“Beyoncé”: The one of a kind strategy.
Beyoncé is one of the most accomplished and recognized star globally. Her success of being a brand of her own is undoubtful. In 2008 she established her own company “Parkwood Entertainment” and “Beyonce took a role of the President of the company and the chief executive officer. It wasn’t just an honorary title; she led and was intimately involved in all major initiatives.” (Elberse, 2014 )
In 2013 Beyoncé released her 5th album named “Beyoncé” and the release strategy was so unique and different that Harvard Business School Professor Anita Elberse decided to write a case study about it. The criteria Beyonce has set for the release of her album was as following:
1. Launch all the songs at once as a full album.
2. Avoid any leaks.
3. Make it a visual album in which every song is accompanied by a video.
The criteria which she set was so unique in a way that it was neither a limited release, nor a wide release. Usually, artists pop out one single and advertise the whole album with it before the actual launch, but Beyonce didn’t want her album to be judged only by one song, she said “I see music, it is more than just what I hear. I want the album to be seen as a complete body of work”. (Elberse, Beyoncé, 2014) The third requirement of having a video on each song made the launch much more complex and expensive, but that didn’t stop Beyoncé from her surprise release and in corporation of Parkwood with Sony, Apple and Facebook the surprising release of an album became real.
In order to avoid leaks, Beyonce’s team decided to have an online-only launch and for that they turned to Apple, the number one music retailer in the world. The second phase of the launch required promotion and Facebook helped saying that “the album will be prominently featured on Facebook’s music page and related channels. Plus, we’ll run a Facebook advertising campaign to reach as many people as possible” .
As a result, “Beyoncé” was the fastest-selling album ever in the iTunes store, there were no technical glitches during downloads and it was really a surprise for the fans and people all around the world which was one of the main elements of launch strategy.
I believe that her strategy was so successful because Beyonce is a brand of her own, the manager and artist who gained trust of her fans and planned everything so professionally while working with Apple and Facebook, giving them exclusivity. In an interview Anita said: “Beyoncé is one of a very select group of superstars who could say “I’m doing it my way,” and turn the conventional model on its head.” (Camerota, 2015) However, this kind of strategy may not work with other artists because of being so risky and expensive that even Beyoncé can’t guarantee this strategy to work out once again.
References:
Camerota, C. (2015). Retrieved from harvard business school n: https://www.hbs.edu/news/articles/Pages/anita-elberse-beyonce.aspx
Elberse, A. (2014 ). Beyoncé. Harvard Business School , 5 .
Elberse, A. (2014). Beyoncé. Harvard Business School , 8 .
