“This Can’t Be Life” by Rapper Tyke- T

Research

Since the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice and locally Darrius Stewart ignited a firestorm of discussion surrounding young African-American men being killed by police officers, more young people have become more conscious of perceived racial bias against African-Americans. According to research conducted by The Guardian, in 2015 young black men were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police officers. The study showed that more than 1,130 African American men were killed by police officers that year. These incidents helped to shape the context for Tyrone Stroble aka Tyke-T to create this song.

Planning

The Carter Malone Group LLC (CMG) signed a contract to work with Tyrone Stroble in December 2015. We created a plan for the single launch of “This Can’t Be Life.” The plan included a media kit and a social media strategy. CMG had five weeks to implement the strategy. The media kit was an essential part of the plan. The kit had to be attractive and include the link to the new song for the media and music critics hear the song and view the video.

A pitch was created to drive the target media to open the link to the media kit. The team determined the new single should be released during Black History Month on February 4, 2016. We wanted to drive viewers to the Facebook page to view the video and hear the song. The target audience was millennials. The team created a media list that consisted of Hip-Hop online magazines, local media and radio stations.

CMG targeted 10,000 views on the Facebook Page for the song and 1 million media impressions.

Execution

A big part of the public relations strategy was to build excitement for the new song two weeks before the debut. The team created and posted to social media teases for the release. The media kit was distributed to 150 media outlets on February 4, 2016.

The team made follow-up phone calls to key media outlets and the CMG team invited media to go to the Tyke-T Facebook page.

Evaluation

Tyke-T has had some success with his music, but had not been profiled on this scale with some of the major Hip-Hop magazines. We were able secure placements locally in the Commercial Appeal (Daily newspaper), The Tri-State Defender (African-American weekly newspaper), and the Tennessee Tribune (weekly Nashville newspaper) among other placements. The total media impressions for this media kit include during the time period was 1,437,000. There were 29,500 social media views on Facebook for the video and song.

The media placements and social media buzz opened the door for major performance opportunities in Memphis and Nashville. Tyke T was invited to participate in the new music event – Memphis 901 Music Festival, the Sisterhood Showcase, National Civil Rights Museum 2016 Drop the Mic Poetry Slam Contest, Black Love Back to School Event, Memphis Grizzlies vs Chicago Bulls game and Opening for Ro James.