Digital media
The Internet is a place where you can find virtually anything. It is usually the first place where music artist’s new albums or singles are leaked. Some music artists have taken actions against this such as filing copyright infringement, uploading their music themselves to popular website such as YouTube, or even changing the lyrics to some songs when the official album is released. Other music artists may not do anything as they may think they are receiving publicity either way.
Shawn Carter also known as Jay-Z, went in a totally different direction. In preparation of his new album entitled Magna Carta Holy Grail official launch, the Roc Nation CEO partner with major corporation Samsung to promote his new album in a new innovative way. Samsung bought one million copies of the album and made it available for free to download to one million owners of the Samsung Galaxy S3, S4, and Galaxy Note II (Rogulewski, 2013). Besides the fact that it was made available for free to specific devices was that it was released seventy-two (72) hours before the official launch to the public which makes this an unusual case. This is an example of very good marketing.
The announcement was made during the NBA finals which helped reach a bigger audience. Reportedly there were 16.3 million viewers watching the game when Jay-Z revealed the details of his album and deal with Samsung (Paulsen, 2013). There was also some clever foreshadowing as Jay-Z tweeted a photo of a Samsung device with the text “tune in” two days before the game. The deal was a huge advertising opportunity that guaranteed Jay-Z $5 million in sales before his album was officially released (Rogulewski, 2013).
Jay-Z used various forms of digital media to get the news out for his new album and plans for specific Samsung device owners. Many musical artists have now taken to the Internet to display any news to their albums or status to fans instead of older methods such as television broadcasts or radio play. Using television advertisement shows Jay-Z is very confident with his image and target audience. Jay-Z’s goal appeared to be intended to reach a vast amount of people. Advertising during the NBA finals was certainly a smart move in reaching a large audience.
The three minute long commercial that was done with Samsung, showed his collaboration with others as well as revealing the release date of the album. Soon after, the video was uploaded to Samsung’s YouTube channel. From here the Internet took hold and it soared across other digital media such as Facebook and Twitter to get the video across. His use of digital media proved his goal to reach a vast amount of people was successful.
The strategy used to accomplish his goal was mainly the use of digital media. By simply advertising information related to his highly anticipated album, he could leave the rest of the work to the Internet. Sure enough after the commercial advertisement Twitter was blowing up with comments on the matter while hash tagging Samsung and Jay-Z. Anyone who missed the commercial but followed either would surely receive information on the tweet backs. Large corporations such as ABC even covered the event.
Most any artist partnering with a large organization such as Samsung will get featured in an article somewhere. Thus the only strategy Jay-Z had to use was to pick the right organization at the right moment. The Internet completed the rest of the work for him. This is one benefit of using digital media to fulfill your goals. However this could also work against you in that the people on the Internet could post negative opinions about your album when they review it. This could lead to other users not buying your album based on those reviews. For an artist using digital media to promote their albums is a double-edge sword in that there will also be someone out there who does not like their music – what they have to worry about is how many of them are there compared to the ones that like their music.
The success of this marketing plan was very successful – so successful in fact that within minutes of the early release to the Samsung specific device holders, copies of the albums tracks were uploaded to streaming websites such as YouTube and illegal file sharing websites. Many device holders were also not able to download the album at all thanks to the application frequently crashing and the hosting servers being overloaded. Jay-Z even noticed this and addresses it lyrically on ‘Somewhere in America’. Billboard’s stance on not counting the one million pre-sold order was also lyrically addressed on the same album. The marketing strategy that was used still contributed to his album debuting at number one however.
Even though illegal copies were posted within minutes of the early release, it appears the goal of Jay-Z was to just finish the album and get it out to the public. Having his album pirated doesn’t seem to bother him that much. Sharing was part of the strategy in fact, as the application was configure to share the music with other Galaxy devices via Twitter, Facebook, and Samsung’s tap-to-share feature. With this in mind, Jay-Z may have been very clear on what the outcome the sharing features could cause.
Samsung also bathe in the promotion by advertising their Samsung devices (Braga, 2013). From my perspective, this is a win-win on both parties. They both helped advertised each other which led to increase sales of both assets. This was Samsung’s way of luring new consumers, some of which could have been Jay-Z fans. This was also an attempt for Samsung to better control the mobile market while pulling consumers of Apple products away. Thanks to Samsung’s investment, the album had the status of platinum even before it was official released.
This was mainly the reason behind the RIAA changing their rules on how albums are certified gold or platinum. While some music artists released their singles and albums digitally, a majority of their sales was counted towards physical media. This prevented the label from receiving an award thirty (30) days after release. This was to ensure accurately tracking of sales and returns. Thanks to the digital age however, there are so few returns and even then are strict on what constitutes return condition that they are simply not considered. This allows the artist to immediately reap the awards from selling digitally or upfront. In Jay-Z’s case, Magna Carta Holy Grail was already certified platinum according to the new rules.
Jay-Z marketing strategy was very different in that a single or album covers was not used for promotion material. This could have easily backfired if Jay-Z was not such as well known artist. Usually music artists will release a couple singles from their album to help promote it before they officially release it. Heavy promotion of your album is the key to draw in an intrigued audience. Jay-Z did almost the complete opposite. While he only did a few promotions for the album it was still very well received regardless. For smaller artists that want to follow in Jay-Z’s footsteps in regards to this marketing technique would prove to be too much of a risk to take.
This is not the first time Jay-Z has taken to digital media to promote his album. Although not as extravagant as the promotion for Magna Carta Holy Grail was, back in 2003 when he released The Black Album, he partner with Nokia to release a special edition of the Nokia 3300 that contained the entire album ( Digital Trends Staff, 2003). Getting the information out was harder as we did not have Twitter or Facebook back then. We relied mostly on word of mouth, television commercials, radio commentary, and the few Internet articles posted. Even then, the phones themselves were not available everywhere but only in select stores.
This shows that Jay-Z is not above trying the same thing more than once and that he knows who to invest in. This opportunity granted him a custom made phone titled The Black Phone in conjunction with his The Black Album release ( Digital Trends Staff, 2003). This type of promotion was unheard of back then mainly because the Internet was not as popular as it is now.
The way Jay-Z used digital media to communicate information to achieve his goal was very innovative. While it may appear to be a smart move for some it was a very risky one for others. Little to no promotion could very well turn your album into a sleeper release which could end an artist’s career. Thanks to Jay-Z being a well known artist and releasing well viewed albums, his studio releases are almost always highly anticipated.
More companies are taking note of artists to promote their brands through digital media such as music videos. Jay-Z has invested in several brands as well as created a few brands of his own which continue to improve his image. Artists have the benefit of reaching a wider audience than some corporations can. These corporations are realizing this and partner with artists to get their brands out there to reach more people.
References
Digital Trends Staff. (2003, December 16). Nokia Releases Phone WIth Entire MP3 Album. Retrieved February 18, 2016, from Digital Trends: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/nokia-releases-phone-with-entire-mp3-album/
Braga, M. (2013, July 4). Jay-Z’s Magna Carta not the Holy Grail Samsung needs. Retrieved February 15, 2016, from Financial Post JayZs Magna Carta not the Holy Grail Samsungneeds Comments: http://business.financialpost.com/fp-tech-desk/jay-zs-magna-carta-not-the-holy-grail-samsung-needs
Paulsen. (2013, June 24). 2013 NBA Playoffs Wrap: TV Ratings For Every Game . Retrieved February 14, 2016, from Sports Media Watch: http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2013/06/2013-nba-playoffs-wrap-tv-ratings-for-every-game/#miasas
Rogulewski, C. (2013, June 17). Jay-Z Dropping ‘Magna Carta Holy Grail’ Album on July 4 Via App. Retrieved February 15, 2016, from Vibe: http://www.vibe.com/2013/06/jay-z-dropping-magna-carta-holy-grail-album-july-4-app/
project 1 case study question (1)
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There is an estimation that by 2020, more than 2 billion businesses and consumers will be connected to digital services via the internet through around 15 billion wireless and wired devices, (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). The expected outcome will be a change in the distribution channels, monetization of entertainment and media………………
APA
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