Beyoncé
Launching a blockbuster music product by surprise using social
media
Introduction
On Friday December 13, 2013, the pop star Beyoncé Knowles-Carter (Beyoncé)
surprised her fans and the music industry by unexpectedly releasing her fifth
studio album (her first since 2011), self-titled Beyoncé, for purchase on Apple’s
iTunes Music Store. The album was released with a post and video on Beyoncé’s
Facebook and Instagram pages (see Figures 1 and 2).
Unlike a typical release of a pop album, there was no traditional marketing and
promotional ramp up, no fanfare, no leaked pre-release versions, no demo copies
to radio stations and industry insiders, and no early releases of singles to build
buzz and fan excitement prior to release day. Beyoncé, her management team,
and her record label, Columbia Records, eschewed the traditional marketing
model that almost every other artist and label uses, often very successfully.
Instead, “Team Beyoncé” relied solely on their owned social media channels
(particularly Facebook and YouTube) to announce their new product and let
earned media—both on social media platforms and in traditional media outlets—
take care of the rest.
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Figure 1: Album Announcement on Beyoncé's Facebook Page on December 13,
2013
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Figure 2: Album Announcement on Beyoncé's Instagram Page on December
13, 2013
Traditional Marketing for Blockbuster
Entertainment Products
Blockbuster entertainment products, such as music albums from international
pop stars such as Beyoncé and Lady Gaga, typically have a traditional marketing
“ramp up” that starts many months before the official release date. For a major
new pop music album, the pre-release traditional marketing campaign will
include at least some of the following elements:

Advertising (paid media), both offline (e.g., TV, outdoor, print) and
online (e.g., web display ads)

Public relations (e.g., press releases)

Publicity “junkets” (interviews with press) and media appearances
(e.g., on TV late-night shows)
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
Early releases of one or more singles from the unreleased album,
available for purchase and combined with the opportunity to preorder/advance-purchase the album

Commercial radio airplay of the early-release singles

Internet radio availability of the early-release singles (e.g., Spotify,
Pandora)

Intentional leaks of the album before it is released

Pre-release versions of the album sent to industry insiders, members of
the media, radio stations, DJs, key “influencers,” and, sometimes, to
select fans

Live performances and concert tours
These marketing actions try to generate as much pre-release excitement among
fans (and in the media) prior to the album’s release so that early sales—
particularly in the first week—are high. The goal with a blockbuster album release
is to “debut” as high as possible on the album sales charts (Billboard, iTunes, etc),
ideally at the coveted number-one position.
Conventional wisdom in the music industry is that a clever combination of the
above elements (in particular mass-media advertising, commercial radio airplay,
and publicity) will go a long way to helping them achieve this goal. These tactics
are expected to work because they help to cultivate high levels of fan excitement
and anticipation. The (well tested) industry assumption is that built-up fan
excitement will convert into high first-week sales, which in turn will propel the
album up the charts as quickly as possible.
While much of the traditional pre-release marketing focuses on the demand side
(i.e., getting fans to want to buy the album), it is also intended to bolster the
supply side (i.e., getting music retailers to sell the album). This part of the
strategy comes from the pre-iTunes days when music was purchased in physical
(not digital) format from retailers. Before the digital music distribution channels,
record companies competed with each other to get their new products into retail
outlets in large quantities with upfront orders. This meant that retailers had to
place bets on how popular the new album would be before it was released. A
larger, more prominent pre-release traditional marketing campaign tended to
translate into higher consumer demand, which meant that retailer wholesale
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demand (i.e., the supply side) also went up. In the physical retail environment,
the traditional campaign also affected instore placement and retailer promotions.
In the age of digital music downloads, inventory is irrelevant. However, digital
music download retailers such as Apple’s iTunes Music Store still can influence
album sales using their own marketing tactics such as display ads in the iTunes
application, “featuring” an album and artist, and offering bonus content to
customers who pre-order an album.
Releasing Beyoncé Without Traditional PreRelease Marketing
Team Beyoncé released her self-titled album at around midnight on December 13,
2013 without a pre-release marketing campaign. Beyoncé simply posted
“Surprise!” on her Instagram account (approximately 8 million followers) and
attached short teaser video for the album. On her Facebook page (approximately
54 million fans) there was a post announcing the album with a link to iTunes and
another teaser video. Team Beyoncé opted to use a single distribution channel—
iTunes—for an exclusive early-sales period (approximately one week) before they
allowed other music retailers to sell the album. In a further departure from the
standard album release approach, they did not allow fans to purchase singles.
Instead, anyone who wanted Beyoncé’s new songs had to purchase the entire
album (with 14 songs and 17 videos) for $15.99 from iTunes.
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Figure 3: Album on Apple's iTunes Music Store
Initial Sales and Reactions
Despite the lack of a traditional marketing ramp up, and some disgruntlement
among fans that they had to pay $15.99 for a full album instead of just
downloading a few singles, the album was heralded as a runaway success. On its
first day, the album purportedly sold 430,000 copies, with 80,000 copies
downloaded in the first three hours after the announcement on Instagram and
Facebook.[1] By comparison, Beyoncé’s previous album 4, released in 2011, sold
310,000 copies in its first week.[2] Based on iTunes sales figures released by
Apple, Beyoncé was the fastest-selling album in iTunes history with 828,773
copies downloaded globally in the first three days (including 617,213 in the
United States).[3] The album debuted at number one on the Billboard album
chart.
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Press reports on the first-week sales of Beyoncé attributed the album’s
commercial success to social media and the “surprise” strategy employed by
Team Beyoncé.[4] Twitter was a-buzz with chatter about the new album
immediately after it was announced. On the 21 days prior to the launch on
December 13, the keywords Beyoncé or Beyonce (reflecting a common
misspelling of her name) appeared in an average of 170,389.38 tweets per
day.[5] On the day of the launch there were 1,478,481 tweets mentioning Beyoncé
(see Figure 4). Undoubtedly, the new album generated a lot of buzz on social
media. This also spilled over into traditional media outlets (e.g., The New York
Times, CNN, The Wall Street Journal), with most major news outlets featuring at
least one story about this novel approach to launching a blockbuster pop star’s
new album in the days following the release.
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Figure 4: Twitter Mentions of Beyoncé or Beyonce Before and After the
Launch (source: Topsy.com)
Using Social Media for Product Releases
Without Traditional Marketing Campaigns
The launch of Beyoncé through social media relied upon Beyoncé’s fan base to get
excited by the surprise album release, talk about it online and offline, buy the
album, and then talk about it even more. The absence of a standard pre-release
traditional marketing campaign to ramp up to launch day was novel, even for a
pop superstar such as Beyoncé.
As the dust settled on this successful product launch, executives at Columbia
Records, Beyoncé’s record label, started to wonder if they just got lucky with this
gamble or if they had orchestrated the beginning of a new music marketing trend
that is vastly more cost-effective. They decided that they first needed to figure out
what it was that made this particular launch so successful. Was it because it was
Beyoncé? Was it the element of surprise? Was it the use of social media? Was it
something else? Based on this, they then agreed that they needed to determine
whether or not the key success driver (or drivers) would work (a) for Beyoncé
again in the future, and (b) for other Columbia artists’ releases that were slated
for 2014. Finally, someone had to play devil’s advocate and think about the
downsides of this approach. A few of the executives voiced concerns because
Target, a large and important retailer of physical music products, announced that
they would not be stocking Beyoncé because it the iTunes release a week before
physical sales could happen would negatively impact Target’s sales.[6] Some were
worried that elements of this strategy could upset other stakeholders (such as
retail channel partners). All things considered, this looked like a roaring success.
However, the executives at Columbia Records—and throughout the music
industry—had to figure out how to repeat this success, if possible, in the future.
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