The superpower that is Beyonce’s personal brand dropped a huge bomb on planet Earth
this weekend with the debut of “Lemonade,” a 12-track visual album, the central theme
of which alludes to her husband, Jay Z, allegedly cheating on her. Queen Bey teased the album
only one day before releasing this extremely personal film essay as an HBO exclusive.
The multimedia piece became an instant topic of global discussion, as rumors swarmed over
an Easter egg in the film that could reveal
the identity of the “other woman” in Jay
Z’s life. The Internet witch hunt to track
down “Becky with the good hair” has the
Beyhive buzzing to the tune of 4.1 million
#Lemonade tweets in the first 48 hours alone.
That right there is engagement, kids.
The release highlights two distinct marketing trends in the music industry, both of which
Beyonce has leveraged before: the visual album and the element of surprise. In the age of
YouTube, Facebook video, and Snapchat, the visual album seems like an evolutionary leap
forward from the one-and-done music video of the MTV era. Artists like Justin Bieber
and smaller indie bands like Noah and the
Whale have also been using visual elements
to enhance the album experience.
The surprise release has also come into vogue, as artists like Radiohead, David Bowie, and
even Jay Z himself have passed on the expensive traditional crescendo and concentrated the
marketing push into a sudden lead-up, elevating album hype to the status of an event.
As for Hova, it’s safe to say that he has
99 problems right now, but at least money
isn’t one. The album was formally released on his streaming platform, Tidal, and it doesn’t
look likely to be streaming elsewhere anytime soon.
Mobile: it’s not just a buzzword—it’s
a way of life, but you already knew that.
The phone in your pocket has become a hub in every aspect of your life, from work to
home, from Tinder to Netflix, from Game of War to more Game of War.
Remarkably though, of all the mobile platforms where you can wish this guy a happy birthday,
the instant message is as powerful a tool
as ever. According to Facebook, six of the
ten most downloaded apps worldwide are messaging apps.
What’s more is that these chat apps are
absolutely winning when it comes to getting
users to come back time and again. What’s App boasts one billion monthly active users,
and since Facebook devoured What’s App whole in 2014, the Zuckerberg leviathan’s own
messenger has started catching up to it, and has become the #2 most popular app in the
U.S.
At the [a]list summit in Seattle last week,
Facebook and Instagram’s head of industry,
Paul Peterman, says that chat is at the front and center of communication today, predicting
that by 2018, messaging apps will be used by two billion people, or roughly a quarter
of the humans on the planet, or holy analytics, that’s a ridiculous number of people.
Peterman referred to a study by Deloitte that highlights the potential impact of branded
one-to-one messaging. The study focused on how Canadian telecommunications company Rogers
made use of Messenger to bolster their customer service channels—and guess what: they saw
a 65 percent improvement in customer satisfaction.
Facebook wants brands to begin to leverage their messenger platform to meet consumers’
expectations, because honestly, to a consumer with a need, nothing sounds better than let’s-chat-right-now.
Speaking of immediacy, according to the Chinese calendar, this is the Year of the Monkey,
and according to measurable reality, that
monkey is on Twitch. That’s right, 2016
is the year of livestreaming and brands are grappling with creating content that keeps
up.
Why is livestreaming getting so much traction?
Because it’s streaming live. The idea that
“this is happening right now” can be enthralling and interactive, allowing consumers to feel
like they’re part of a live experience,
even when it’s branded.
From Facebook Live to Periscope to upstart YouNow, the FOMO is strong with this one.
Over the last year, brands have been waking up to the idea that even short-term bursts
of content can have impact that resonates long after a broadcast ends.
YouNow calls it participatory content because it’s common for creators to do direct shoutouts,
interact in real-time with fans, and even
change content based on the feedback they
get. YouNow’s Paula Batson recently said
at the [a]list summit that this kind of two-way
content is what Millennials and Gen Z crave—they want to be part of the content and part of
the experience. All brands have to do is open the door.
Remember 25 years ago when the virtual reality revolution hit and really, really sucked?
The tech’s initial debut failed to impress
our primitive ancestors of the 1990’s, but
ho nelly, has VR come back with a vengeance. Virtual and augmented reality are now pushing
game designers, filmmakers, and brands to adapt to a whole new world of storytelling.
Just like the advent of moving pictures before us, creating content for a 360-degree environment
is probably going to take some getting used to.
For a couple generations now, we’ve all
been staring at flat screens all day, and
as a result, creators have become entrenched in two-dimensional modeling. Virtual and augmented
reality though is driving that creative process away from pen-to-paper and toward the 3D approaches
of architecture and sculpting. Here’s SPACES CEO, Shiraz Akmal:
“Media is becoming very three-dimensional and spatialized. So, we always say design
spaces rather than pages.”
Brands are already stepping up to make creative use of VR and AR: Volvo reinventing the test
drive, Marriott documenting 360 travel experiences, and McDonald’s turning the Happy Meal into
a cardboard VR headset. I’m lovin’ it….
Digi Capital predicts we’ll see virtual
and augmented reality disrupt mobile as we
know it, with markets reaching $150 billion by 2020. That’s in like… four years.
Regardless of how quickly it happens though, when it comes to the recent release of the
first consumer-ready devices and the development of related media, the hype is beastly. And
when the masses finally leap in earnest into 3D, marketers need to make sure they don’t
get left in the two-dimensional dust.
