Advertising Age debuted an exposé today (in their “Digital A-List 2010″ section) about Lady Gaga and her unfathomable, drought-defeating anomalous rise to acclaim in which they attribute her success to social media. While I don’t completely disagree, I’m not sure if Gaga’s time in the spotlight has been a landscape-definining case study for social media marketing.
I’ll elaborate….
While the numbers suggest her to be a social media rock star by Web media standards (a combined 8 million fans on Facebook & Twitter, and a disgusting amount of cross-channel views & impressions *Cam face*), her campaign to the top hasn’t exemplified any market-defining activity or out of the ordinary use of the space- she’s a champion of the old model ruling with an iron fist in the new media environment.
But for how long, and to what extent?
Using Twitter as an example- at 2.8 million Twitter followers with only 255 tweets, Lady Gaga hasn’t exhibited the “socially engaged” behavior that us marketers advise our (non-human) clients to exemplify. Her machine (Akon), her brand associations (Polaroid, Beats by Dre, Mac, Virgin Mobile), and her alliances with various areas of lifestyle have largely defined what we’d consider to be her brand ethos, and have had a balloon-like effect on her perceived status. Not to mention her timing- 2008 witnessed a renewed general interest in electronic “pop” music, as evidenced by the domestic popularity of Daft Punk, Justice, etc.
The argument here is that the digital landscape has simply provided a means for her story and persona to proliferate amongst people who were genuinely affected through a traditional media onslaught – and that she’s done right by it by virtue of her embracing it, even in the limited extent that she has. We live in a world where music sales are diminishing, yet consumption is at an all-time high. That simply means that to affect the bottom line (in this case music sales), popularity within the digital space is a metric that, when combined with great PR and key integrated marketing approaches, can move the needle. Mashable’s Alex Mann asked the right question in his piece on Gaga’s social media explosion: “if there was an absence of free channels to hear Gaga, would her album sales be higher? Or, does the social media universe only perpetuate and support her existing successful career?”
I truly don’t know. However, if anyone is in the right to set digital precedents to use culture to push product, she’d definitely be the most fitting.
Stay tuned.
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Comments ( 2 )
Rugged Sole added these pithy words on Feb 22 10 at 1:00 pmWell written blog entry! This would make for an excellent grad school thesis in all honesty: Does popularity on social media equate to mainstream success?
Yellow Rebel added these pithy words on Feb 22 10 at 1:05 pmCo-sign @Rugged Sole. Lady Gaga is a case study in strategic branding. I’d compare her ascent to Kanye’s if anything–another artist who exhibits outlandish behavior, but through the machine (Def Jam/Jay-Z) and a series of well-calculated affiliations, has arrived at the top.