St. Ides Perfected the Hip-Hop Ad...Straight up.

The most authentic urban ads in the history of the game, all come from alcohol companies. This saddens me greatly, because, I've always felt that many of these companies used their accurate knowledge of Hip-Hop and urban subculture to target underage kids. This is not something that you can prove, but, its hard not to believe that is the case.

The truth is, whoever created these campaigns knew what they were doing. When these ads first hit, I was in love with them and tried to tape as many as I could of the air. These ads did not FEEL LIKE ADS. They felt like rap songs. Any brand that can master that, has a winning campaign.

The bottom line is that Puffy and Ciroc Vodka could have never happened, Jay and Armand de Brignac would have never existed without St. Ides paving the way. These are just a few of the ads St. Ides have made. They've made many more than I can list but some of them include Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Geto Boys and many others. St. Ides also got major shouts out on Ice Cubes Death Certificate album. Check some of them out now.

Ice Cube (this one got St. Ides sued by other malt liquor companies'cause cube said the beverage could make your "jimmy bigger"):

King Tee (classic old school LA rapper who known for being a drinker) :

Wu-Tang Clan (they stay with street level MC's with mass appeal):

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Beyond Urban Branding

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