Madonna Knows Marketing!

After the last two days of covering marketing/branding fumbles in the entertainment world (i.e., Miley Cyrus and Disney), the Marketing Doctor is pleased to report on one entertainment brand that still knows what she is doing: Madonna!!!

A few weeks back I talked about the dire state of the music industry.  Well, Madonna who’s been on the cutting edge of marketing and branding trends for nearly three decades did it again by announcing a few months back that she was leaving her long time record label Warner Brothers in favor of Live Nation, a company that focuses on touring and merchandising.  A great choice because that’s where the future is since just selling music is now a dying business!
She just released her last album with her old record label, but already Madonna’s doing marketing the new way!!!

I know because I bumped into the new marketing in the form of a fan incredibly excited over getting a ticket to a Madonna concert!  I hadn’t heard about any events like this one in New York city and believe me I stay on top of these things so I can tell the taxis how to avoid the resulting crowds and the tieups.  But I hadn’t heard about this one until I bumped into the fan –so what was going on?  As I said the new marketing!

The concert the fan was so excited about was Madonna playing for free at Roseland in New York last night (here’s the article).  Free???  Is she desperate?  Fuggedaboutit!  It was a highly targeted (read target market focused) strategy!  Fans lined up for days to get the 700 free tickets.  1000 more tickets were given out to fans in radio contests.  200 tickets to members of her fan club.  And she already had deals to simulcast the concert on MSN and Verizon and Vodafone phones worldwide!  There was even a brand tie-in with Justin Timberlake who appeared on stage for one song (thus, bringing his fan base (target market) into the mix)!

I always knew Madonna was a pr genius!  Now I know she’s a marketing genius as well!  Talk about marketing being the new advertising!!!