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      in Music

      How ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ Topped the Charts

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      A song by the previously unknown Oliver Anthony Music struck a chord with conservative pundits. Its quick trip to No. 1 relied on tactics that help pop stars go viral.The unadorned video suddenly appeared on social media earlier this month: a young man with a bushy red beard and a guitar in a backwoods locale, dogs at his feet and bugs buzzing in the background. In an impassioned drawl, he sings a country-folk anthem about selling his soul “working all day,” and being kept in his place by inflation, high taxes and the elites he holds responsible: “Rich Men North of Richmond.”Listen to This ArticleFor more audio journalism and storytelling, More

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      in Movies

      Hollywood Strike Leaves Influencers Sidelined and Confused

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      Despite not being in the actors’ union, many content creators are passing up deals to promote films or TV shows because they don’t want to be barred from the guild or face online vitriol.Deanna Giulietti is not in the actors’ union, but she turned down $28,000 last week because of its strike.Ms. Giulietti, a 29-year-old content creator with 1.8 million TikTok followers, had received an offer to promote the new season of Hulu’s hit show “Only Murders in the Building.”But SAG-AFTRA, as the union is known, recently issued rules stating that any influencer who engages in promotion for one of the Hollywood studios the actors are striking against will be ineligible for membership. (Disney is the majority owner of Hulu.) That gave Ms. Giulietti, who also acts and aspires to one day join the union, reason enough to decline the offer from Influential, a marketing agency working with Hulu.The union’s rule is part of a variety of aggressive tactics that hit at a pivotal moment for Hollywood labor and shows its desire to assert itself in a new era and with a different, mostly younger wave of creative talent. “I want to be in these Netflix shows, I want to be in the Hulu shows, but we’re standing by the writers, we’re standing by SAG,” Ms. Giulietti said. “People write me off whenever I say I’m an influencer, and I’m like, ‘No, I really feel I could be making the difference here.’”That difference comes at a cost. In addition to the Hulu deal, Ms. Giulietti recently declined a $5,000 offer from the app TodayTix to promote the Searchlight Pictures movie “Theater Camp.” (Disney also owns Searchlight.) She said she was living at home with her parents in Cheshire, Conn., and putting off renting an apartment in New York City while she saw how the strike — which, along with a writers’ strike, could go on for months — would affect her income.Representatives for Searchlight and TodayTix did not respond to requests for comment. Hulu and Influential declined to comment.The last time Hollywood’s screen actors and writers went on strike, social media platforms and the $5 billion influencer industry didn’t exist. The actors’ union began admitting content creators in 2021 and still has only a small number of them, but questions have quickly emerged around how the union’s dispute with the major Hollywood studios will affect popular internet personalities.The union’s message that content creators will be blocked from membership if they provide work or services for struck companies has sent many scrambling. A number of creators have pledged support for writers and actors and circulated “scab” lists of influencers who promote new releases or appear at related events. Others have been frustrated or confused by instructions from a union that doesn’t protect them, and that some had never heard of.SAG-AFTRA, which represents some 160,000 movie and television actors, approved a strike on July 13. The division with the studios is driven largely by concerns about compensation in the streaming era and artificial intelligence. They joined screenwriters, who walked off the job in May, the first dual shutdown since 1960. During the strike, actors are not able to engage in publicity efforts for their projects or appear at film festivals or events like Comic-Con.Influencers have become crucial to the entertainment industry in recent years, especially during the pandemic, building buzz and promoting products. They post videos to hype new TV shows and movies, appear on red carpets and at events like the MTV Video Music Awards, and unbox products tied to film and television characters. Typically, as in the case with Ms. Giulietti, outside agencies hire creators on behalf of the studios.“If I were to help the big studios amid this, I’m just hurting myself in the future,” said Mario Mirante, a comedian with 3.6 million followers on TikTok.Marshall Scheuttle for The New York TimesNow those activities, besides limiting their career ambitions, could lead to internet backlash, with one nonunion influencer already posting an apology video for appearing at a recent Disney movie premiere. Others have posted promotional videos anyway, without backtracking or pulling the content. At least one creator posting from a recent premiere opted to turn off their TikTok comments, possibly to avoid potential criticism. On the flip side, videos from creators about jobs and events that they rejected in solidarity with actors have racked up praise and views on TikTok.“We don’t have power to make decisions for the talent, but we will in this moment recommend not engaging with struck work or struck companies on paid or organic projects,” said Victoria Bachan, president of Whalar Talent, a unit of a creator commerce company that works with more than 200 content creators. She added that young creators were also more apt to be supportive of unions and organized labor.Still, Whitney Singleton, a 27-year-old with 1.2 million TikTok followers, has been frustrated by what is being asked of her. She had never heard of SAG-AFTRA until the past couple of weeks. Ms. Singleton, using the moniker @KeepUpRadio, has attracted fans by singing and rapping about her favorite video games like Fortnite and streaming herself playing video games. It has been her full-time job for three years. She has collaborated with struck companies like Amazon in the past.“I really do value creators, and I want them to get what they deserve,” Ms. Singleton said. “But it’s really hard for me to just be finding out about an organization and being expected to fall in line with their initiative when I feel like it’s new to me and the influencer space.”She said some influencers were being asked to turn down five-figure deals, and that “the majority of creators I’ve talked to about it feel it’s unfair that as nonunion members, they’re being included in this conversation.”Ms. Singleton was invited to an early screening of the “Barbie” movie and said that while it wasn’t a paid promotion, the union’s guidelines for promoting the movie were “what I would deem murky.” Ultimately, she decided to post about the event, for which she dyed her hair pink.“I actually got no negative feedback, it was all positive,” she said. “For a moment, I felt a bit scared and put in a corner with these requirements because I respect creators in all industries, but I wouldn’t be being true to my heart if I had let those things stop me from living my life and sharing the content.”The union did not respond to questions about the criticism or about how many influencers are included in its membership. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which negotiates on behalf of the biggest studios, has said its offers to the writers and the actors were “historic” improvements on their previous contracts.The reality for many creators is that they dream of someday achieving a level of fame beyond the smartphone screen, making the threat of blacklisting by Hollywood’s most powerful union an ominous one.Mario Mirante, a 28-year-old comedian on TikTok with 3.6 million followers, recently posted a popular video about turning down a deal to promote a show based on his support for actors and writers and his long-term ambitions. Mr. Mirante has hoped to work in Hollywood since childhood, and even has a tattoo of Jim Carrey as “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” on his arm.“That’s a lot of influencers’ goal and aspiration and why they do it,” said Mr. Mirante, who lives in Las Vegas. “We love to entertain and express ourselves, and that’s the Super Bowl, that’s the ultimate, being in a movie or a TV show.”Mr. Mirante has previously been paid to promote the movie “Champions” starring Woody Harrelson and a product tied to the “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise. “If I were to help the big studios amid this, I’m just hurting myself in the future, if that makes any sense,” he said. “Of course I’m not a part of it right now, but they’re fighting for basic rights, livable wages, not to have their A.I. likeness taken.”Krishna Subramanian, a founder of the influencer marketing firm Captiv8, said studios might need to pivot away from creators during the strike and get agencies to make more traditional display ads to place on Facebook and other sites.Simone Umba is a TikTok creator with more than 300,000 followers who primarily posts about TV shows and movies but has paused making such videos. She said that many influencers felt that they were “stuck in the middle,” but that most were opting to side with the union even as invitations and deals piled up.“We knew we were going to get approached, and it’s like we’re in a really messy family feud,” Ms. Umba, 26, said.She added, “Regardless of if you want to join the union or not, you don’t want to be one of those people that was willing to take a check instead of standing in support of people fighting for actual livable wages.”Ms. Umba said that it had been painful to miss out on posting about the star-studded “Barbie” movie after this summer’s marketing bonanza and that she had declined to attend an early screening of the film in Atlanta. She and a friend were messaging recently after trailers for “The Marvels” dropped, agonizing over their inability to post.“We were texting each other back and forth, like, this is so hard,” she said. She said she was prepared to hold out for months but was already thinking of holiday releases. She crossed her fingers, held them up and said, “Please, please, don’t let it get to Christmas.” More

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      in Television

      Bill Saluga, a Memorable Comedic Wiseguy, Is Dead at 85

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      He played many characters in his career, but he was best known by far for the one who said, “You doesn’t have to call me Johnson.”Raymond J. Johnson Jr. was a wiseguy, dressed in a zoot suit and a wide-brimmed fedora and waving a cigar in his right hand.When someone mentioned his name, the shtick took off.“Ohhhh, you doesn’t have to call me Johnson,” he would say. “My name is Raymond J. Johnson Jr. Now, you can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay, or you can call me Johnny, or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me Junie, or you can call me Ray Jay, or you can call me R.J. Or you can call me R.J.J. Or you can call me R.J.J. Jr.“But you doesn’t have to call me Johnson.”And you can call his creator Bill Saluga, a diminutive comedian with a thick mustache who came up with Johnson while a member of the Ace Trucking Company, an improvisational sketch troupe whose most famous alumnus is Fred Willard. Mr. Saluga also played Johnson on various television series; on a disco record (“Dancin’ Johnson”); and, most memorably, in commercials for Anheuser-Busch’s Natural Light beer.In 1979, at the peak of Mr. Saluga’s fame as a comedic one-hit wonder, Tom Shales of The Washington Post wrote that “now everybody and his brother are doing Saluga impressions throughout this very impressionable land of ours. He’s right up there with Steve Martin’s wild and crazy guy and Robin Williams’s madcap Mork.”Bob Dylan played off Mr. Saluga’s Johnsonian wordplay, and his own name change, in his 1979 song “Gotta Serve Somebody.” He sang, in part:You may call me Terry, you may call me TimmyYou may call me Bobby, you may call me ZimmyYou may call me R.J., you may call me RayYou may call me anything but no matter what you sayYou’re gonna have to serve somebodyMr. Saluga died of cardiopulmonary arrest on March 28 in a hospice in Los Angeles, his nephew, Scott Saluga, said. He was 85 and had been living in Burbank.The Tribune Chronicle, a newspaper in Warren, Ohio, near Youngstown, where Mr. Saluga was born, first reported his death on April 8. But it did not become widely known until Hollywood trade publications published obituaries this month.William Saluga was born on Sept. 16, 1937. When Billy, as his friends called him, was 10, his father, Joseph, was killed in an accident while working at the Republic Steel mill, and his mother, Helen (Yavorsky) Saluga, started working as a bookkeeper.Billy was a class clown and a cheerleader in high school. After two years in the Navy, he became a performer. In the early and mid-1960s he was seen on a local TV station, with a sketch comedy group called the Thimble Theater and at the Youngstown Playhouse, where, for seven years, he played roles in numerous productions, including “Inherit the Wind” and “Guys and Dolls.”In 1968, he became the talent coordinator for the comedian Steve Allen’s interview and entertainment show. “If you have a special or unusual talent,” a newspaper ad for the show read, “television needs you. Call Bill Saluga. 469-9011.”In 1969, after replacing a member of the Ace Trucking Company, he created the Johnson character during a man-on-the-street sketch with Mr. Willard at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village, It became part of the troupe’s repertoire until he left in 1976. By then, the group had made numerous appearances on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”Mr. Saluga appeared from 1976 to 1977 on the comedian Redd Foxx’s variety show and a comedy and variety series hosted by the comedian David Steinberg, on both of which he played Raymond J. Johnson. For the Steinberg show, he also portrayed a New York street guy named Vinnie de Milo.“Billy was always doing Ray J.,” Mr. Steinberg, said by email. “He was relentless with it. I would say, ‘Mr. Johnson,’ and Billy would be off.” He added: “He did it everywhere. At parties. His timing and delivery were so funny every time.”The character, with a delivery based in part on the con man Kingfish from the sitcom “Amos ‘n Andy,” appealed to Anheuser-Busch, which hoped to use him to distinguish Natural Light from a rival beer, Miller Lite. In 1978, the company teamed Mr. Saluga with Norm Crosby, the malaprop comedian, for a commercial set in a bar.When a customer asks for an Anheuser-Busch Natural Light, Mr. Crosby counsels him to say, “Just say ‘Natural,’” which propels Mr. Saluga to say: “See, you doesn’t have to call it Anheuser-Busch Natural Light. And you doesn’t have to call it Anheuser Natural. And you doesn’t have to call it Busch Natural. Just say ‘Natural.’” And when Mr. Crosby says, “Johnson’s right,” Mr. Saluga says, “Ohhhh, you can call me Ray or you can call me Jay. … ”The pair would go on to do a second spot. Eric Brenner, a friend of Mr. Saluga’s, said in a phone interview that Mr. Saluga had earned significant money in residuals from the two commercials, probably the most he made in his career.For the next 40 years, he took regular acting jobs — including a hostile ticket taker at an opera house in a 1992 episode of “Seinfeld” and Louis Lewis, the comedian Richard Lewis’s fictional cousin, in three episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in 2005 — as well as reprising Raymond J. Johnson on the animated TV series “The Simpsons” (2002) and “King of the Hill” (2010). “He played outrageous characters onstage, but offstage he was very reserved,” said Bill Minkin, a friend and fellow comedian. “It was that Midwest down-home thing.”No immediate family members survive.Mr. Saluga did not mind being known primarily as Raymond J. Johnson. In fact, he said, it gave him an agreeable anonymity when he stepped out of character.“I would sit in restaurants and hear the people behind me in the booth talking about me, and I was right there,” he said on “Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast” in 2017. “They didn’t know who I was, which was great.” More

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      in Music

      Two Creative Directors on Sports, Hip-Hop and Faith

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      For the Taking the Lead series, we asked leaders in various fields to share insights on what they’ve learned and what lies ahead.The birth of the partnership between the creative directors Free Richardson and Phil Cho hinged on, of all things, their shared faith. In 2018, Mr. Cho, the founder of NoLedge Productions, pitched a collaboration between his company and Mr. Richardson’s creative agency the Compound.“I go to slide two, and he goes, ‘Yo. Turn that off,’” Mr. Cho recently recalled. “He’s like, ‘Do you love God?’ I was like, ‘Yeah. I’m a believer,’ and he goes, ‘All right. We’re good.’”Of course, it wasn’t just spirituality that brought them together. Mr. Richardson also was impressed with the effort Mr. Cho showed when documenting an event through photos and videos at the Compound’s art gallery. “Phil has something special about him,” Mr. Richardson said recently. “You can just feel a good presence of energy.”The two companies are now a major force in the world of marketing, particularly around the intersection of sports and hip-hop. Together, they have curated an impressive portfolio of campaigns for brands including the shoe company Clarks, ESPN, the software company Niantic and DraftKings. Last year, the duo won three Cannes Lions advertising awards and five Muse Creative Awards, given for inspirational marketing campaigns. Last month, they won 12 Clio Awards, given for creativity in advertising.Mr. Richardson, 50, also known as Set Free, is African American and was born in the Bronx. He grew up in Queens and Philadelphia and was deeply involved in the hip-hop community and the world of street basketball culture. In 1998, he created the AND1 Mixtape Tour, a traveling basketball competition, and in 2007, he founded the Compound.Mr. Richardson’s story has helped shape and inspire many, including Mr. Cho.Born and raised in Edison, N.J., Mr. Cho, 33, is Korean American and grew up with a passion for both basketball and hip-hop music. He was a middle school student when the AND1 Mixtape Tour debuted. (“Some moms in Korea probably know about AND1,” Mr. Cho said about the tour’s reach.) Since starting NoLedge at the age of 26, he has collaborated with a variety of brands including Toyota, the record label 300 Entertainment and musicians like Akon and Year of the Ox.Today, Mr. Richardson and Mr. Cho are innovators in the crowded landscape of creative marketing, and consider themselves family as they “navigate the invisible handcuffs of corporate rule,” as Mr. Richardson put it.“Authenticity is a word that gets thrown around a lot in our industry,” Ari Weiss, chief creative officer at the advertising agency DDB Worldwide, wrote in an email. But “you’re either authentic or you’re not. Mr. Free Richardson and Mr. Phil Cho are pure authenticity.”The two spoke at the Compound’s headquarters in Brooklyn to discuss remaining authentic to their craft, being relevant and their shared faith. The conversation has been edited and condensed.Adriana BelletHow do you stay current?FREE RICHARDSON I think it always goes back to staying authentic and storytelling. Everybody has a story, and you can tell it through A.I., pictures, music, all the creative elements. Look at the NFT [nonfungible token] world. It came, and though it’s not gone, the whole time, I was like, I’m still going to go with touchable, feel-able art. Authenticity within. Look at a tree. The leaves will die before the root of the tree dies. A lot of things are happening through technology, and a lot of things are going to happen, but I don’t know anything that is bigger than the Mona Lisa. No matter what happens in technology, the root of creativity will always be around.PHIL CHO The root of what we are is: It’s always been about relationships. When I walk into the Compound, and I see all this artwork, like Jonni Cheatwood, and you see how long it took for them to come up with these ideas and wasn’t A.I.-generated, I feel like that’s what drives more value.RICHARDSON Yeah, I think it’s a lot of relationships. That’s with everything. The two things in life are communication and relationships. If we don’t communicate, you can’t make the relationship. Creativity is a revolving door. I still work with people that I worked with 20 years ago. It’s the reason we still hear Fleetwood Mac and Marvin Gaye songs in the same rotation that you hear Drake. And so when things are authentic and true, the creativity never goes away.How are you navigating challenges and opportunities facing the advertising industry?RICHARDSON I think the ratio of African Americans and Asians is very small. I don’t blame everything on race, but I think it’s a tougher role for me and Phil being a minority, because there’s not a lot of dominance of minorities in the advertising agency world, especially with Fortune 500 companies, C-suite level and businesses, especially small ones. [According to a 2022 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, of workers in “advertising, public relations, and related services,” 7.8 percent were African American and 6.6 percent were Asian American.] We’re kind of small, SWAT-style — boutique-small. That’s what I consider Compound and NoLedge. It’s a strategic partnership that executes some of the same things that big advertising agencies execute, without the red tape.CHO Before doing Compound, there weren’t people telling me how to facilitate production, and I felt like I had to just learn from trial and error. And a lot of the people that I would meet, they did happen to be white. So again, I’m not trying to make it a race thing either, but I just felt like there’s not a lot of people with my skin tone that are doing this and can help me out. So I think even merging with the Compound, it was a whole new world for me of just trying to be confident in what I’m doing and understanding that. What’s a lesson that you learned from your staff, team or peers?RICHARDSON At the end of the day, everybody makes mistakes. And myself, just looking people in the eye and just being like, “All of us are the same.” I think learning and working with NoLedge, it takes time. Everybody needs time — to execute a task, to learn, to communicate, to talk. To respect time and respect people and giving them time. Not to where you just want to get them to or the client, but just everybody needs time.CHO With the guys that are in NoLedge, for me, it’s patience. I’ll say this, but it’s harder to practice it. You might be able to do X, Y and Z, and you want the same from your guys, but you got to understand that they also need to learn X, Y and Z first. So you can’t expect people to move how you move. Adriana BelletHow do you keep campaigns authentic and meaningful?RICHARDSON I try to give everybody their own white box. When you go look at an apartment, you’d rather see the apartment empty so you can dream of how you’re going to decorate and design it. But if you go into a home that’s already furnished, it already blocks you in. You can’t really put your ideas on it. And so walking into brands and working with companies, I try to give them the white box and tell them, “How do you want to design this?”And then my job after that is just to put a magnifying glass on your ideas. You’re there to help the brand, not really to put your ideas on their brands. And doing it that way, it always helps expand what the goal is. The goal is not for my ideas to be presented. The goal is for my ideas to latch onto your ideas and make them bigger.CHO I really do feel like Free kind of sets his own trend. And I think that’s what a real creative is, right? To me, the better creative director you are, the more you don’t care about what other people think about you, and I think that’s given me confidence, too. It’s just what comes out of when we facilitate a project — just do what we feel would be dope. Just be comfortable with it.What are the challenges of a partnership?RICHARDSON Time. We can’t do everything we want to do. I mean, you have to understand what you’re going into with partnerships. It’s like a marriage. Phil, I love him. He’s my brother, my little cousin and a son. Then there’s times that he’s my uncle. I got to look up to him in certain areas. CHO It’s always about communicating. People have different work flows. It’s not like mine is exactly the same as Free’s. But I think the reason this works is so many young guys want to run the ship, right? So even while doing production, there’s certain things that I would do differently if I was shooting. But at the same time, a good leader is a good follower. I feel like these years right now, I’m soaking up the game. The same way Free was talking about clients and how you got to support their vision. I’m kind of doing a similar thing with Free. I’m supporting his vision. How do you stay inspired?RICHARDSON God. I want the world to understand that. He’s just the creator of all. If you can’t be inspired by thinking of that, I don’t know what else you’re going to be inspired by. God is my source of creativity.CHO I agree. All the stories in this world from different people and backgrounds — he’s the biggest artist. More

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      in Music

      A Drone Opera, Brought to You by General Dynamics? A Company Clarifies.

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      “Grounded,” a new work about the psychological toll of drone warfare, drew scrutiny after its presenter, Washington National Opera, advertised the support of a major military contractor.When the Washington National Opera announced that it would open its coming season with the premiere of “Grounded,” a new opera exploring the psychological toll of drone warfare, its star composer, Jeanine Tesori, got less attention than its listed sponsor: General Dynamics, the military contractor.Anger erupted online, with critics accusing Washington National Opera of serving as a mouthpiece for the defense industry. A think tank that advocates military restraint labeled it a “killer drone opera.” New York magazine gave the opera a “despicable” rating on its Approval Matrix, describing it as “the drone-bombing opera ‘Grounded,’ sponsored by General Dynamics.” RT, a state-owned Russian news outlet, said the work showed the strength of the American military-industrial complex.The creative team behind “Grounded,” an adaptation of an acclaimed Off Broadway play, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which commissioned the opera, grew disturbed by how the new opera was being portrayed. They worked behind the scenes to push the Washington National Opera to make it clear that General Dynamics, which has been a major sponsor of the opera company since 1997, had nothing to do with the creation of the opera.“I felt action was needed to guarantee that the audience would see ‘Grounded’ knowing that it is solely the work of its creators,” Tesori, a major Broadway composer who has expanded into opera, said in a statement to The New York Times. She added that she had only recently become aware of the philanthropic support of General Dynamics.The composer Jeanine Tesori said that “action was needed to guarantee that the audience would see ‘Grounded’ knowing that it is solely the work of its creators.”An Rong Xu for The New York TimesOn Tuesday, after days of negotiations, Washington National Opera posted a statement seeking some distance from its benefactor.“For the sake of clarity,” the statement said, “no sponsor or supporter of W.N.O. had any involvement in the creation of ‘Grounded’ or in the contents of its libretto.”The company changed its website, whose “Grounded” page had described General Dynamics as its “presenting sponsor,” to clarify that the company is a “W.N.O. season sponsor.” It also rewrote its promotional text for the opera, removing some militaristic language, including a line that had described its protagonist as a “hot shot F-16 fighter pilot, an elite warrior trained for the sky” and a line noting that “war ‘with all the benefits of home’ isn’t clear-cut.” The new description cut a reference to the “horror of war.”An early rendering of the set of the opera “Grounded.”Design and rendering by Mimi LienThe episode highlights the difficulties that cultural institutions sometimes face in protecting the integrity of their art while cultivating rich donors. The Kennedy Center, the parent organization of Washington National Opera, has in recent years faced pressure to cut ties with some benefactors, including tobacco companies.General Dynamics has long been a sponsor of Washington National Opera, providing more than $500,000 to the company each year in recent years. Gregory S. Gallopoulos, a senior vice president at General Dynamics, is a member of the opera company’s board.Timothy O’Leary, the general director of Washington National Opera, said in an interview that General Dynamics had no input on “Grounded,” or any other works.“No sponsor has any say in our artistic decisions, or ever could,” he said. “Any sponsor who tried to interfere in that way is not a sponsor from whom we would accept support.”The “Grounded” opera, adapted from a play by George Brant, was announced by the Met in 2017, part of an effort by the company to promote contemporary opera. The Met agreed to co-produce the opera with Washington National Opera ahead of its planned Met premiere in 2025.The New York Times described the play it is based on as a “haunting portrait of a woman serving in the United States Armed Forces coming under pressure as the human cost of war, for combatants as well as civilians, slowly eats away at her well-armored psyche.”Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, described the work as an “antiwar opera” and said that it provided a nuanced portrayal of the costs of war. He said he had advised his counterparts in Washington to take swift action once concerns started spreading on social media about the opera’s support from General Dynamics.“If this misperception was not corrected, it would be very bad for the work,” he said in an interview. “The work would be somehow tainted before anybody ever got a chance to see it.”General Dynamics on Tuesday declined to comment on the controversy, but said in a statement, “We are proud to support the arts.”Phebe N. Novakovic, the chairman and chief executive of General Dynamics since 2013, is an opera buff who grew up listening to recordings on a Victrola record player with her Serbian grandmother. Shortly after she rose to the top of the company, General Dynamics became a full-season sponsor of Washington National Opera.When asked in a 2016 interview why the company was such a big supporter of the opera, Novakovic cited her grandmother’s influence.“I have honored both her memory and my love of that form of human expression through supporting the opera,” she said at the Economic Club of Washington. “We get folks from all over our company coming to the opera.” More

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      in Movies

      Netflix’s Approach Shifts, Pushing Content That Can ‘Pop’

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      The streaming service long thought spending on ads didn’t result in more viewers. That has subtly changed under the marketing chief Marian Lee.Netflix made sure viewers had ample opportunity to hear about “Wednesday,” its macabre hit starring Jenna Ortega.They could come across it in an airport security line when plopping their belongings into a tray that asked “What would Wednesday do?” Or see the title character in the Uber app when they ordered a ride. Or they could encounter it on TikTok, where seemingly everyone from Ukrainian soldiers to hip grannies were performing the title character’s arm-jolting, addictive dance set to the Lady Gaga song “Bloody Mary.”Either way, the marketing resources Netflix dedicated to the show helped to make it a global sensation. The push included Netflix shifting its social media resources from sites like Twitter and Instagram to TikTok after the amateur dance videos went viral. There was also a campaign in which local markets around the world adapted the slogan “What would Wednesday do?” to their country’s taste and culture. (Billboards in Los Angeles cheekily stated: “I read your screenplay. It’s time to rethink your writing career.”)The streaming service said the show’s eight episodes were viewed 1.24 billion hours in the first 28 days they were available, making it the second most-watched English-language series on the service, just behind the fourth season of “Stranger Things.”For the movie “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” there was a widely publicized (including TV commercials) one-week theatrical release on Thanksgiving that generated a reported $15 million in ticket sales. After that, a Los Angeles-based escape room and a handful of murder mystery dinners across the country — and more commercials — helped to keep the word of mouth alive until the expensive star-studded sequel debuted on the service at Christmas time. It racked up 279.7 million hours watched in the first 28 days, which Netflix said made it the fourth most-watched English-language film on the service.“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” received a one-week theatrical release at Thanksgiving and became available on Netflix at Christmas time.John Wilson/NetflixNetflix’s marketing tactics are indicative of an evolving strategy for a company that is facing a much more competitive streaming marketplace — and trying to serve an increasingly fickle audience. The new tactics also come as Netflix has introduced an advertising tier and is cracking down on password sharing as it contends with a maturing U.S. market. It has also essentially replaced its original creative team, opting for executives with broader tastes to serve a global marketplace. To sell this evolution of the world’s largest streaming service, the company is relying on Marian Lee, its third chief marketing officer in three years.“I’m trying to enable creativity, because I want to bring all of this content to more people around the world,” Ms. Lee said in an interview at Netflix’s headquarters in Los Angeles. “I also want the rest of Netflix to understand what the marketing strategy is: We support the content organization.”She spent the previous night staying up late to finish the reality show “Full Swing,” saying she cried in her bathroom when it was over.“I’m watching everything, and I’m going to tell you where I think this is really going to pop,” she said.For all of Netflix’s success over the years, the company has never quite found its footing in marketing. That is primarily because of the company’s core tenet is that the streaming service itself is its greatest marketer, and spending on expensive commercials or advertisements does not always improve viewer engagement. In 2019, the marketing operation moved under Ted Sarandos, who was then the head of content and is now the company’s co-chief executive. He hired Jackie Lee-Joe from BBC Studios to be chief marketing officer. She departed after just 10 months, when Mr. Sarandos surprised many inside Netflix by appointing Bozoma Saint John as the new C.M.O. Ms. Saint John used her formidable social media presence — she has 424,000 followers on Instagram — to host her own lifestyle events under the moniker @badassboz while running the Netflix marketing team, but her impact on Netflix’s shows and movies proved less fruitful.Ms. Lee was the global co-head of music at Spotify when she was hired by Ms. Saint John in July 2021. She was promoted to chief marketing officer in March 2022 after Ms. Saint John left. In contrast with her predecessor, Ms. Lee’s Instagram account is private, and when she was offered Ms. Saint John’s office, she declined, opting to remain in the one she occupied that was closer to her staff.“Wednesday,” starring Jenna Ortega, was marketed heavily through TikTok.Vlad Cioplea/NetflixNetflix’s marketing budget has remained fairly consistent, increasing to $2.5 billion in 2022 from $2.2 billion in 2020. But Ms. Lee’s 400-plus global team has enacted a subtle change in strategy, in which many of those dollars have been shifted to focus on individual titles as opposed to the branding of the streaming service itself.Still, the amount of money set aside for marketing remains relatively small, considering Netflix spends $17 billion a year on its programming. And when filmmakers and showrunners grouse about working with Netflix, the complaints are often aimed at the marketing department, which they feel can be limited by its budget. It is an issue traditional studios have tried to capitalize on, arguing that they may pay less upfront for a project but that they will spend more in marketing to let people know when it’s coming out.“The legacy studios spend more on marketing,” said Tripp Vinson, a producer of the Netflix “Murder Mystery” films starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. The first movie came out in 2019 and the second became available to Netflix subscribers on Friday. “But as a producer, what do I care about? You’re implying that the more you spend, the greater chance you have of getting your audience in that legacy, traditional marketing way. Well, I know from ‘Murder Mystery’ 1, whatever Netflix did to market this movie, the amount of viewers that I got, that’s what I care about. And they were astounding numbers.”For “Murder Mystery 2,” the streaming service added a second premiere at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, international billboards and commercials during the National Football League’s divisional playoffs. It also partnered with the social media star Mr. Beast to offer an unwitting couple a surprise trip to the Paris premiere. The first movie landed back on Netflix’s Top 10 list a week ahead of the release, and expectations inside the company for the sequel are high.Netflix’s chief content officer, Bela Bajaria, pushes against the notion that the company had not aggressively marketed specific shows and movies in the past.“I think the tension may be with people feeling like there is only the traditional way to do it, and they don’t realize we market in so many different ways,” she said, noting the service’s social media channels reach 800 million people globally.Netflix held a premiere event for “Murder Mystery 2” at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.Scott Yamano/NetflixFilmmakers, though, have noticed a difference with Ms. Lee.“Right when she arrived, she came down to see what we were doing and visited the set often,” said Debbie Snyder, a producer of the $80 million sci-fi spectacle “Rebel Moon,” which is directed by her husband, Zack Snyder.The plan is for the film, scheduled to debut on Dec. 22, to be the first in a trilogy.Did Ms. Snyder receive the same personalized attention when the film “Army of the Dead” debuted in 2021? “No,” she said. “Not really at all.”Netflix’s film chairman, Scott Stuber, said the marketing department under Ms. Lee was more in tune with the content side of the company. He noted that he was particularly impressed by her nimble approach, like her ability to maintain buzz for “Glass Onion” after its theatrical release.“I like someone who actually knows the old playbook, but also is very interested in how to rewrite the rules for the new playbook,” he said.“I’m trying to enable creativity, because I want to bring all of this content to more people around the world,” Ms. Lee said.Philip Cheung for The New York TimesIn February, members of Ms. Lee’s brand marketing team crammed themselves into a conference room to discuss, among other topics, “The Marquee,” a handful of high-tech billboards with pithy messages that rotate weekly and appear in strategic locations around the world like Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, Times Square in New York and Les Halles in Paris. She listened intently to the presentation: The board at the Trevi Fountain will be moved to a different location in Rome, one that is less of a tourist spot and more of a place where local Netflix subscribers could connect with it; Times Square is going to get an innovative new billboard that is easier to program yet looks like the physical one on Sunset Boulevard. A marquee is coming soon to Warsaw.“The point of the board is to have fun, be edgy and push all the way to the edge,” she said.“I know it’s a lot of pressure because they have to come up with a new message every week,” she added, “but if they’re just using it for something lame, I’d rather not do it.” More

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      in Television

      Maya Rudolph’s Super Bowl Challenge: Make M&M’s Sweet Again

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      Unpopular companies and brands in trouble go with a strategy of hiring a likable celebrity and hoping for the best. But they might be better off with a puppy.There are 179 actresses who are better known than Maya Rudolph, including Whoopi Goldberg (third most famous), Lindsay Lohan (15th) and Gwyneth Paltrow (32nd). But Ms. Rudolph is more likable than those three and many others who are household names, according to the market research firm YouGov.So it made sense that M&M’s, the candy that has found itself in the cultural cross hairs, would enlist Ms. Rudolph as its corporate pitchwoman and make her the star of a commercial scheduled to air during Super Bowl LVII on Sunday.Nearly 75 percent of the people who have heard of Ms. Rudolph said they liked her, and her popularity was on an upswing in the fourth quarter of 2022, YouGov reported in its most recent ranking. Ms. Goldberg and Ms. Paltrow each came in around 55 percent, and Ms. Lohan at 39 percent.Ms. Rudolph, a “Saturday Night Live” cast member from 2000 to 2007, is likable enough to make the multibillionaire she plays seem down to earth on the AppleTV+ series “Loot.” She managed something similar more than a decade ago in “Bridesmaids,” winning over audiences as a bride-to-be who develops bride-zilla tendencies. Now she will attempt to do the same for a candy brand in trouble.M&M’s got some blowback from cable pundits and social media warriors after it made cosmetic changes to its long-running cartoon characters. The Fox News host Tucker Carlson and others accused the brand of “woke” advertising, arguing that the “spokescandies” had lost their sex appeal. A point of contention was that one of the cartoon candies had replaced her high-heeled go-go boots with sneakers — and at times it was hard to tell if M&M’s was trolling right-wing commentators with its promotional stunts or if it was the other way around.“M&M’s will not be satisfied until every last cartoon character is deeply unappealing and totally androgynous,” Mr. Carlson said on his show more than a year ago. He was at it again last month, saying, “The green M&M got her boots back but apparently is now a lesbian, maybe, and there is also a plus-sized obese purple M&M.”In the commercial to be shown during the second quarter of Sunday’s game, Ms. Rudolph will try to calm the brouhaha. (A spokeswoman for M&M’s “Chief of Fun” declined to comment for this article.)Marketers, especially those trying to create an appealing image for unlikable industries like pharmaceuticals and airlines, know that a bit of charm can do a lot to disarm doubters and critics. In addition to Ms. Rudolph, other “Saturday Night Live” alumni have brought some warmth to companies that could certainly use it. Amy Poehler, whose affability set the tone for the sweetly humorous sitcom “Parks and Recreation,” has taken on the challenge of making a cable, internet and phone company seem sympathetic in a series of commercials for Xfinity. Cecily Strong, who left “Saturday Night Live” in December after a 10-year run, has lent her services to Verizon.Rashida Jones, a onetime regular on “Parks and Recreation” and “The Office,” manages to make banking seem almost fun in commercials for Citi. Jennifer Coolidge, an endearingly kooky addition to the America’s Sweetheart club thanks to her performance on “The White Lotus,” was featured in two Super Bowl commercials last year: one for Uber Eats, which had faced criticism for its treatment of pandemic-shocked restaurants and gig workers, and another for FanDuel, part of a growing sports betting industry that has drawn worries about gambling addiction.Put on a happy face: Cecily Strong, Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones and Jennifer Coolidge have all appeared in commercials for brands that needed help with their public images.But companies can sometimes make a misstep in their attempts to capitalize on the amiability of certain celebrities. In 1984, Burger King introduced “Mr. Rodney,” a character based on Fred Rogers, the esteemed host of the PBS children’s show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Wearing a cardigan, Mr. Rodney addressed the camera in a gentle voice: “Hi, neighbors. Today’s new word is something McDonald’s does to every burger: Let’s call it ‘McFrying.’ Can you say that?”One call from the real Mr. Rogers got the commercial bounced from the airwaves. “Mr. Rogers is one guy you don’t want to mess with, as beloved as he is,” an apologetic Burger King spokesman said at the time.Beer companies may not need the assistance of likable celebrities as much as banks and phone companies, but Anheuser-Busch InBev is taking no chances on Sunday, with several Super Bowl commercials, including one starring Serena Williams.Likability “is paramount” in the choices of corporate spokespeople, said Shana Barry, the head of celebrity, entertainment and influencers at Anheuser-Busch. “You want to associate with a talent that is having a good time,” she said. “We want to make sure that you’re paying attention to the ads and that you can connect with them onscreen.”Social scientists who have delved into the mysteries of likability point to the mere exposure effect (sometimes known as the familiarity principle), which posits that people tend to like something the more they are exposed to it. They also cite emotional contagion, a phenomenon in which people often sync up with the emotional state of others in their orbit, meaning that viewers may get a lift when they see someone having a good time in a TV commercial. And a 2021 academic study found that experts who testify in civil and criminal trials have an easier time persuading jurors if they are perceived as likable.“The essential elements are true no matter who you are,” said Natalie Anne Kerr, a psychology professor at James Madison University. “Companies can manipulate the situation to promote liking and connection to their ambassadors, especially if they’re actors who can intentionally choose to play the role of a likable person.”Keanu Reeves appeared in a 2018 Super Bowl commercial for Squarespace.But being seen as trying too hard to be liked can backfire, Dr. Kerr said. Truly likable people show vulnerability (this is known as the pratfall effect) and are relatable (the similarity attraction effect). See Keanu Reeves, who appeared in a 2018 Super Bowl commercial for Squarespace, doing a motorcycle stunt while reciting the words of the 1983 cult hit “Adventures in Success” as the track played in the background. Quirkiness may also be an asset, Dr. Kerr added, noting that one of her favorite actors is Nick Offerman, who is known for playing gruff but kind loners, as well as for his good-natured appreciation of carpentry and his wife.Tone deafness can destroy likability, said Mitch Prinstein, a psychology and neuroscience professor at the University of North Carolina and the chief science officer at the American Psychological Association.“We always tell elementary school kids that they can’t walk up to a bunch of kids playing Legos and say, ‘That’s stupid; let’s play with trucks,’” said Dr. Prinstein, the author of “Popular.” “You can include your truck with the Legos, but you can’t just disregard the group norm.“The same thing applies to adults,” he continued, “whether you’re leading a boardroom or you’re a celebrity. You have to read the room.”Public figures may have a tougher time connecting with audiences when they become so famous and wealthy that they lose touch with everyday experiences, he added. An out-of-touch star is rarely likable, especially at a time when fans have grown accustomed to joining their favorite entertainers on social media as they document a date night or grocery run.Rather than relying on big stars to pitch products, some companies are tapping TikTok tastemakers and Instagram nanoinfluencers to chase niche groups. “Brands are really looking for authenticity, for somebody that can talk about the brand in a way that others might not be able to,” said Adma Ortega, who handles celebrity and influencer relations for the Wieden & Kennedy ad agency in New York. “They want to talk to a specific audience, because you can’t talk to everyone anymore.”Some companies break through the noise by ignoring likability altogether, as Samsung did in building ads around the reality TV star Christine Quinn, who once said of her role on “Selling Sunset”: “I love being the villain, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”Deciding on a spokesperson is increasingly complicated, involving metrics like social media follower counts, audience demographics, algorithmic calculations including the Klear Score, the Aspire authenticity score and E-Score polls. After the Super Bowl, Anheuser-Busch and other companies will study rankings like Ad Meter and the Super Clios to see how viewers reacted to their commercials.Some firms still use the Q Score, a nearly 60-year-old measure of appeal that costs $1,750 per name. Clients get a detailed breakdown of sentiment among different demographics, and can also buy a full work-up of more than 1,200 personalities or a ranking of celebrities customized by their appeal to a particular audience. The score is used by ad agencies, movie studios, TV networks, lawyers and estates, said Steven Levitt, the president of the Q Scores Company.The “Q” stands for “quotient” — a reference to how the rating is calculated, by dividing the percentage of respondents who say a celebrity is one of their favorite personalities by the percentage of those who have heard of the person. Another part of the rating evaluates unpopularity. The highest score ever, a 71 in 1985, went to Bill Cosby; nowadays, celebrities rarely score above the low 40s, Mr. Levitt said. Ms. Rudolph’s score is 19, three points above the average for actresses, he said.Ad makers often ignore Q Scores in favor of gut instinct, Mr. Levitt added. “A lot of decisions are not based on data,” he said. “They’re based on creative appeal, or the strength of an executive to outshoot and overpower subordinates and say, ‘No, I think this is the way to go.’”But celebrity likability may not last. It takes only one slap at the Oscars, one rude complaint about an omelet, or one too many reports that a nice talk show host with a penchant for dancing was perhaps not so nice after all.Which may be why some of the most popular Super Bowl commercials of recent years have had no recognizable celebrities front and center, according to an analysis by the measurement firm iSpot.TV. Last year, the most likable ad featured a variety of wild animals grooving to the 1987 Salt-N-Pepa hit “Push It” after sampling some Flamin’ Hot Doritos.And the stars of the most likable spot on record, a Budweiser commercial from 2014? Clydesdale horses and a golden retriever puppy. More

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      in Music

      Football Gave Us a Carrie Underwood-Based Solution to Existential Dread

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      Carrie Underwood’s musical intro to “Sunday Night Football” offers a dazzling gift — even if you’re not a fan of the game.To an astronomer, the longest night of the year occurs once in each hemisphere, as the earth makes its ponderous revolution around the sun. For regular people — people with everyday problems, who don’t live in a fancy observatory surrounded by brass astrolabes — the winter solstice is a weekly event happening every Sunday. Sunday evenings are black holes from which no hope escapes; a time of rumination on the failures of the past seven days, and pre-emptive haunting by fiascos to come. Yet the universe has been known to attenuate misery with fleeting comforts: the sensation of incredible warmth that overtakes a body dying of hypothermia, for instance. And to those souls mired in Sunday-night gloom, it offers a dazzling gift: Carrie Underwood doing the “Sunday Night Football” song on NBC.If unshackled from the bonds of terrestrial experience, what might Carrie Underwood experience?This song is not one song but many songs. Since the show’s debut in 2006, its intro has been updated every year, and, within a given season, the song mutates constantly: Each week incorporates a different rhyming line tailored to the current matchup. A schedule may announce a contest between the Colts and the Cowboys; only Carrie Underwood reveals if this promises to be a “righteous showdown” or a “nasty showdown,” or that the teams are “about to throw down” or are “breaking new ground,” and so on. According to representatives from NBC Sports, Underwood annually records 85 permutations of this line back to back in a single session.The “Sunday Night Football” song extols not the thrill of football, nor the value of sport, but the highly specific ouroboric pleasure of turning on NBC to watch “Sunday Night Football” on NBC on Sunday night. The most frequently recurring version of the song, “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night,” is set to the tune of Joan Jett’s 1988 single “I Hate Myself For Loving You.” I do not enjoy football, or any sport other than Olympic women’s gymnastics finals when the United States is in first place. My comprehension of the rules is nil and my desire to learn them would have to be represented by a negative number. Nor am I a fan — or nonfan — of Carrie Underwood. Yet, when I hear the first word of the song explode from her confident lungs — “Oh,” pronounced “Hohawhunhohhuhawnhohn” — my consciousness abruptly recedes. Mechanically, I sprint to the living room and stare, bewitched, until the segment’s conclusion.The “Sunday Night Football” music video is beautiful to behold, each incarnation a novel response to the question: If unshackled from the bonds of terrestrial physics, what might Carrie Underwood experience? Answers include: strutting in a dress of rhinestone chain mail through a liminal space filled with floating videos of football fans; calmly standing on a platform that shoots her skyward through hoops of light at a thousand miles a minute; the stage at the Resorts World Theatre in Las Vegas, the site of her residency, “Reflection: The Las Vegas Residency,” magically opening up onto a football stadium where approximately seven million fans, packed with atomic density, are losing their everloving minds to a song about “Sunday Night Football.”The “Sunday Night Football” song is most likely the theme song familiar to more Americans than any other, because more Americans watch “Sunday Night Football” than anything else on weekly television. In fact, of the 30 most-watched U.S. television broadcasts of all time, 29 are football games. There might be a need to gin up excitement for “Sunday Night Football” if, somehow, every week, “Sunday Night Football” were scheduled to air directly opposite the original 1983 broadcast of the series finale of “M*A*S*H” — the only nonfootball program to appear in the all-time Top 30 most watched. Under normal conditions, however, highlighting the fact that a football game is about to be televised for the American TV audience is an act equivalent to reciting the daily specials to a starving man.It is this unnecessity — the fact that it exists merely for its own sake — that makes the segment so moving. I don’t mean to imply that the opening sequence could compare favorably to, say, a sunset, which is likewise “beautiful” and “capable of reproducing itself in infinite variations”; I mean to say that outright. The tremble-inducing allure of the “Sunday Night Football” song surpasses nature’s awesome generative capacity. It is a spectacle that could only be conjured from a colossal amount of money.Tripp Dixon, the NBC Sports “VP of Creative” tasked with supervising this visual triumph, likens the sequence to an “airlock” designed to safely transition viewers from the grim reality of everyday existence to the high-octane fantasia of “Sunday Night Football.” In exchange for submission to the spectacular, “Sunday Night Football” promises a respite from all concerns.The sly genius of American football is that its accouterments — Super Bowl ads with feature-film budgets, stupefyingly cutting-edge bumper graphics — replicate, even or especially for those with no interest in football, the draw of football itself: a celebration of human aptitude and a diversion of attention away from anything more important. Through judicious application of Carrie Underwood and C.G.I. technology, the “Sunday Night Football” song offers a brief yet total respite from the horror of Sunday night.Caity Weaver is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. More