Thursday, February 21, 2008

Eau De Erykah?

If there’s one man that know the power of the unexpected move…in terms of acres and acres of free press. Its Tom Ford.



Never one to do a dainty little dance with controversy, he’ll smack it, flip it and rub it down…while the rest of us are left to marvel. Love him or loathe him, this guy knows how to play the press like a piano.

Case and point and a real WTF moment, he’s announced Erykah Badu will be the face of his new, as yet, un-named, fragrance. Eau de Erykah doesn't appeal much, none of the Gucci fragrances top my list but let's see.


Erykah is an unexpected choice for soooo many reasons. She’s black.

See yesterday’s post "Is It Cos I Is Black?"

She’s not that big anymore, its been about 5 years since she dropped an album.
She’s very eccentric and afro-centric and really not that mainstream.

If you asked me to guess which black women he’d pick, I’d have said Thandie, Kerry, Joy Bryant…songstress? Even Cassie would have come up higher on my list.

Which is precisely why I think Erykah is a pretty smart move. It makes us all interested, it’s a very unexpected choice so everyone’s talking about it. For free.

And for Erykah, after being out of the limelight for so long, she’s about to release her new album, and hit the road on her summer tour. I’m sure some Daft Punks will complain Erykah’s selling out. To that I say “Quiet in the cheap seats please”. I think its friggin fabulous. We all need/want/love to get paid so do what you will. And if that constitutes selling out, then in the cheap seats you shall remain.

Tom Ford likes to create very provocative ads so lets see what he’ll do with Erykah. Whatever he does is highly unlikely to be more controversial than his last one….....

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Erykah...??Hmmm....I wonder what he's upto.Leaves us all guessing,dont it?If this ad tops the last one then all hail TOM FORD!

Naija Chickito said...

You are always on top of things. When do you have the time to do all the other things you do? I'm so impressed.

Jen Juma said...

Erykah is dropping an album pretty soon though. She's actually in Nigeria for the Thisday Awards.

This raises the issue of degrading women in advertising..and its men's perfume (hiss!)..I'm suing!

TigerTem said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
TigerTem said...

@Stephanie...I'll just say All hail Tom Ford right now!


@Naija...ha ha ha! I tend to seem waaay more organised than I really am! But for me this blog is an extension of my job. And I'm doing a lot more freelance writing now so this is a good platform for that too.

@Ladi...yeah its called 'New AmErykah' which I think is a brilliant title.

You find the ad degrading? Interesting. Deliberately and perhaps unnecessarily provocative yes, hadn't thought about it being degrading....

Anonymous said...

Erykah is such a smart move. I'm a big fan of Tom - I've always said a man that walks with an umbrella is a man of substance.

With great photography, Erykan and the fragrance could generate some great campaign images

Uzo said...

Erykah? Interesting indeed...There have been pretty hot reviews about her new album...But i agree Tom Ford is a genius...

TigerTem said...

@RM...I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the ads. Cos you know they will use a hot photographer too.

@Uzo...Looking forward to hearing the album. Saw the video for the first song. Loved it, she'a a little crazy but that's why we like her.