Olwyn Walsh

C00156871
25th November 2014

Dorothy Keane
Online Marketing

BEYONCS NO MARKETING ALBUM STRATEGY

AN ANALYSIS AND CRITICAL EVALUATION OF A SUCCESSFUL ONLINE MARKETING CAMPAIGN
INTRODUCTION
In an age of constant communication, with consumers constantly being logged onto social
media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc. it is be becoming increasing more difficult to
do something that has never been done before. Nowadays, musical artists announce an
announcement on twitter, the announcement might be a release date for a single or an album
release date. They will then spend the next few months heavily publicizing, with radio
interviews, TV appearances and PR teams working overtime, until the albums release date.
The music industry has faced many changes in the last decade, music is enjoyed online, illegal
downloading has become the norm and nothing surprises an audience anymore. In fact, more
and more artists are relying on controversy for attention, see Miley Cyrus at the VMAs in
2014.
On December 13th, 2013, while in the middle of her North American tour, Beyonc fans were
in for a surprise (Markotic, 2013). In a move that would go on to influence even a strategic
marketing course taught at Harvard Business School only ten months later, Beyonc released
her fifth, self-titled album without any prior publicity, (Flanagan, 2014). Beyonc had not
released any music since 2011. Throughout 2013 she had performed at Obamas Presidential
Inauguration and the Super Bowl Halftime Show as well as an endorsement deal as the face of
Pepsi and appeared in H&M advertisements. She was also the subject of a HBO documentary,
(Owens, 2014).
The product offering was unlike that of what Beyonc had done before, and unlike her
competitors. On the day of its release it was offered exclusively on the iTunes Store, physical
manufacturing for CDs began on this day also, (Sony Columbia Records, 2013). The album
was presented as a visual album, along with 14 new songs, 17 videos were also created, (Sony
Columbia Records, 2013). Everybody who worked on the album kept it secret throughout the
process, so nothing was leaked or even implied before its release date. The album was initially

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Olwyn Walsh
Dorothy Keane
C00156871
Online Marketing
25th November 2014
supposed to be released on November 18th, though the accompanying videos were still being
made, pushing the release date back to December 13th, (Flanagan, 2014).
The music was recorded during the summer of 2012, in a rented house in the Hamptons. The
writers and producers of the tracks came and worked on the album as a collaborate piece
(Greco, 2014). The music videos were shot while on the Miss Carter Show World Tour,
throughout 2013 and were also done in complete secrecy, even those shot in public places,
(Sony Columbia Records, 2013).

THE CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES

Due to the nature of the music industry and the level of secrecy of the campaign, specific, key
objectives were not available. Forbes cited that the campaign worked for three reasons, it was
shocking, different and in line with the Beyonc brand (Huba, 2013).

When speaking about the decision to release the album without any publicity, Beyonc said, I
didnt want to release my music the way Ive done it [previously], (Sisario, 2013). Many fans
and industry experts were shocked, not only were users of social media sites talking about the
album, music publications such as Billboard and Rolling Stone Magazine as well as leading
news publications such as Forbes and the New York Times. Many publications claimed that
only Beyonc could have achieved something to this magnitude, (Sisario, 2013).
Beyonc used the album, and marketing opportunity to set herself apart in an already
competitive industry. The music industry is very single driven, releasing an album without a
lead single beforehand is daring, and Beyonc created the whole album and offered it as one
piece, (Claveria, 2014). To create a music video for each, to correspond with the release wasnt
done before, (Huba, 2013).

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Olwyn Walsh
Dorothy Keane
C00156871
Online Marketing
25th November 2014
Columbia (Beyoncs record label) said the album was designed to highlight that its about
her and her fan relationships, the decision to forgo any interviews or pre-release reviews was
to make sure nothing got in between between the music, the artist and the fans, (Sisario,
2013). Beyoncs gives a message of strong and feminist values in her music and through her
image, this campaign was in keeping with this message.

CAMPAIGN STRATEGY
Against the normal conventions of an album release, Beyonc relied on two things to make this
campaign standout; word-of-mouth and the element of surprise (Huba, 2013). Her 53 million
followers on Facebook and 8 million on Instagram at the time (in the last year this has grown
to 66 million and 20.7 million respectively), were there to help spread the word and make sure
everyone knew about it, (Hua, 2013), (Facebook, 2014), (Instagram, 2014). Surprise; This
was the caption for the 15 second Instagram video posted onto Beyoncs page said announcing
her fifth album was available to download, (Pazzanese, 2014).
The midnight release was exclusively given to iTunes, where the full package (songs and
videos) could be offered to the customer (Flanagan, 2014). Beyoncs management company
(which she owns), Parkwood Entertainment and record company Columbia met with Apple to
discuss the deal. Once the album was announced by Beyonc, advertising banners would
dominate the homepage of the iTunes Store, (Flanagan, 2014). Making the album exclusively
digital would lower the risk of leaks, (Cappadona, 2014).

Social Media platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook particular were utilized for big reveal
(Flanagan, 2014). Facebook were instrumental in the success of the campaign. Parkwood
Entertainment went into talks with a delegated team from Facebook. Without knowing about
the visual concept of the album Parkwood recommended that Facebook launch the Auto Play
feature for videos on users new feeds, (Cappadona, 2014).
After this initial release, there was a 72-hour turnaround planned to get the album into stores.
Physical copies of the album were put into production, the plain black slip cover with
BEYONC written in pink font in the middle, which could easily be assembled, (Flanagan,

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Olwyn Walsh
Dorothy Keane
C00156871
Online Marketing
25th November 2014
2014). Although there was some controversy, retailers such as Amazon and Target refused to
carry the product due to iTunes exclusive deal, (Flanagan, 2014).

ANALYTICS
Media picked up the story, which amplified it so more than fans knew about it, (Huba, 2013).
Twitter reported 1.2million tweets about the album within the first twelve hours of its release
(Huba, 2013).
The album was released on a Friday, contrary to the usual album release day Tuesday, as
weekly sales charts are counted on Sundays (Caulfield, 2013b). The initial sales figures in the
US alone are as follows; 80,000 copies in the first three hours (Petroluongo, 2013); 430,000
copies in the first day (Petroluongo, 2013); 550,000 copies in two days (Caulfield, 2013a). By
the charts on Sunday, 15th December, the album had sold 617,213, (Apple, 2013). At this point,
worldwide, the album was number one in 104 countries and 828,773 albums sold, (Apple,
2013). It spent three weeks at the top of the charts in the US, (Caulfield, 2013b).
In ten days in the US the album went on to sell 991,000 units, more than her previous album
4 had, (310,000 and 150,000 in the first two weeks respectively), (Caulfield, 2013b). In its
second week, digital downloads were still making up 63% of the total sales, (Caulfield, 2013b).
By the end of 2013, Beyonc had sold 1,301,000 copies in the US alone, (Grein, 2014).
Worldwide, the album Beyonc has sold over 5 million copies, in the last year, since its
release (Yahoo, 2014). These figures do not take into account illegal downloads, so although
these were the numbers of people who bought the album, the amount listening are probably be
a lot more.
In the first three days, the album broke two records on iTunes, the largest single week ever in
the US store as well as the fastest selling album worldwide on iTunes, (Huba, 2013).
Two music videos (for Drunk in Love and XO) were released onto YouTube on December
16th, almost one year later they have 230,787,163 views and 64,715,639 views respectively,
(YouTube, 2014). In January five short films entitled Self-Titled explaining the different
concepts of the album, with an average of one million views each (YouTube, 2014)

CONCLUSION
As we can see from the sales figures and social media attention, Beyoncs unusual and
attention grabbing marketing strategy worked, news of the campaign extended further than the
reach of Beyoncs fan base. As of October 2014, a case study was written and will be taught

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Olwyn Walsh
Dorothy Keane
C00156871
Online Marketing
25th November 2014
by Anita Elberse, a business professor for Harvard Business School, (Passanese, 2014). The
case study looks at questions such as "How will the unusual strategy affect other musicians?"
and "What effect might the release have on Beyonc's relationship with companies not included
in the launch?" (Pazzanese, 2014).
Although the album was too late for the 2014 Grammy awards, she is a favourite to win this
year, (Lipshutz, 2014). She has left her influence on pop culture, with references such as I
woke up like this and Surfboard. Industry experts expect to see copycat campaigns emerge
from competing artists, calling it doing a Beyonc, (Popjustice, 2014). On popular websites
such as Buzzfeed and on social media she is also commonly referred to as Yonce or Queen
Bey, cementing her place in contemporary culture.
One year after the albums reveal, the platinum edition of the album will be released on
November 24th 2014, with added tracks and bonus extras. Although snippets of two songs were
leaked online, Beyonc responded by also releasing a music video, filmed seemingly in her
home, (Kreps, 2014), in keeping with the original theme of the record.

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Olwyn Walsh
C00156871
25th November 2014

Dorothy Keane
Online Marketing

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Olwyn Walsh
C00156871
25th November 2014

Dorothy Keane
Online Marketing

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