Gaga's Rise from Weirdo to Hero
h1I'm on the right track, baby I was born this way.
Lady Gaga
Few could argue with the veracity of Lady Gaga’s self-affirming lyrics from her pop-tacular hit single “Born This Way.” Gaga and her crack team are clearly on the right track (baby), evidenced by the stratospheric success of her highly anticipated second album, also titled “Born This Way.” In its first week, Gaga’s new album sold 1,108,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan, outselling the next 42 albums on Billboard’s chart combined and making Gaga the first artist in 7 years to have a record go platinum in a week.
The incredible success of “Born This Way” is a testimony to Gaga’s well-crafted personal brand, her passionate fanbase of "little monsters" and the hard work of her business team, which devised and executed one of the most extensive marketing campaigns ever seen in the music industry.
While about two-thirds of the digital downloads are a result of a 99-cent deal offered by Amazon, team-Gaga’s strategy was less about making money on music sales and more about using the album as a marketing tool for promoting tours, endorsements and merchandise sales.
As Gaga up-levels the music marketing game to something akin to what we currently see in the film industry, we thought it would be fun to recap exactly what it took Lady G and team to sell a platinum record in today’s digital world. Let us know if we missed anything...
- Gagaville (Zynga partnership)
- Best Buy album singings via LiveStream
- Google Chrome commercial
- Interview at Google HQ
- Exclusive premieres with VEVO
- HBO concert special
- Gilt Group deals curated by Gaga’s fashion director
- Facebook engagement
- iTunes countdown
- Gagavision videos
- Twitter and Twitpic trends
- Hidden QR codes for ringtone downloads
- Appearances on American Idol, David Letterman, Saturday Night Live, The View
- Live concert in Central Park on GMA (complete w/ zipline entrance)
- Rdio lifetime subscription contest
- Robin Hood charity contest
- Starbucks scavenger hunt
- Stint as creative director at Polaroid
- Born This Way Revenge (Tap Tap Revenge app game for the iPhone and iPad)
- Weird Al Yankovich parody
The next time you're going for awareness at scale, are you prepared to do what Gaga did? Baby, were you born this way?
