Madonna and business
American singer-songwriter and businesswoman Madonna started some enterprises in her career, including Maverick and its subdivision Maverick Records. She was one of the first women in music to have established an entertainment company and a record label. In its early years, Maverick Records became the highest-grossing artist-run label. Madonna entrepreneur's profile became visible to her public image in her first decades, receiving praise, although it was the only role recognized by many of her critics. 

Despite the ever-evolving nature of business, Madonna received immediate and retrospectively interest from marketing, management and businesses communities. She was discussed in related themes, including capitalism, marketing strategies and consumerism. Called the "Material Girl", Madonna also epitomized the consumer ethos of the 1980s and beyond, for which she attained both cultural praise and severe criticisms. She was considered the ultimate in crass commercialism and the epitome of banal consumerism. Madonna has been continually considered by many critics as only a "marketing product". Furthermore, Madonna is also credited with pioneering some brand management strategies, and for helping shape music business even decades afterward her debut. She became the first solo entrepreneur woman on a Forbes cover (1990). Madonna also served as a role model of self-actualization and reinvention, inspiring expressions coined in the 2000s such as the "Madonna effect" by business professor Oren Harari and the "Madonna-curve" used by a think tank author for NATO.

Commercial and financially, Madonna became for a short-span the highest-grossing woman in media and ended as the highest-earning female musician of the 20th century. Into the 21st century, Madonna continued as the richest woman in music until being surpassed in 2019. She also became the first female artist to have earned more than $100 million in a single year (2009), and scored then the highest-earnings for a female pop star (2013). Madonna has appeared as Forbes top-earning female musician a record 11 times, spanning 1987–2016. Culturally, Madonna's figure impacted tourism of some places, including Belize's San Pedro Town thanks to "La Isla Bonita", and during the 2000s in Israel which lead her being praised due to Second Intifada crisis.

Community interest

For many reasons, Madonna's semiotics extended to marketing, academic, management and business communities over the years. During her heydays, media scholar Douglas Kellner considered "one cannot fully grasp the Madonna phenomenon without analyzing her marketing and publicity strategies". Andrew Morton commented her "success has certainly impressed the business community". Various authors working in the Madonna studies, focused its developments in marketing strategies and consumer culture. She also became a "central image" in the studies of commercialism over years, and embodied capitalism to intellectuals. Professor Suzanna Danuta Walters explains Madonna was generally represented as a "personification of commodity capitalism".

For decades, businesses also used Madonna as a role model of self-reinvention. Stephen Brown (University of Ulster marketing professor) seen her case as "relevant" to the consumer research community when analyzed her in 2003. In early 2000s, Kelley School of Business considered her more than a "pop cult icon" describing "she is someone every can learn from", although counter to conventional to 4Ps variety.

Regarding critical perceptions, Madonna's business profile became visibly to her public image, leading her critics to have a "popular answer" when it comes to define her, that "she's done it through sheer business savvy", according to Jennifer Egan in 2002. In fact, Ludovic Hunter-Tilney commented for Financial Times in 2008, that for her critics she is right to describe herself as a businesswoman but wrong to call herself an artist. According to professor Robert Miklitsch from Ohio University in From Hegel to Madonna: Towards a General Economy of Commodity Fetishism (1998), she is "largely a story about publicity and marketing". Professor Ann Cvetkovich similarly considered her a product of "intense marketing and public relations campaigns", but also reflects that the relationships between her production and reception by world audiences "must be articulated".

List of associated enterprises and brands 
Madonna fashion brands:
Truth or Dare by Madonna
Hard Candy Fitness
Maverick
Maverick Films
Maverick Records
Boy Toy Inc.
Siren Films
Music Tours Inc.
Slutco
Webo Girl Publishing Inc. 
Tidal

Charity
Raising Malawi
Ray of Light Foundation

Endorsements

Areas

Businesswoman role
Madonna has started various enterprises. She became one of the first female celebrities to have ever established an entertainment company and a record label, and became one of the first female CEOs in the industry. In the process, Madonna received acclaim in her role as businesswoman in media, noted American accountant Sharon Lechter. Forbes then, declared her as one of "shrewdest businesswomen we'd ever seen". She is "herself a corporation, and a rather diverse one" wrote Miklitsch. Similarly, Colin Barrow a visiting scholar at the Cranfield School of Management described her as "an organisation unto herself", and Kevin Sessums also described her "a corporation in the form of flesh". However, Madonna debuted in an era when most entertainers avoided labels of "manager" or "businesswoman", marked by a cultural perception at that time of art and commerce. American political analyst Matt Towery, described in 1998: "Madonna never tries to portray herself as a corporate manager or captain of industry".

She herself downplayed her role, saying "I don't think is necessary for people to know that". Madonna was also quoted as saying: "I'm very flattered that everyone thinks I'm such a good businesswoman, but I think that to say that I'm a great manipulator, that I have great marketing savvy is ultimately an insult, because it undermines my power as an artist". On the contrary, her profile became notorious and her entrepreneurial talent begun became "legend" to the public perception of the time. In 2007, Billboard explained Madonna's CEO "has a reputation as being a tenacious executive as ubiquitous as her music".

Publicity and endorsements
In her early career, Madonna also earned a reputation of being a "calculating businesswoman", which led The Canberra Times to describe it as a "crucial difference" between her and other American industry fellows. She refrained from commercializing her brand with all sorts of products, and which Forbes commented that fellows such as Bill Cosby and Michael Jackson who "eagerly hawk products, Madonna refuses to do so [...] more likely she fears it might sully her image as an artist". 

Madonna was described as a "supreme expert on marketing" by The Daily Gazette in 1997. Although some considered she "rigid control of her own publicity", British novelist Martin Amis also said that she understands "her publicity gets publicity". In 1990, Richard Harrington from Washington Post called her "Our Lady of Perpetual Hype". He cited Paul Grein from Billboard who also considered the singer a "very smart and very shrewd artist", whose generates a lot of publicity, interpreting it as her "key to staying on top". Grein concludes "her career events are as carefully choreographed as the GOP convention". Nekesa Mumbi Moody from Associated Press wrote in 2006, that "Madonna certainly has been the embodiment of the adage, 'there's no such thing as bad publicity'".

Branding

Madonna is one of the first celebrities to protect her name as trademark; Jane Shaw and the others scholars in Gen Z, Explained (2022), held that "the 'selfmark' trend can be traced back to Madonna in the 1980s". Her continual reinvention was considered by various; marketing executive Sergio Zyman and author Armin Brott agreed in The End of Advertising as We Know It (2003), "unlike almost anyone else in her business" she has an "uncanny ability to retool" her brand further adding "no one repositions herself as well —or as frequently— as Madonna".

Madonna also impacted in her generation the usage of a one-single name. In 1987, Radio & Records noted an increase of female singers with one-name, while the phenomenon goes back beyond her, the magazine perceived that increase after singer's debut. In 2022, American Songwriter magazine said: "If she didn't invent the one-name legacy then she sure made it real".

Trends
Madonna was recognized in the community and media as a trend-setter, and "widely perceived to be on the cutting edge" for that reason. Rashod Ollison from The Baltimore Sun described it as her "career hallmark". A commentator said, "Madonna is to trend-surfing what Stephen Hawking is to cosmology". According to business theorists Jamie Anderson and Martin Kupp for London Business School, Madonna is "one of the world's first artists to bring this approach to the music industry". Professor and editor Popy Belasco even named her the "first coolhunter in history".

Linda Mihalick, professor in the Merchandising department at University of North Texas, commented "her ability to set trends became unrivaled". Marketing expert Roger Blackwell explained "she becomes the conduit", introduction and acceptance of a wide range of trends in areas from fashion to expression, dance, lifestyle and more. However, a turning point occurred during the release of her album Hard Candy (2008) and has since continually deemed as a follower of trends.

Legacy
The advent of Madonna usher the "phenomenon of star as multimedia impresario" considered Gerald Marzorati. She was included among Billboards Power Players in 2007, recognizing women in the entertainment industry who "have made an important mark on the music business". Ohio State University scholar David Bruenger held that "she pioneered [various] brand management strategies". She is credited with helping transform "self-reinvention" and "multiple identities" into a business strategy in her industry according to Brown. 

Hispanic scholars in Bitch She's Madonna (2018), grant her a notable role for help shaping music businesses as "we know it". As early as 1986, The Sunday Times commented with Madonna's spurt to fame, "new heights have been scaled or new depths plumbed". In both 1990s and 2000s, she signed some of the largest music deals, and various commentators have seen some of them as influential for helping shape music businesses. Madonna's 1992 deal with Warner, was according to BBC Worldwide in 1994, "seen by many as the symbol of the kind of new relationship between a global media star and the moneymen". Although blockbuster music deals, mainly in 1992, attained also criticisms; an editor from Telegraph Herald commented "the goal wasn't to improve the music, it was to generate the most hype" while commented on Madonna, Michael Jackson, Prince or Barbra Streisand. Madonna became the founding artist in Live Nation's division, "Artist Nation" in 2007. Described as a "radical deal" by BBC, they referred she was the first "major star" to choose an all-in-one agreement with a tour company over a traditional record deal. In HumanCentric (2020), analyst Mike Saunders largely explored its impact, calling the deal a "milestone" that clearly helped change the way of many aspects in the concert industry, a sector that would later became a leading source of music revenues. In Peer to Peer and the Music Industry (2010), Matthew David also explored Madonna's move as the "first big name" further calling it "significant". Madonna's forays within the wireless world would also impacted the medium as early as 2004. Back in 2000, The Business Times called her the "epitome of m-commerce".

Cultural impact

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, Madonna "achieved levels of power of control [that were nearly] unprecedented for a woman in the entertainment industry". Biographer Chris Dickers noted how she was referred to as "the most successful woman in the history of the music business" over the years by diverse sectors. For instance, Deutsche Welle in its English version called her "music business' most successful woman" in 2018. Two decades prior, The Daily Telegraph commented in 1998: "Madonna is arguably the most successful businesswoman in the entertainment industry (her only rival for the title being Sherry Lansing, chairman of Paramount)".

Madonna's business profile transcended music, began referred by various corporations as a role model. Lyve Lab's director at Israel and Singapore named her a role model in early 2023. According to Alfons Cornella from Deusto Business School in 2007, node used the phrase "this is a Madonna company" to define a company capable of reinventing successively. Spanish Socialist Workers' Party also recognized Madonna's reinvention in 2015. Years later in 2017, Uruguayan newspaper El Observador, also noted how a company used Madonna's reinvention as a central theme.

Expressions coined

Madonna effect: Business professor Oren Harari used the phrase inspired in her business tactics and changes while deems its use for both individuals and organizations.
Madonna-curve: According to Peter van Ham from Clingendael Institute in an article for NATO Review, is a phrase used by some business analysts to describe the "adapting to new tasks whilst staying true to one's own principles". The usage for NATO was no well received by analyst Robin Shepherd from Chatham House, as argued that "an ageing pop diva is not an excellent analogy for NATO". Canadian educator and designer Bruce Mau, refers "it's named after the pop star for her capacity to alter her image and stay popular. However radical the visual difference, she is always Madonna".
Sell-ebrity: Described as Madonna's ability sell the selling of scandal rather than just selling scandal alone.

Recognition

During her career, Madonna was nicknamed variously by media or community, including "Queen of Marketing", "Queen of Rebranding", "Queen of Branding" and  "Queen of Trends". In early 1990, Jon Pareles called her "Queen of Multimedia Promotion". In mid-2000s, MuchMusic named her "the world's top trend-maker". 

Both immediate and retrospectively, Madonna continued to receive acclaim as a businesswoman. In 2006, business theorists Jamie Anderson and Martin Kupp for London Business School, concluded she is a "born entrepreneur". Madonna became the first solo female entrepreneur on a Forbes cover (1990) according to themselves. In 2021, Maggie McGrath from the publication mentioned that moment in an article discussing women participation in magazine's history. Madonna was then considered "America's smartest businesswoman" in the community, with editor of Profiles of Female Genius (1994), explaining it was an unusual treatment at that time, because he considered Forbes as part of the bastion male capitalism system. In 2013, British entrepreneur Vince Stanzione, referred to her as "one of the smartest self-made businesswomen in this century and last". In 2014, Gabriela Pedranti of the Istituto Europeo di Design acknowledges her business role, considering her a productive and intelligent multimedia-digital platform itself. Scholar Douglas Kellner called her as "one of the greatest PR machines in history". Various called her a "marketing genius", including Brown.

Madonna's brand

Madonna's brand as a cultural product or amid consumer culture has been discussed. By 1998, Ann Powers wrote for The New York Times that in last years, "Madonna's symbolic impact wane". Alone in the 21st century, during the release of American Life in 2003, The New York Times also addressed difficulties amid younger generations in the United States. Also, a researcher cited by various media publications in 2016, discussed how her brand has significantly lost influence, although he called the singer a "legacy act".

Others have estimated her brand both retrospectively and well over the course of the 21st century. Economist Robert M. Grant, studied her case in 2008, praising her career strategy and longevity in an "intensely competitive, volatile world of entertainment". In 2012, José Igor Prieto-Arranz from University of the Balearic Islands described her as a generational household name for different targets. Writing for business magazine Campaign  in 2018, AARP's Patricia Lippe Davis considered her case notable within a visible target on the market, women over 60. In 2023, BBC Music correspondent Mark Savage, noted how a "resurgence" of her music was saw throughout TikTok in last year "finding a new audience".

Academics from Warwick Murray (2006) to business theorists such as Michael Czinkota and Ilkka Ronkainen (2013), called her a "global brand". Willie Cameron from Loch Ness Marketing acknowledges Loch Ness' global brand lumping with others, including Madonna, by saying in 2014: "It's as big as Coca Cola, Madonna, Elvis Presley. It's global". Furthermore, in The Experience Effect (2010), author Jim Joseph considered her a "quintessential brand" further arguing she is "perhaps the epitome of celebrity marketing and celebrity branding". Similarly, Michael Levine commented about her 20-years plus career, that she "bucked every rule of branding and still manage to become the most well-known, well considered brand in the entertainment business". In 2015, business magazine Fast Company labeled her "the biggest pop brand on the planet". In 2020, Journal of Business Research collaborators estimated her as "probably the most successful female music artist ever in terms" that include "brand recognition".

Cultural aspects

Background
Cross referential socio-cultural aspects were also remarked on by community, academics and media alike. Back in the 1980s, journalist Steve Anderson speaks of "Madonna's resonance in the minds of the public", saying she become a "repository for all our ideas", including money. According to Theodore Koutsobinas in The Political Economy of Status (2014), media celebrities like Madonna were "widely seen as symbols" of the Great Moderation period. Madonna became a paradigm of the Reaganomics era, and also for the Thatcherism in the United Kingdom to a notable portion of public. Thomas Ferraro granted her an "important" cultural role as a whole, at least for young public, defending his point by saying she was a "miracle worker, and wonder woman", the "faith healer" of Reagan's divide and-conquer America.

Perspectives

According to Brown, her "Material Girl" persona was held up as an embodiment of the "Greed is Good" 1980s decade. Economist Jeremy Rifkin in The Empathic Civilization (2010), said Madonna "capture the spirit of the age when she proclaimed to be a Material Girl". In Ms. and The Material Girls: Perceptions of Women From The 1970s Through The 1990s (2008), Catherine Gourley detailed how the song resonated with young women across the United States. As girls wanted more than equal opportunity in the workplace, and being a "material girl" was more rewarding than being feminist. Author Nicholas Cook, however, said its influence was seen later among such diverse groups such as gay community, women, straight people and academics. After having influenced yuppie culture with a monetary hedonism, Ann Powers for The New York Times in 1998 noted her turning into spirituality, saying were been "scrutinized as signs of a new style of growing up".

Madonna was well regarded a workaholic, including by scholars Camille Paglia and Gina Arnold. In 2000, writer Warren Allen Smith explained people of the 1990s spoke of Madonna as "the lady who work". Henry Rollins referred "when you're sleeping, she is working". Called "one of the hardest working and most disciplined of performers" by some publications, including The Guardian (2023), others further called her as arguably "the hardest-working woman in the music business", including The Straits Times (2001). Barrow once also commented that her business skills included "planning, personal discipline and constant attention".

Madonna has also a reputation of being ambitious, described as "legendary". It became a "common denominator" in her marketing analysis according to Roger Blackwell. German cultural critic Diedrich Diederichsen explained she herself openly cultivated that legend. In her early career, she was quote as saying: "I'm tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay". In updated views, during the 2010s she told Matthew Todd that her ambition was driven by feeling unloved after her mother's death, and also told Alexis Petridis, that she just meant "I want to make a mark on the world. I want to be a somebody". Different reviewers have interpreted her ambition variously. Madonna critic bell hooks, as pointed out scholars from Nordic Association for American Studies commented it was a "monetary and a global media ambition". French scholar Georges-Claude Guilbert said that her ambition was also to try her hand at every art form. Author Kay Turner felt she "made outrageous claims about her ambitions, but invited the world to join her in believing that dreams come true". Similarly, Alina Simone wrote in Madonnaland (2016), that she "has never been anything but aggressively honest about her ambition". American feminist Susie Bright commented that "she is considered too ambitious, and therefore too much like a man". A contributor from website Death and Taxes, commented in 2014, that she has "changed society through her fiery ambition and unwillingness to compromise".

Authors of Strategic Marketing (2010), commented "she has created a rags-to-riches myth". Madonna embodied the American Dream for many people and authors, with a special emphasis on women and as a self-made star. Writing for German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2008, Caroline von Lowtzow commented she turned into a "female incarnation" of the "self-made man". "Few figures in American life have manage to exert as much control over their destinies as she has, and the fact she has done so as woman is all the more remarkable", wrote Jim Cullen in 2001. Although Madonna reflectiveness in American Life interrogate also the American Dream.

Commercial impact

Global economy

Author of International Communication and Globalization (1997), lumped Madonna along with Internet, Michael Jackson and other cultural motifs for paving the way the global economy. American business writer Robert J. Samuelson, explored for The New York Times in 1991, the interchangeable growing aspects of a global economy, and titled his article "Madonna and the New Economic Order". Madonna's corporate image reached a noteworthy global height through the early 1990s. During this period, she was described as "a valuable property in the world of international capital", as Madonna's value overseas was regarded double than her domestic one. On this, American business writer Tom Peters praised her international numbers, commenting in 1993, she runs a "positive trade balance" leading him to describe it as part of a new "soft economy". By 1992, Spanish newspaper ABC even named her as the "most prolific, profitable and universal consumer object since the commercialization of Coca-Cola". She was being called by others as "the most commercial singer of all-time" by this point, including Leo Tassoni. 

In Madonnaland (2016), Alina Simone retrospectively commented: "Madonna isn't just a musician; she is the 'whole package' and a 'real' prophet of commerce. [...] One might even call her an artist of commerce". Professor Roy Shuker commented she "must be viewed as much as an economic entity as she is a cultural phenomenon".

Tourism

Madonna has also contributed with temporary to nearly enduring pop-culture tourism around the world. An one-time event such as a concert benefit local tourism; for instance, during her The MDNA Tour (2012) in Colombia, moved unprecedented figures for a concert in Medellín, early predicted with three times of what the municipality spent throughout the year. According to geopolitic author Parag Khanna, Madonna helped "put Malawi on the map". Malawi Tourism Council (MTC) also acknowledges Madonna's inputs in a discussion with The Nation in 2018. Similarly, in Issues in Cultural Tourism Studies (2015), Melanie Smith said after the release of Evita with Madonna, it "boosted the profile of Argentina in recent years".  

"La Isla Bonita" is an example of an enduring impact. According to Minister of Tourism from Belize, the song have contributed to San Pedro Town's tourism. During the 2000s, Madonna favored Israel's tourism, especially in the city of Safed. Her presence was praised amid the Second Intifada crisis, producing Israeli tourism's major media coup when she declared Israel a safe destination. Gideon Ezra, Ministry of Tourism was reportedly distribute photographs of Madonna's 2004 visit. Sylvan Adams, the Israeli-Canadian billionaire who brought Madonna to the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest, expected the same as in previous years. 

From 2017 to 2020, Madonna lived in Lisbon, Portugal. Portuguese and Spaniard media outlets credited her presence as a boost and help for Portugal's tourism industry, having found benefits in "luxury tourism" or real estate business, with a journalist from ABC calling it "the Madonna effect". In 2018, the country won their first World Travel Awards for the World's Leading Destination. On the win, EFE commented both Madonna and Cristiano Ronaldo were two of leading ambassadors who made it possible. In 2022, British Vogue editor Laura Hawkins called her "Lisbon's most famous expat".

Madonna's name has been also used in tourism sector in other ways. She was proposed also by individuals and organizations to promote tourism of locations such as La Palma (also called "La Isla Bonita") and Turkey. Director of Business Development for Telefónica used Madonna as example in 2017 for seeking a tourism sector free of bureaucratic procedures, while MCI Singapore CEO, called Singapore "Madonna of the Destinations" as "the country re-invents itself every few years" according to Singapore Tourism Board. After an article published by South China Morning Post reporting that Madonna snubbed Hong Kong to perform a concert in early 2010s, it turned into a "strong adverting selling point" for Hong Kong tourism industry. It was reportedly the Tourism Board used Madonna's example to asking the government to create a proper concert venue.

Time Warner corporation
Madonna was particularly a successful act for Time Warner corporation during several years. During her heyday, some called her as perhaps their "most effective corporate symbol" behind Bugs Bunny or its leading person, including by Musician magazine. An author explained they usually featured Madonna's picture prominently in their annual report. At some point, Judson Rosebush and Steve Cunningham commented in Electronic Publishing on CD-ROM (1996) that she accounted for something like 20 to 33 percent of all record sales from Warner Communications, as well pointing out she was an influence for their stock. Alone in 1986, WEA International reported an increase of 27% in revenues, then their largest recorded sum in 15 years and with Madonna having a leading role followed by Phil Collins. Described by scholar Fred Goodman back then as "one of their biggest and most consistent-selling artists", Michael Ovitz called Madonna as Warner Music's "hit machine".

Madonna's record label, Maverick Records also achieved commercial success in its early years. Once described as a "highly profitable" artist-run label, Madonna had an important role along Freddy DeMann in approving their signed artists. In 1998, Ingrid Sischy from Vanity Fair deemed the label as one of the "few artist-involved entities in the business to have moved into big-league status". The same year, Spin recognized it as "the most successful vanity label", while under Madonna's control, it generated well over $1 billion for Warner Bros. Records, more money that any other recording artist's label up that point.

Other industries and products

Her advertising debut was made in Japan with a campaign for Mitsubishi Electric between 1986–1987. It helped to erase corporation's image of being "safe but bland" after researchers noted most Japanese no longer considered them a "conservative company". Her campaign also led to Japanese agencies and advertisers to feature more musicians, invigorating the overall interest in using foreign celebrities in ads. 

Madonna also became part of the Pepsi Generation with an advertisement in 1989. It sparked an "extensive" coverage in a variety of "diverse arenas", including stock market circles, the show-business industry and tabloids according to James Robert Parish and Michael R. Pitts. Contemporary newspapers, including Los Angeles Times, considered it as part of the Cola wars. While some critics regarded it as a blockbuster sponsorship, J. Randy Taraborrelli labeled her deal as one of the "biggest controversies in the history of corporate advertising's" related to pop music. A contributor from Forbes considered that back then, the ad hurt the brand image and Pepsi lost millions of dollars. Years later, Pepsi embraced the commercial uploading a shortened version on YouTube in 2023 as part of their 125th anniversary, while Madonna thanked them to re-aired the commercial. In 2018, Spanish critic Víctor Lenore described the commercial  helped open the door to major endorsements in pop music. Mary Gabriel similarly explored for Vanity Fair how its accompanied video "rewired Pop capitalism".

Madonna also impacted other brands, including Vita Coco. According to UPI, she convinced a number of celebrities to invest in the company. In a conversation to TheLadders.com in 2019, its founder explained how crucial was Madonna to have the brand growing up. After Madonna's announcement on social media in 2010 promoting the water, the company received ten times their usual web traffic. Short after, Vita Coco became the sales leader of coconut water in the U.S. with a 60% of market share at some point, while publications like Reuters called it the "world's leading brand of coconut water". Financial-targeted Spaniard newspaper El Confidencial, explores how the coconut water before Madonna, was only sold in ethnic food stores and other small locals. Madonna also helped popularize a variety of other products, including Cosmopolitan cocktail, which was later frequently mentioned on the television program Sex and the City.

Earnings

Madonna's own financial triumph was widely praised in her generation and beyond, coinciding when Forbes began tracking entertainer earnings in 1987. Clifford Thompson wrote in Contemporary World Musicians (2020): Madonna "has been overwhelmingly successful on a financial level". Feminist scholars Cheris Kramarae and Dale Spender commented she achieved "the kind of financial control that women had long fought for within industry". Less common in her time, professor E. Ann Kaplan described in 1993, that she "has entered the public sphere as an entrepreneur earning a lot of money, something that is not considered natural for women". 

Madonna was reputed to be the highest-earning female performer of the 20th century. Authors in On the Edge (1998), even called her as the "most financially successful female entertainer in history". A decade later, in 2010, author Matthew David called her as well "the most profitable female performing artist of all time" in Peer to Peer and the Music Industry. Forbes called her "one of the top pop divas of all time". In the 1980s, she grossed an estimated $1 billion in products. Madonna's spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg, accounted at least $2 billion worldwide sales for her albums and music products by early 2003 according to The New York Times.

Madonna's image also helped others financially succeed. Stephen Jon Lewicki, director of Madonna's first film appearance, A Certain Sacrifice became "millionaire" after film's VHS distribution in 1985. In 2018, Bloomberg News explained Tsuyoshi Matsushita from Japan, and founder of MTG Co. become in billionaire after gambling on Madonna and Cristiano Ronaldo. In a conversation with Spin in 1998, producer  William Orbit, said: "There are a lot of people depending on Madonna to maintain their livelihood".

Forbes lists

Madonna made appearance in four consecutives decades on Forbes entertainer earning-lists, becoming the annual top-earning female musician a record 11 times. During several years running in the 20th century, she was blocked by only Oprah Winfrey, although she also became for a short-live period "the highest-grossing woman in entertainment" according to Forbes prior 1990. Regarding female artists, Forbes themselves, pinpointed in early 1990s the "rise fast and fade fast" of contemporary female artists such as Cyndi Lauper or Whitney Houston, while they said Madonna "nearly reach" their top for consecutive years. However, until 2009, she was able to be the highest-paid musician overall, and 2013, the annual's highest-paid celebrity in entertainment industry.

Madonna also topped the first inaugural Forbes list "Cash Queens of Music" in 2007. In 2015, Madonna appeared at the inaugural list of Forbess America's wealthiest women (originally America's 50 Richest Self-Made Women), as the top singer. By 2017, Madonna was the second highest-ranked entertainer on the list, just behind TV personality Oprah Winfrey. Madonna has continually appeared in the ranking since 2015 up to 2023, and her highest "self-made score" was at 9.

NOTE: Don't confuse Forbes Celebrity 100 (Most Powerful Entertainers)  and Forbes Celebrity 100 (Highest-Paid Entertainers/Best-Paid Musicians)

Other earning lists
On March 1986, the New Sunday Times informed Madonna banked a then "straggering" $25 million in just one year. Madonna was the top musician at some Billboards Moneymaker lists, including 2008 and 2013. She also made appearance at various Sunday Times Rich List, including 2002, where was the top paid musician in Britain.

Money-earning records
Madonna is the first female singer to earn more than $100 million in a single year. Madonna is believed to have once the largest recording contract for a short-time when she signed an agreement with Warner in 1992.

Statistics and achievements

Contradictory perspectives

Criticisms

Madonna was often considered for critics as only a marketing product. According to The Nation in 1992, Madonna was deemed by mainstream academics as a "talentless opportunist" and a "monster created by the publicity machine". Writing for Time magazine in 1994, Jamaican author Christopher John Farley commented that her career has "never really about music", while mentioning publicity. In 1992, American journalist Michael Gross described her as the "world's most advanced human publicity-seeking missile". "She's a product of the shopping-mall culture", once criticized Dave Marsh. At some stage of her career, she became a flashpoint for advertisers. 

Although it has also earned her praise, Madonna is regarding for "selling sex" and generates scandalmongering which lead an author describe her as the "Warren Buffett of the shock market". Some controversial moments in her career, were accused of publicity stunt, including Rebel Heart Tour's Australian gig, when Madonna accidentally exposed the 17-year-old Josephine Georgiou's breast in front of thousands, her stage fall at the Brit Awards of 2015, or her first adoption of Malawian children, David Banda in 2006 amid her Confessions Tour. 

Madonna also garnered some criticisms for trends she propelled. Lecturer Susan Hopkins writing for The Conversation in 2016, said that she "pioneered a lot of cultural trends that didn't do average working women a lot of favour". Some Madonna's business moves has also achieved criticisms; in Branding Unbound (2005), Rick Mathieson wrote that "Madonna was among the first global brand names to make advertising campaigns delivered to consumers' cell phones seem downright dope".

Consumerism

During the height of her career, Madonna largely exemplified the "globalization of American consumer culture". Thus, to many reviewers she epitomized the consumer ethos of the 20th century, or the 1980s at least. Madonna was called a representation of the "worst excesses of commercial exploitation". She was labeled as "the ultimate" in crass commercialism and the epitome of banal consumerism. Akbar Ahmed wrote she is the "supreme product of the consumerist culture". Writing for political magazine CounterPunch in 2019, Ramzy Barroud considered Madonna along with the Beatles and Coca-Cola as "tools used to secure cultural, thus economic and political dominance".

Other responses
Others slightly objected some criticisms towards Madonna. Responding to a commentator whom said "Material Girl" reflected "the deterioration of Western values", Muslim scholar Sheikh Kabbani considered and responded "you have to be both material and spiritual [..] Madonna is giving people a kind of joy in their material life. You cannot say she is wrong". Kristen Marthe Lentz, says when it comes to Madonna, "suddenly everybody is a critic of capitalism". On pair with criticisms, Brown also noted in 2004: "Almost every commentator on the Madonna phenomenon, from fellow entertainer to cloistered academician, acknowledges her promotional genius". Madonna responded to charges of cynicism/publicity stunt regarding her first adoption in 2006, and her horse-riding accident, overall saying about the issue: "If you're a celebrity, everything you do is suddenly perceived as a way to get attention". Regarding criticisms towards her ever-evolving style as a tool of marketing, Madonna replied:

See also
Cultural impact of Madonna
Madonna studies

References

Book sources

Further reading 
Seymour Stein On What Music, Advertising And Marketing Can Learn From Madonna (Forbes, 2014)
Five Leadership Lessons from Madonna (Forbes, 2023)
Business learnings from Madonna (BusinessMirror, 2023)
From Harvey Weinstein to Shakira, the celebrities with offshore interests (The Guardian, 2017)

Madonna
Business careers by individual