Influx

A recent Influx blog highlights a youth-media trend – free magazines, like Vice and Frank 151, as a way to reach and ignite a more personal dialogue with the urban market.

Along the same vein, The Royal just released its winter issue about the emerging artistic talent in Young Hollywood, which includes designers, skaters and urban artists. Printed in premium quality and limitedly distributed, they assert that each issue is a collector’s item with an “unusually” high pass along rate. Yet what really differentiates The Royal is purpose and vision. They provide a blank canvas and invite the creativity community to fill the pages, giving readers an evolved sense of authenticity.

“The Royal cares about talent not names. In this spirit, all content is 100% submission driven. This level playing field approach creates the perfect platform to launch new careers and reaffirm established ones.”

Along with a canvas, this particular issue is a pseudo brand-training manual with an article titled, Top Ten Ways To Protect Your Brand. Tip number # 8 is about protecting non-trademark intellectual property. Also included is an interview with DC Shoes co-founder, Damon Way, about the sale to Quicksilver and the brands current strategy to tackle Nike’s dent into skateboarding.

We live in a marketing culture where corporations buy their way into the street via collaboration with artists for their products and advertising. Conversely, The Royal promotes staying connected to your roots more than extending that path to larger companies, enabling artists to control and create their own identities. As artist collaboration becomes a staid idea in the advertising world and the artists themselves begin to build their own brand identities, companies will need to build their own streets.