, and I fall all the way back. I sit, like, up in the rafters.

Strahan: Yeah. You don’t want to be that dad up there screaming.

Anthony: No, I don’t want to be that dad because I know when I was younger, that dad that was screaming, I was like, “Yo, tell your daddy to …”

Strahan: [Laughs]

Anthony: “ ... Tell your daddy to be quiet, man.” So I never want to be that dad. And I know he admires me so much that he takes everything I say is just like the end of the world for him.

Strahan: Yeah.

Anthony: I let him do his thing. I let him be a kid. I don’t talk to him like “You need to do this” or “You need to do that.” I give him pointers to help him out, but I don’t criticize him.

Strahan: And you encourage him to work hard ... in anything he does.

Anthony: And he knows that, he knows that.

Strahan: What do you like to do most with him? What’s your favorite thing?

Anthony: He loves going to the park. He loves going to play catch. He loves going to the movies. He loves play dates. You know, typical kid things. For me, it’s just a matter of waking up every morning and knowing that I got a chance to impress my son, to be a role model to my son.

Strahan: When you have a kid, though, that’s the one thing I realized—that most of the things that they learn, or a lot of them, are what we will teach them. And you realize, oh my goodness—this is some serious responsibility. And it’s kind of frightening. It scares you.

Anthony: I get scared. I get scared sometimes. You know, just sitting there and just knowing because I see him looking at everything that I’m doing and he hears everything. He’s at that age now where he’s taking what I’m doing and kind of incorporating it into his life in some way, shape or form. So I’ve got to be very careful about things that I say in the media, things that I do, the way I conduct myself, the way I carry myself.

Strahan: Well, I tell you what. We all worry about, you know, what the media’s saying and all this other stuff, but I think you just hit it right on the head. That is the only thing that really matters—the impression you make on your kid. Because if you make the right impression on them, you’re making the right impression on the world. Thank you, man.

Anthony: My brother.

Strahan: Appreciate it.

Anthony: Always.

Strahan: Send me my shoes.

Luke Wilson May Singlehandedly Save Books, Newspapers and CDs

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Specs
Who Luke Wilson
Age 42
Accomplishments Co-stars in The Skeleton Twins with Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader (in theaters Sept. 12); writer and co-director (with brother Andrew Wilson) of the short film Satellite Beach
Base Los Angeles

What’s the first information you consume in the morning?
I get The New York Times and the L.A. Times every day, hard copies. I don’t have a Kindle or anything like that. I’m in New York right now, and there’s a Barnes & Noble on Sixth Avenue I used to go to that’s gone now, and the St. Mark’s Bookshop has been moved and is significantly smaller. I feel like a wanted man.

Do you have an iPad?
I have one, but I haven’t learned to use it yet. That’s one of my goals. I’ve still got a BlackBerry. Actually, my brother Owen was talking to me about switching to the iPhone because it’s so much better, but he was talking about it like it’s almost like a relationship, saying, “You can’t have both at the same time! Get rid of the BlackBerry and make the commitment to the iPhone!” I haven’t done that yet, but I will.

What do you watch on TV?
I love Jonah From Tonga on HBO. It’s a spinoff from Summer Heights High, which I thought was incredible. Chris Lilley seems to me like a sort of Peter Sellers comedic powerhouse. The show reminds me of Eastbound and Down in that there’s nothing in it that’s not funny.

What’s on your reading list?
I’m reading a pretty great book right now called Defiant about POWs in Vietnam, mainly at what they call the Hanoi Hilton. I’ve also got the new biography of John Updike, which I’ll probably move on to next. I try and make myself read fiction; it’s just kind of hard to do. But I always remember reading that Warren Zevon liked this noir detective writer named Ross Macdonald, so I found a couple of his books and I’m going to give those a shot. I figure if it’s good enough for Warren Zevon, it’s good enough for me.

Any magazines?
Probably my favorites are these British music magazines. There’s one called Mojo that’s really incredible, and another called Uncut that covers music and movies. Those are really great magazines with good, long interviews and reviews of albums that I would never know about. I also read Rolling Stone, Time, Golf Digest, Golf Magazine and occasionally magazines like Men’s Journal or Outdoors.

How do you get your music?
I still buy CDs. I had a girlfriend set up an iPod, which I’ve got to buckle down and start using. One great thing about being here in New York is there are still some smaller record stores with very rare stuff, like this place called Generation Records on Thompson Street.

What have you been listening to lately?
I got that new tribute to JJ Cale with Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler. And I just always listen to a lot of Dylan. He released three Christian albums in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s that have some great songs on them. I always just got a kick out of a guy like that totally changing course. He’d have some real fire and brimstone speeches at his concerts, but there are some really beautiful, moving songs.

How Having Higher Income Affects How Men Spend and Consume Media

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Men tend to spend money on the same goods and services regardless of wealth, but the rich are roughly twice as likely to take a luxury vacation and eat organic, the Shullman Research Center found. And while men in general tend to be bigger Internet consumers, those with a household income of more than $500,000 a year are still catching your ads in magazines, newspapers and on television.

Infographic: Carlos Monteiro

6 Things Every Man Should Have This Fall [Video]

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Fall is right around the corner, and that means it's time to (begrudgingly, perhaps) refresh your look. Where better to get sartorial advice than from GQ, a brand that has been dishing out style tips for over 50 years?

So we caught up with GQ's style editor Will Welch to talk about some his favorite men's trends for the season. Among some of his staples: the redesigned J.Crew corduroy suit, distressed denim, and "simple, crisp white sneakers."

These trends (and many more) can be found in GQ Style, a new bi-annual magazine from the editors of GQ that makes its debut this month.

Check out the video above for more. 


Here Are the 3 Big Trends That Ruled This Year’s Super Bowl Ads

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During the Super Bowl match-up of the Philadelphia Eagles versus the New England Patriots, brands looked for the next big hit. Would Chris Pratt's flexing for Michelob Ultra work? Or would Mountain Dew's lip-sync battle be the big hit? Ultimately, it's clear that Tide's attempt to hijack the Super Bowl won the day. Below, we...

The 5 Best Ads of Super Bowl LII

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Patriots vs. Eagles turned out to be another classic Super Bowl, with little separating the teams--and a Hail Mary at the end that could have sent it to OT. This was good news for advertisers, who could count on eyeballs throughout the game, and particularly for Tide, which aired four brilliant commercials across four quarters...

See Every 2018 Super Bowl Ad in Under 2 Minutes

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Alexa lost her voice. Peter Dinklage rapped to Busta Rhymes. Eli Manning and Odell Beckham, Jr. did some Dirty Dancing. And Mr. Clean did his... oh wait, that was a Tide ad. But the Old Spice guy... sorry, also a Tide ad. Here's the ultimate 2018 Super Bowl ad mash-up: all of the commercials, with...

Keanu Reeves Wasn’t Fazed by the Life-Threatening Stunts in His Squarespace Super Bowl Ad

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It might not come as a surprise that Keanu Reeves was 100 percent on board with the idea of standing on top of a motorcycle that would barrel down an open stretch of endless road at 45 miles per hour in the middle of the desert in Lancaster, California. When Squarespace presented the idea (which...

Big or Bust: How Twitter Is Looking for Monetization in the Wrong Place

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To many commentators, they are two peas in a pod: Facebook and Twitter dominate mindshare when it comes to social media, and each is now courting video producers and advertisers aggressively. But to me, that is where the comparison ends. While Facebook goes from strength to strength, with third-quarter-2017 advertising revenue up 49 percent over...
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