OK I confess. I’ve only recently become a massive fan of Lady Gaga. The person. And The Brand. I’ve loved much of her music for a while {especially Poker Face and Born this Way}, and have been in total awe of her voice and her sheer musical talent, but was not sure about the woman herself. Or even, if I’m to be completely honest, Gaga as a brand.

The last 24 hours has completely changed that for me. Interviews I have heard {with Fifi and Jules}, seen {with Tracey Grimshaw} and read {in The Weekend Australian} have completely changed my perspective. I’m becoming one of her “Little Monsters”. So what I hear you say. She’s just a pop star. Well, um, no. She’s not. She is actually a musical – and a marketing – phenomenon. And these are a few reasons why:

• she taught herself how to play piano by ear when she was four years old. By 13 she had written her first song, by 14 she had begun performing at open mic nights
• she is the only artist in the digital era to top the 5 million sales mark with her first two hits
• she has over 1.3 BILLION views of all her hits online
• she has more than 11.5 million twitter followers
• she has more than 40 million “likes” on facebook
• the single “Born this Way” set music industry records when released in Feb 2011 – it reached sales of 1 million within 5 days of release, on iTunes it debuted at #1 in 14 countries and hit #1 in all 23 iTunes countries within 1 week of release
• total sale of 15 million albums and 51 million singles worldwide
• 12 Grammy nominations – 5 Grammys won
• her music was the focus of a special 90 minutes episode of hit TV show Glee
• AND in May 2011, Forbes Magazine nominated Lady Gaga as the #1 most influential person in the world.

(source: www.ladygaga.com, www.forbes.com)

WOW. All this and she is only 25 years old. And 3 years ago practically no-one knew who she was.

So, I hear you ask. Why exactly IS she a marketing phenomenon? And what can we all learn from her ability to market herself? Well… she uses all 4 c’s of social media BRILLIANTLY  - consumer (customer), content, channel and community.

She knows who her fans {consumers} are, she respects them, she values them. She has even named them – her Little Monsters. Importantly, she gives her Little Monsters what they want {content} and she goes where they go {channel}. And most importantly, she ENGAGES with her fans. Check out her twitter stream – loads of conversations. And her fans have helped her create a massive community by engaging with each other.

She also:

1. has an absolutely MASSIVE talent as a singer, songwriter, entertainer, fashionista
2. knows who she is, what her brand is and what she stands for
3. is completely focused on her brand – when was the last time you saw of photo of Gaga NOT in an outlandish outfit?
4. has a VERY unique selling point (the music and the fashion – both a bit bizarre and weird) which generates a lot of hype. Remember the meat dress? and the egg?
5. appeals to a VERY broad audience
6. is authentic – just listen to the B105 or the Grimshaw interview for a lot of raw honesty. Or follow her on twitter. Not a lot of false pretenses
7. has embraced the digital age and uses social media brilliantly. Seriously. Look at the stats above if you don’t believe me.
8. builds anticipation for what’s next – remember the frenzy that was built up when she tweeted some of  the lyrics of Born This Way in the weeks prior to its release? Actually, just look at the massive lineups outside Sydney nightclubs ARQ and Nevermind last night when she posted this on facebook and twitter yesterday “Thinking of going out in Sydney tonight. How I wish we had a show. NEVERMIND, don’t listen to me. Maybe I’ll just go for a walk in the pARQ”
9. {mostly} keeps her private life private. Which helps her stay on message. No mean feat with such huge celebrity {just listen to the B105 podcast to see what I mean}. But I think this makes her even more beloved. I LOVE how she refused to name the boy she had her first kiss with for fear of making his life tabloid fodder.
10. tackles brave issues and stands up for what she really believes in {including gay marriage, sex trafficking, bullying, to name a few} through her lyrics, her video and her answers in interviews.

We can all learn from the marketing juggernaut that is the Lady Gaga brand. Especially how she uses digital media to create a community of raving fans. What do you think?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 12th, 2011 at 9:15 pm and is filed under marketing, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.