The Dirty Brand

ver the course of my career, I have been fortunate to work on some great brands.  Such as Harlem Lyrics, Geoff Duran, and most recently Cocoa Belle Chocolates. By far, my favorite brand I’ve created was The Dirty Magazine.

Now, I know what you are thinking, a dirty magazine?. It’s not what your think. The Dirty was a magazine focused on southern hip-hop music. Anybody who is a fan of the music knows that the nickname for the southern hip-hop culture is “The Dirty South”. Hence, the name The Dirty... the speaker box of southern hip-hop music.

The Dirty was an exciting brand experience. It wasn’t because of the logo. Which, I think is great. It wasn’t just because of the wonderful media guide. And it wasn’t because of the outstanding content description. It was the combination of all those things to tell a great compelling story.

Let me tell you the moment that made this best brand experience for me. I, along with my editorial staff, decided that David Banner would be the best rapper for the premier issue cover. We thought that David truly personified what it means to be a southern rapper.  We were fortunate to connect with his publicist at the time.

Our challenge was we had no money, and no one knew who we were. We hadn’t published anything. Not even a snippet of the magazine.

What we did have was a dynamic media guide piece. The content highlighted the magazine's point of view about southern hip-hop culture. Also, we had a wonderful design concept which showcased the cutting edge dirty attitude of the publication. It was all about “The Dirty South”.

So, we quickly mailed David’s publicist our media guide on a Tuesday. She called us on Thursday.  At that very moment, I realized how branding is powerful!  All we had was the media guide. So, the media guide was instrumental. It established a great brand experience. Which, ultimately, fostered a quick response that resulted in an interview with David the very next week.