THE STRATEGY SERIES: WHAT BEYONCÉ LEARNED FROM MADONNA
The original material girl, Madonna, has remained relevant since the 80s. Most iconically remembered by Baby Boomers and Gen Xers for her infamous Jean Paul Gaultier cone bra, Madonna has been described by Billboard Magazine as ‘the smartest business woman in show business.’ It is not difficult to see why. She has been the highest paid female singer and has over 30 years of success at the top! Love her or hate her, Madonna is an ultra-successful entrepreneur whose brand strategy has been copied by many but only successfully executed by a few including the one and only, ‘Queen Bae’ (aka Beyoncé).
Beyoncé is talented, successful and fearsomely known as hardworking. She projects feminine fierceness and comports herself in a dignified manner at all times. She began her career in girl group, Destiny’s Child, one of the best-selling girl groups in history. All the woman, who independent, know what I am talking about. In 2005, Beyoncé reinvented her personal brand from a ‘good girl’ into a sexual icon in her album, ‘B’day’. Most recently she has developed into entrepreneur, an icon for the modern mother and, oh, occasionally releases an entire album while pregnant (what did you do today?) Everything the singer does is carefully considered and curated and the result is a very strategic branding.
There are five strategies, I believe, Madonna has applied to her career that Queen Bae has emulated. Below I have taken the key components of strategy and applied them to these two Pop Icons.
DIFFERENTIATION – In every aspect of Madonna’s career she has been able to apply a differentiation tactic. This can be seen in her music style, to her ever-changing target market (young to old, heterosexual to homosexual). Through the years, Madonna has constantly changed her persona and her musical genre. Every decade Madonna has reinvented herself and has made an art of being different from other artists while remaining relevant. (80s - sex sells/fashionista, 90s - the infamous bra, 00s - 70s glam, 10s - SupperBowl (notice the crown Beyonce wore 6 years later?))
Queen Bae has cultivated her personal brand strategy in a very similar manner as the material girls’. When looking at Beyoncé’s strategy, she has followed Madonna’s approach of constantly differentiating herself to keep up with the times. Most recently, Beyoncé has leveraged technology to drop her new albums in interesting ways. However, one thing Beyoncé has done that Madonna hasn’t is she has used motherhood to become more relatable to grow her target market and fan base. This allows her to grow into different market segments.
DIVERSIFICATION – Madonna has aligned herself with many youthful brands like Pepsi, Max Factor, Gap, H&M and Louise Vuitton. Additionally, not only does she sing and dance, she also lands roles in well-known movies like, A League of Their Own and Evita. Madonna has been in 26 movies thus far. With the other hours left in her day, she wrote a children’s book and became a bestselling children’s author.
Again, Beyoncé has followed Madonna’s lead. From aligning with similar youthful brands (Pepsi, Adidas and L’Oreal) to staring in movies like Dreamgirls, Obsessed and Austin Powers Goldmember. Again, Madonna has pathed a way for her younger counterpart! This path opens up new streams of revenue, diversifies her portfolio and allows her to tap into new markets.
RELEVANCE - It is undeniable the ‘Queen of Pop’ has sustain her relevancy over the decades. I believe this is because she has an uncanny ability to maintain her importance. As previously mentioned, she has done this by constantly renewing her appeal to different types of music lovers, not just her loyal fans. She has collaborated with high caliber artists like Justin Timberlake, Timberland and Kanye West. Through these collabs, she was systematically able to pull in not only younger audiences but R&B loves too. Music is currently trending towards R&B and Rap, so this is a very strategic move on her part.
Beyoncé parallels this model, but has also put her own unique twist on this strategy. Bae has teamed up with the likes of Lady Gaga, Jay-Z, 50-Cent, Missy Elliot and Coldplay. However, Beyoncé has also taken chart topping songs and re-record those songs with the original artist. Songs including Ed Sheeran’s ‘Perfect Duet’, Kendrick Lamar’s, ‘Freedom’ and Jay-Z’s, ‘Forever Young’. You can’t fault Queen Bae here; she took what Madonna did and made it her own ‘2.0’ version. A very smart move!
MARKET KNOWLEDGE – This is one area I believe Madonna took a page out of Michael Jackson’s book. Like Michael, Madonna knows what the market wants and time and time again she delivers! With the introduction of music streaming services, Madonna made a strategic move and signed with Live Nation, the largest concert promotion company in the world. She made this strategic move as less and less people where purchasing music (CDs and iTunes song). Signing with Live Nation ensured she would earn 90% of gross touring revenues and 50% of endorsements. Artist today often make between 50-70% gross touring revenue.
While Beyoncé is a single person/brand, she has a team of more than fifty people helping build her empire. It is my belief that Beyoncé and team made a strategic decision to depart from the music industry’s prescribed path. Beyoncé has contested industry standards and expectations by challenging the status quo. Queen Bae has leverage technology to drop her new albums digitally first and offered additional value to her fans. With a digital-launch, she put her album where her fans were, showing she understood her market and their preferences. Side note – she saved some serious money on marketing as she knew her fans would share the album drop socially! What some miss in Bae approach is she strategically honored her fans first which drove increased loyalty and advocacy and humanized her persona. Media only found out about her digital album drop when her fans did, and only if that media subscribed to her fan club. Well played, Bae.
IMAGE/BRANDING – A key facet of Madonna’s brand has always been rebellion and she has promoted controversy. A brief history can show you this! In the 80s she took on the Catholic Church in a music video that riled up some churches when she burned ‘the cross’. Madonna smiled all the way to the bank grossing 41 million pounds in sales from her music. Also, Madonna created an expressive piece called, ‘Sex’ capitalizing off the age old tactic that ‘sex sells.’ Anyone remember the Grammy’s where Queen Bae and Jay-Z performed, ‘Drunk in Love’ on stage. This saucy performance took a page from Madonna’s book, sex does sell and it keeps people talking about you! There are countless other examples from these ladies but this blog is meant to be brief!
Where Madonna and Beyoncé differ is Madonna is not afraid of imperfection. However, every move Beyoncé makes is curated; there are no unflattering images of her on any medium. She looks immaculate when recording close-ups, when going into labor and when facing life’s challenges. Case in point, Jay-Z was unfaithful in their marriage, and no one knew until the release of Beyoncé’s album ‘Lemonade’ and throughout that performance she was fierce and unwavering. To this day, the public still doesn’t know who Jay-Z was unfaithful with and when it occurred.
There is no doubt in my mind Madonna laid the groundwork for Beyoncé and like any good student, Beyoncé took the key learnings, used innovative technologies and improved Madonna’s strategy. Beyoncé has pushed the boundaries for what it means to be an innovative marketer that uses experiential marketing to drive sales as a component of her strategy. As marketers, what we can learn from these two ladies is to continue to develop our strategies to remain relevant, use unorthodox and out-of-the-box tactics to create awareness, nurture key relationships with loyalists, be innovative and entrepreneurial and, finally, get creative and break some marketing ‘rules’! You might also consider blasting these pop divas for inspiration! Who runs world?