Analysing Ladys Gaga's marketing stratagies

Lady Gagas fame has risen astronomically with the past 2 years, becoming one of the most famous female artists in the 21^st century, topping charts and recognised as an icon globally, her success is all down to a unique, innovative a forward thinking marketing stagy that directly targets the audiences of today, manipulating technology and the press to dramatically increase publicity and develop a loyal dedicated fan base. There are a variety of different factors impacting her PR strategies but for the majority the internet is at the heart of her achievement.

By recognising the phenomena that is the power of the web, Gaga ladys Twitter, Facebook and Myspace pages allows her to bond with the fans directly, allowing them a deep insight into her life, furthering the fan-artist connection. Lady Gaga is on Facebook and she tweets every time she gets the chance, by making it about her fans, her appreciation to them, their problems and what they need it shows her dedication and appreciation to them only makes sense to care about those who make you who you are as her fans make her millions and win her the prestigious awards that have made her into a worldwide star. By interacting with them, listening to them and finding out what they need is not just a good PR move which enables one to , without charge,  promote new material, but allows her to upload photos, talk to fans and give constant access  to her thoughts and feelings, which takes her away from the unoriginal, mass marketed and extremely comerical artist of the past which seem unreachable and too branded, where as Lady gaga comes across as unique, pioneering and caring towards fans, broadening the demographic of her audience.

Additionally lady Gaga does a lot for her fans. She has her own person name for them, “Little Monsters”, and has as tattoo to show her appreciation, which is now copied by her fans who want to show their deep admiration for the music star, personifying the community of her fans bases, echoes with the use of social networking sites. For example tweets like these that go out to her thousands of followers conveys her dedication, and encourages fans to support her , buy her music, pay for concert tickets, give customer reviews, taking surveys, offering feedback, and testing new products. All this leads to extremely valuable information for future development ideas and inter make her a lot of money.

The power of you tube is also predominantly in the her marketing plan. Lady Gaga's music video for Bad Romance holds the top spot for the most viewed music video ever at 180 million views and counting. She realised the full video for free, to engage new as well as currant audiences which response greatly to music on the internet as its easy access at all times. This portrays Gaga as not afraid to embrace the digital revolution and is using online tactics for a net-savvy generation, even to the extent of foregoing immediate profit which in the long term strengths her image, and brand.

Furthermore, her website opening page is a letter written by her express her strong political views on war, this involvement in such a controversial issue shows Gaga  and her brand as unshallow, politically intelligent, passionate and caring, such a PR stunt also gages interest in the issue and the artist and publicity for her. Moreover extreme fashion statements such as the meat suit she war to the VMAs allowed her to be posted on fashion blogs and though out the internet sparking debates in the media, and thus again, broadening the market she reaches out to, and increase fanbases.

Representation of gender in the music video Love the way you lie – by Eminem and Rihanna

Representation of gender in the music video Love the way you lie – by Eminem and Rihanna

Throughout this video gender definitions and juxtapositions are conveyed at every level, predominantly one can see that status is convey through vocals, Rihanna sings which connotes femininity and Eminem raps, a very masculine dominate expression, which is echoed as he is also dictatorial with in both the video and lyrics. There is extreme resonance and motifs of violence portrayed by a combination of lyrics, narrative and combination of stills and images. The take on violence can be seen to be ambiguous as on the one hand it can represent the destructive, painful and dangerous symbolism in fire and intern an abusive relationship, show by the image of the female character ‘playing with fire’ at the start of the video which foreshadows the negative events in the narrative, Additionally fire much like violence can be addictive and empowering. However contradictory to this it can also represent sexuality and the intensity of love, which is portrayed by the oxymoronic shot in the narrative which stars Megan Fox a notoriously sexual icon, for example a shot of the male character pushing the woman against a wall and proceeding to punch it is followed by the same angle and shot but instead they kiss passionately – which intern may glamourize violence, and play on the marketing technique that sex and violence sell.

The chorus of the song ‘just gonna stand there and watch me burn, well that all right because I like the way the way it hurts’ is also very ambiguous, on the once hand it could be a sarcastic social commentary on the passive nature of women in relationships, and there tolerance of violence and abuse due to male status though out the ages ‘ that’s all right because I love the way you lie’ may echo this theme of male deception and manipulation, although alternatively this could convey the ideal that this may keep the relationship Interesting, prolong the passion and the interlinked combination of sex and violence that is conventional in 21^st century media.

Eminem begins his rape with a semantic field of male testosterone and adrenaline, using vocabulary such as ‘knife’ ‘fight’ ‘drunk’ and ‘hate’ to establish his status and confrontational state of mind. Conversely in the mist of these ideas is that of love and oxymoronic phrases such as ‘wrong feels right’ portraying to the audience the complexity of love and that maybe this sexual and power authority is necessary’s to express the intensity of his love convey by the line ‘have you ever love somebody so much you can barely breath’ this line portrays the diverse way that men and women express love and poses a rhetorical question to the audience; to judge not only the actions of the characters but also those in the audiences own lives. The line ‘ I’m superman with the wind in his back, she’s Lois lane’ gives cultural context to the song expressing the desire to conform to the Hollywood,  romantic ideal of love in which the man is a powerful hero  but the violence and anger overcomes this and reduced them to an abusive relationship.

Sexual connotations and innuendos are seen through the provocative costume of both Rihanna and Megan fox, conforming to conventions that woman are sexual objects and possessions in the eyes of men and the media, implied by Rihanna’s small amount of lyrics and her dancing around for the pleasure of the men, reducing her to a submissive symbol in the video. However toward the end of the song the tone changes and the audience get an idea that it’s a combination of both male and female that are exuding violence, this is shown by the repetition of the inclusive pronoun ‘we’ and lines such as ‘but your tempers just as bad as mine, you’re the same as me’ and ‘maybe that’s what happens when a tornado meets a volcano’ depicting the power struggle woman in western and modern culture still face even after the feminist era.

An alternative interpretation may be that this music video portrays an unstereotypical view that the anger show in lyrics and image is merely threats and reveals male weakness, embodied by the male character. The facade of anger may express men’s incapability to express loving emotions due to the desire to conform to the strong powerful unemotional stereotypes. To compensate this they express their intense emotion through rage, which despite on the surface may be viewed as derogatory to woman, behind the egotistical male façade is an emotionally sustaining reaction as it is still a high of emotions – for example the asynchronous shot of violence followed by the giving of a teddy bear contrast in emotions so much which is overwhelming, drug like, and addictive. This narrative may represent why men and women find it hard to leave a relationship due to the fear of abandonment, or emotional neglect.

To conclude I believe that this video controversially depicts the destructive nature of men and women’s relationships in the 21^st century, as their the desire to conform to conform to society values increases so does to repression, anger and violence resulting in the idealist notion of love being replace with sex, manipulation and lies.




Yasmine Sinclair Music VideoBlog
I am a Media Studies student from Westhatch high school, and in my blog I will produce a music video and demonstrate inspirations and ideas behind it. Predominately I will look into the music industry in great dept in order to understand and convey connections, symbolism and postmodern ideologies that are every present in thee 21st century.