Viral Marketing Dresses Up as Bay Area Rap

In the above video a rap duo called Abraham Linkin, apparently from San Francisco, rap an actually funny ode to Ross Dress for Less, specifically the 4th and Market location - which I hold dear to my heart, having worked at the 4th and Mission Mel's for two horrible summers of my college years. Little did I know that those summers would provide me with a better path to high-paying, consistent employment than my four years of study have, so far. But that's another story. And, as this story may reveal, I could have a future as a consultant for rap-based viral marketing. So don't worry about me.

The above video was sent to me on Twitter by @misterwheeler without comment, but perhaps as another example of raps dedicated to a particular brand, which we cannot say for sure whether it's viral marketing or not. At a glance, I thought this couldn't be viral marketing on the part of Ross Dress for Less, simply because they spend most of their time making fun of how shitty the quality of clothing is that you get at Ross, and how they sell so much useless shit. Also, it's really funny, self-deprecating, and disarming in the way that some Bay Area rap is. Think Z-Man, for example.

The first fishy thing I discovered is that Abraham Linkin seem to be complete unknowns in San Francisco, or anywhere. Try to Google them, and Google thinks you've misspelled Abraham Lincoln, because you have. In an age when The Dream renames himself The-Dream for SEO purposes (according to my man Sam Duke), it's a strange move to make yourself impossible to find on The Internet. If you succeed in finding their website, it redirects to the "Ross" video. They also refrain from using any actual Bay Area slang (they call each other "son"), and film at some very touristy locations: 4th and Market, a rooftop on Haight and Ashbury, and 16th and Mission. Also, they film one shot at 23rd and Irving, which is just bizarre beyond comprehension, and proof positive that these guys are not a San Francisco-based rap duo. Or, that they're secretly Chinese.

Digging deeper [||] on Google, I discovered their Twitter which has only one page of tweets since their first, about seven months ago, making them suspiciously taciturn for rappers, if anyone still believes that Abraham Linkin is a rap group at this point. Also, every link not pertaining directly to "Ross" leads you to a 404 error page. They follow only two people: Larrell Tyler and Will Hatcher, both immediately recognizable as the guys in the video. Clicking on their website links reveals that both are actors, specifically comedians - Will's more obviously than Larrell's. So, no, Abraham Linkin is not a rap group, except for when they are doing an advertisement for Ross Dress for Less. What a loss.

Perhaps I was really dense to not immediately smell bullshit here, but I think that has to do with the ad's successful co-opting of Bay Area rap culture, specifically the sense of humor (Uptown Almanac fell for it, so I'm not alone). Which is not to say that this is spot-on, but that if this were filmed elsewhere, it might seem even more phony. Imagine it in Philly, for instance. Doesn't work.

My advice to Ross Dress for Less would be this: if you're staging a viral marketing campaign online, tighten up your online presence! The worst thing you can do in viral marketing is reveal that it is what it is. It took me all of five minutes to figure out that this was phony, and about 20 minutes to write it up. If you've been working on this campaign since December of 2009, you have done a shit job.

Tellingly, this campaign has shown us that you can't expect quality goods from a cheap-ass place like Ross, both intentionally and unintentionally. That, my friends, is truly shoddy marketing work.