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Nick Cannon seems to have his hands in everything—in front of the camera, behind the camera, in retail, on the radio. And now the AdColor Board of Directors has named Cannon as the 2013 AdColor All-Star.

Cannon will receive the honor at the upcoming AdColor Awards and Industry Conference on September 21. Other former AdColor All-Stars Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Russell Simmons, Cristina Saralegui, Queen Latifah, George Lopez, and Boris Kodjoe will be on hand.

The AdColor All-Star Award goes to creative professionals of multicultural backgrounds, who, a press release explains, “have mastered all aspects of the media, creative, digital and traditional advertising disciplines.” AdColor is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to celebrate diversity in the advertising, marketing, media, and public relations industries.

According to AdColor, Cannon is their pick this year because he “embodies the ‘Rise Up. Reach Back,’ mission of AdColor.”

This year Cannon returned for the fifth season as host of NBC’s America’s Got Talent and he serves as the chairman of Nickelodeon’s TeenNick television network as well as hosts his own nationally syndicated Top 40 weekend countdown radio show called “Cannon’s Countdown” with CBS Radio. Cannon also runs the multimedia company NCredible Entertainment, which produces TV and film projects. The company also has a product division that introduced the NCredible branded headphones last year in conjunction with Monster and expects 2013 sales to exceed $30 million.

And Cannon inked a multi-year, multi-million first-look production deal with NBC Networks to develop scripted and unscripted programs for the network earlier this year. His new sketch comedy show, Incredible Crew, premiered on Cartoon Network and has out-performed American Idol in all key kids demos.

Along wth Cannon, AdColor will honor 21 individuals and companies.

SXSW is approaching, and with the big event (which is expected to draw tens of thousands of well-connected digital types) are a ton of companies looking to capitalize on the opportunity to make a big impression.

So here’s something that should catch your eye: Andrew WK, a musician, party guy, and the founder of New York club Santos Party House who’s known for having a bloody nose (you can check it out on his website), is apparently the new spokesperson for a Playtex feminine hygiene product, ad seen above. We saw the news on Jezebel, which links to a press release, available here. It’s so crazy, we did a little snooping around to see if this might be some sort of a gag. (You can buy these wipes on Amazon.) In the release, there’s a statement form Playtex: “This exciting new product required the help of someone who could embody the brand’s playful yet bold campaign; someone who could party hard, but still be clean when it counted.” Wow.

We’d bet money this is something just for SXSW, meant to get a truckload of buzz and giggles. Last year, a company turned homeless people into Wifi hotspots for charity at SXSW and got nationwide attention. So the bar has been raised.

Whether you know who Andrew WK is or not, the answer to the question above is no. I don’t want to hear what a man has to say about feminine hygiene. Not in real life. Not in an ad. And most men don’t have much to say on the subject. In fact, they’d rather pretend the issue doesn’t exist and if the ladies need to talk about it, please do so over cocktails with other women very far out of earshot, thank you very much OK fine.

The next question is whether this will successfully get Playtex the publicity it craves. Is a momentary flash in the pan that gets some media coverage and attention at the conference worth it? Anything for a little PR.

About This Episode

She’s a marketing wiz and a monitor of her children’s social networking activity. Monique Jackson stresses how important the role of mothering really is when comes to regulating your child’s activity on Facebook,  Twitter, Instagram, and any social network. Her advice to parents: You must always be aware and present of what’s going on!

About Monique Jackson

Publicist Monique Jackson is one half of TEAM Image, a public relations company she founded with partner Kita Williams. Monique got her start in marketing and promotions at Universal Pictures. She then moved on to a similar role at Island Def Jam records before branching out and forming TEAM Image in 2002. Known as “Momma Mo” for her ability to nurture and encourage clients to be their best, Mo attributes her career vector to her childhood dreams of becoming “a minister, a nurse and an entertainer.”

About Karyn Parsons

Karyn Parsons is best known as the character “Hilary Banks” on the long-running television show, “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” Today she is a wife and mother of two. Parsons is also the Founder and President of the Sweet Blackberry foundation, which is inspired by the true tale of a determined slave and the remarkable lengths he traveled to find his freedom.  While growing up, Parsons’ mother, a librarian in the Black Resource Center of a library in South Central Los Angeles, would share stories of African-American accomplishment with her daughter.  A mother and activist, Karyn created Sweet Blackberry to use the power of stories to inspire youth. Follow her on Twitter @Karyn_Parsons.

Want More Mommy In Chief? Watch these episodes:

Season 2

• Episode 1: Are You A Good Enough Mother?
• Episode 2: New Motherhood and Balancing A Busy Work Life
• Episode 3: How to Decorate an Eco-Friendly Baby Nursery
• Episode 4: Foodie, Nicole Friday on Kids and Career
• Episode 5: From Hollywood to Stay At Home Mom
• Episode 6: Single Mom in The City
• Episode 7: Mommy Mogul and Marketing Wiz Monique Jackson at Home With Her Boys 
• Episode 8: Beauty Maven Jodie Patterson Talks Four-Day Work Week for Moms 
• Episode 9: Tonya Lewis Lee on Motherhood and the Importance of Women’s Health

Season 1

• Episode 1: Back 2 School
• Episode 2: Happy Halloween
• Episode 3: Socially Responsible Kids
• Episode 4: Money Talks
• Episode 5: Keeping Families Healthy
• Episode 6: Thanksgiving Madness
• Episode 7: Highlights and Best Moments
• Episode 8: Stylish Moms
• Episode 9: Best Apps for Moms
• Episode 10: Socialite Kids
• Episode 11: Hair Talk with AfroBella
• Episode 12: Happy New Year!

About This Episode

Music industry consultant, marketing wiz, wife and mom of 5 boys, Monique Jackson invites us into her world and LA home to talk career and being a mommy!

About Monique Jackson

Publicist Monique Jackson is one half of TEAM Image, a public relations company she founded with partner Kita Williams. Monique got her start in marketing and promotions at Universal Pictures. She then moved on to a similar role at Island Def Jam records before branching out and forming TEAM Image in 2002. Known as “Momma Mo” for her ability to nurture and encourage clients to be their best, Mo attributes her career vector to her childhood dreams of becoming “a minister, a nurse and an entertainer.”

About Karyn Parsons

Karyn Parsons is best known as the character “Hilary Banks” on the long-running television show, “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.” Today she is a wife and mother of two. Parsons is also the Founder and President of the Sweet Blackberry foundation after being inspired by the true tale of a determined slave and the remarkable lengths he travelled to find his freedom.  While growing up, Parsons’ mother, a librarian in the Black Resource Center of a library in South Central Los Angeles, would share stories of African-American accomplishment with her daughter.  A mother and activist, Karyn created Sweet Blackberry to use the power of stories to inspire youth. Follow her on Twitter @Karyn_Parsons.

Want More Mommy In Chief? Watch these episodes:

Season 2

• Episode 1: Are You A Good Enough Mother?
• Episode 2: New Motherhood and Balancing A Busy Work Life
• Episode 3: How to Decorate an Eco-Friendly Baby Nursery
• Episode 4: Foodie, Nicole Friday on Kids and Career
• Episode 5: From Hollywood to Stay At Home Mom
• Episode 6: Single Mom in The City
• Episode 7: Mommy Mogul and Marketing Wiz Monique Jackson at Home With Her Boys 
• Episode 9: Tonya Lewis Lee on Motherhood and the Importance of Women’s Health

Season 1

• Episode 1: Back 2 School
• Episode 2: Happy Halloween
• Episode 3: Socially Responsible Kids
• Episode 4: Money Talks
• Episode 5: Keeping Families Healthy
• Episode 6: Thanksgiving Madness
• Episode 7: Highlights and Best Moments
• Episode 8: Stylish Moms
• Episode 9: Best Apps for Moms
• Episode 10: Socialite Kids
• Episode 11: Hair Talk with AfroBella
• Episode 12: Happy New Year!

You don’t need to have a sit down with Oprah to get attention. Local TV coverage, however, can be very helpful. Image: AP Photo/Harpo Productions, George Burns

You’ve opened the door to your brand new business. Now you have to get people to walk through it. One way to drive attention (and traffic) is with the local news.

However, the competition for attention from local media is stiff. They’re getting pitched left and right, not to mention all of the  breaking news they have to cover.

“Create an experience that will attract many people from the city, and guarantee an audience by requiring an event sign up page or RSVP that will enable you to know how many people you are expecting,” suggests Black Enterprise. This is just one of the four tips that the outlet offers for getting your business some local buzz.

Also, once you get some attention, don’t stop there. Keep the relationship going.

“Once you see the news segment online, be sure to tweet the link and share it with your friends, Facebook followers and other networks,” the article says.

For more, click through to BlackEnterprise.com.

Image: Raw-Hollywood.com

Watching Brandy unveil her video for “Put It Down” on 106 & Park this week, it’s easy to see why the world fell in love with her in the first place.  In her early thirties, she still has the sweet likeability of an innocent 15 year old that makes you want to smile with her.

That makes this that much harder.

She looks gorgeous in the video. Her close-ups are undeniable proof the woman hasn’t aged since Never Say Never  in 1998. But, it wasn’t “Thriller.” And to warrant three months of hype – the song hit the blogosphere in April – it needed to be “Thriller.”

“Put It Down” is the lead single for Two Eleven, the singer’s comeback album slated for release in October. I want Brandy to win. When I heard the single, in April, I was fully on board. But, she’s not going anywhere if she doesn’t pick up the pace. By the looks of things, she and her team are living in 2001.

“Put It Down” dropped on April 26 , but was not available on iTunes until May 8. For twelve days people downloaded her song illegally. Hardcore fans may have gone back to buy the single, but the rest of us kept it moving as illustrated by the song entering Billboard Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart at number 98.

Filming for the video started on July 10^th. What was Brandy doing for three months? She received a lot of attention for her July performance at the BET Awards. Brandy’s tribute to Whitney Houston was arguably one of the best performances we’ve ever seen her do. This would have been a good time to release a video. The purpose of content is to extend the conversation around your brand. It’s a great tool for prolonging buzz. But, it would be another month before we saw a glimpse of the clip.

For two weeks the four-minute clip was parceled out. Video stills on August 1, a trailer five days later, and a preview the week after online and on 106 & Park. It was a valiant effort to sustain interest in the song. But keep in mind a whole summer has taken place, countless dramas have unfolded, and Brandy is still talking about “Put It Down” repeatedly. It was the equivalent of someone who keeps interrupting your conversation talking about the same thing. If you’re not bringing anything new to the table, your content is worthless. Audiences can see through repackaging.

When a brand struggles in an area, it is a smart business move to look at what other brands dominating that area of the industry are doing and learn from their success. I want Brandy to learn from Rihanna. Rihanna has mastered the changing nature of the music industry and content in general. She doesn’t have a number one album, the classic measurement of an artist’s success, but she is the best-selling digital artist of all time. Rihanna’s last single, “We Found Love,” premiered on September 22, 2011 and was available for digital download on the same day. The music video was shot in late September, and premiered shortly after on October 19.

I don’t know what the personal issue is for Brandy, but the handling of this single reflects a strategic problem many brands, especially older ones, struggle with. Old models don’t work. The news cycle is too quick and our attention spans are too short.

The level of success Brandy once had now requires that she provide more new content, more often. When done correctly it will extend the work she puts into her music and performances. For her second single, let’s hope she gets it right.

Cortney Cleveland is a freelance writer and content strategist in New York City. You can follow her on Twitter @CleveInTheCity and visit her personal column The Red Read.

This decision is either a PR stunt or a sign that Chris Brown and his management have finally learned their lesson about his hot temper. Either way, there will be no interviews for C Breezy in the new year.

According to Necole Bitchie, Chris’s manager Tiny Davis says the comeback kid will be focusing on recording and performing, not answering journalists’ questions:

“We’re not trying to be rude, selfish or disrespectful to anyone in anyway. If people are going to judge anything, judge him for his talent.”

Chris’s biggest appearance this year may very well be attending the Grammy’s. After being ordered to stay away for the past three years, he will be present at this year’s show and hopes to even have a chance to perform, according to a source next to Chris who vouches for his changed ways.

“Chris has grown tremendously as a person, and an artist from that time in his life. [He] has complied with all terms of his probation and has completed most of his court ordered community service. He has been a model probationer, but more importantly, Chris accepted responsibility for what he did.[...]Chris took that experience and vowed to learn from it and become a better person, and he was thrilled and truly humbled that he was nominated for three Grammys. Chris absolutely plans on attending the Grammys and is in talks with producers of the show to possibly perform.”

It’s a shame Team Breezy didn’t figure this whole no-interview thing out in 2011 before he smashed a window at ABC studios and stormed off the set and all. But formal interviews or not, I’m sure Chris will find  a way to stay on the media’s radar.

Do you think it’s a good idea for Chris Brown to keep a low profile in 2012? Will you miss him on the scene?

Brande Victorian is a blogger and culture writer in New York City. Follower her on Twitter at @be_vic.

More on Madame Noire!

• Yesterday’s Year In Review: The Good and Bad of 2011
• The Top 10 Most Shocking Celebrity Scandals of 2011
• Deuces Before The Due Date! Couples Who Split With Babies On The Way
• Celebrity Hair Spotlight: Selita Ebanks
• Should a Man’s Religion Affect Your Dating Decisions?
• Mane Magic:Ways To Color Your Hair Without Dye

Look who is just killing the game!

The Emmy-nominated Grey’s Anatomy‘s and Private Practice producer is back with a new series, a drama called “Scandal” for her homies at ABC. The drama will star actress Kerry Washington, cutie Columbus Short, and a slew of others who play employees at a crisis-management firm; a bunch of shiny-suit wearing PR folks who work in fixing up the disastrous mistakes and moves of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Washington fills big shoes playing the head of the firm and the former consultant to the President of the United States, Olivia Pope. In an interview with CNN, Washington says she wasn’t looking to do work on television at the time, but was blown away by the well-written script:

“I was not looking to do a TV show, but I read this amazing script with this amazing woman named Olivia Pope, and it happened to be for TV and so I thought maybe I want to do something different. Once I read it, I wanted to do whatever I had to do to be a part of it.”

The show is said to be loosely based around Judy Smith, a PR vet who has been in the business for 25 years, and the founder of the famous crisis management firm, Impact Strategies. Washington rubbed elbows with Smith to get prepared for the role. It’s exciting to see Washington get such a big acting opportunity on the small screen, and seeing as she’s an amazing actress on the big screen, she’ll probably knock this role out of the park. Love to see black women on top!

Will you be watching?

Check out the trailer for the new show below:

More on Madame Noire

• Is Lil’ Kim Too Old to Rap or Are Double Standards Pushing Her Out?
• Ask a Very Smart Brotha: Prison Dudes and Passive Procrastinators
• Our Apathy: Amber Cole and the Disvaluation of Black Girls
• Men: Please Stop Trying to Solve Our Love Problems
• Jay Electronica’s Defense of Badu: Shouldn’t We Expect All Our Men to Protect Us?
• The Curious Case Of The Two Ambers

(Wall Street Journal) — Facebook Inc. used controversial tactics to try to shift the online privacy spotlight away from itself—and onto rival Google Inc. The social-networking company secretly hired a public-relations firm to push stories critical of Google’s privacy practices. But the strategy backfired when bloggers and journalists disclosed Facebook’s behind-the-scenes role, forcing the company to explain its tactics.  Facebook hired WPP Group PLC’s Burson-Marsteller to pitch journalists and security experts on stories that questioned Google’s practice of collecting information from people’s Facebook and other social-networking accounts.  Rosanna Fiske, the chief executive of the nonprofit Public Relations Society of America, said Burson-Marsteller’s lack of disclosure is “deceptive” and violates her organization’s ethical standards.  ”When you are following misleading practices, the message is tainted,” she said. Consumers “wonder what else have they done that perhaps I shouldn’t trust.”

Read More..

by Selam Aster

Alicia Keys is two things to two different groups of people. On the one hand, she’s an amazing artist who is also a staunch philanthropist. On the other hand, she’s a great artist whose philanthropic endeavors really can’t be trusted. After all, she’s a home-wrecker.

Every time news emerges about Keys’ work with her organization Keep A Child Alive, which provides treatment and support to families affected by HIV and AIDS, it’s taken with some level of cynicism and apathy. In other words, eyes roll amongst Black folk.   Sure, her personal life is her personal life but celebrities are public citizens. It’s difficult to accept Key’s proposed image of a do-gooder when we’re led to believe that she didn’t do right in her personal life. For those who don’t know, Keys supposedly had a three year long affair with producer Swizz Beats, while he was married. Swizz eventually left his wife to be with Keys and they married in 2010.

Fortunately for Keys, the mainstream audience doesn’t have the same feelings as those who read blogs and news sites targeted to African-Americans, because white media basically didn’t cover news related to the affair.  The omission was so glaring that The Root compared how mainstream media handled news relating to Keys and the singer Fantasia, who was embroiled in her own drama.  Fantasia’s affair with a married man made headlines across People.com and Access Hollywood, whereas news of Alicia Keys’s affair was only mentioned in the Black media circuit.

Even Oprah, who questioned Naomi Campbell about the fact she was dating a married man (he’s officially separated), never brought up Key’s alleged infidelity when she had her on as a guest. So what gives? Does Alicia Keys’ have such good publicists that she can buy silence from influential reporters? I don’t think it’s too far off to believe considering Tom Cruise has successfully quelled alleged rumors for many, many years, thanks to a healthy legal team.

In any case, the brand of Alicia Keys, the sassy New York artist who gives back to her community, is tarnished in the Black community. Like Angelina Jolie, who wasn’t spared by the media and is still branded a home-wrecker, Keys (in the African-American community) will be associated with her artistry first, her infidelity second, and her humanitarian crusades last. Jolie can go on countless UN missions to third world countries but it will never erase the public’s memory as to what she did to America’s reigning sweetheart Jennifer Aniston.

There’s no doubt that she stands out from the pack with her dedication to her cause, as she continues to dutifully promote her organization. But it is unknown for how long her reputation amongst Black fans will linger and to what extent that her personal life has undermined her image as a humanitarian. But in any case, what matters is the services that are delivered via her organization and star power. Maybe, Key’s drive is partially motivated by her need to do right by us…or maybe not.