See what I did with that title? Anyways, it was around this time last year that the Queen dropped an album that NO ONE knew was coming. It was simply titled Beyoncé. Without any marketing or promotion, the album debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart and went on to sell more than 5 million copies worldwide.
On the other hand, Lady Gaga preceded the release of her third album, ARTPOP, with plenty of marketing and promotion. However, the album only went on to sell 2.3 million copies. So, how did Beyoncé manage to double the sales of her album with absolutely no marketing initiatives leading up to the release? Well, I've come to the conclusion that Beyoncé's team is comprised of marketing and PR geniuses. Like, seriously, these people are insanely smart.
When I analyzed the release of Beyoncé, I realized that the Queen's team specifically paved the way for the album's release without us even realizing it. THAT'S how genius they are.
So, in order to see where it all started, we have to go back all the way to January 2013 when Beyoncé released an album with her gal pals of Destiny's Child. In the same month, she sang the National Anthem at none other than President Obama's second inauguration. We later on came to find out that she actually sang along to a pre-recorded track because she happened to be sick that day. This, unfortunately brought a lot of scrutiny, but everyone quickly moved on when she put on one of the most amazing Super Bowl half-time performances of all time. Side note: I sort of freaked out when Kelly and Michelle of Destiny's Child came out. Actually, I completely freaked out.
Anyways, Mrs. Carter didn't stop there. On February 16 of that year, she released her full-length documentary on HBO, Life Is But a Dream. In April, Beyoncé embarked on The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour, which was comprised of 132 dates and lasted almost an entire year. Lastly, in May, she lent her voice to several tracks of the 2013 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby, which became hugely popular when the soundtrack was released.
In the months leading up to the release of Beyoncé, the wonder-woman was featured on several other artist's albums including her husband Jay-Z's album Magna Carta. She also managed to stay in the spotlight by parading around NYC and LA with little baby Ivy. All the while, us commoners had no idea that Queen Bey was recording tracks and filming music videos for the amazing piece of work that is Beyoncé.
So, the secret to her album's successful non-promotional release? Avidly keeping Beyonce in the spotlight the entire year. There is no way that the album would have had a successful non-promotional release if Beyoncé was not relevant. Beyoncé's team kept her in the public eye by doing all of these things I described above along with red carpets, occasional interviews and talk shows, and so on. The most important aspect of this was to keep her doing exciting work. Lady Gaga, on the other hand, came out of left field and just started promoting her album. She had been out of the spotlight for a while, and people started to lose interest in her.
Queen Bey's PR and marketing team geniusly managed to promote the superstar without actually promoting the product, and that's just amazing.
No comments:
Post a Comment