As marketers continue to seek access to the ever cooler, increasingly elusive consumer, many are turning to cultural insiders like Steve Stoute, a former record exec who now enables marketers to enter consumer realms previously off limits. Stoute puts on events and links marketers to subculture most marketers never knew existed. He’s currently helping Hewlett Packard and arranged a post MTV Music Awards party hosted by Sean Combs that involved plenty of liquor and plenty of HP products laying around for party-goers to check out. He’s also helped Reebok as well as hooking McDonald’s up with Justin Timberlake to create the “I’m lovin’ it” theme. Basically, he helps covert marketer’s perception of their cool factor into actual cool factor.
