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February 23, 2010
Loyalty lessons from Lady Gaga
There's a lot marketers can learn from artist and musician Lady Gaga.
At age 23, Lady Gaga has rocketed to global fame in less than two years. Playing piano at age 4 and New York nightclubs at 14, she recently broke Billboard's record as the first artist to have her first five six singles reach number one. She's won two Grammys, and has sold 8 million albums and 15 million singles digitally worldwide. While her performance art-style stage shows and bizarre outfits have garnered much buzz, it's her loyalty marketing that may sustain her for years. Gaga is dedicated to her fans and clearly knows the elements of cultivating a community of evangelistic fans.
With that, here are my 5 lessons about building brand loyalty, Lady Gaga-style:
1. Give fans a name. Gaga doesn't like the word "fan" so she calls them her "Little Monsters," named after her album "The Fame Monster." She even tattooed "Little Monsters" on her arm and tweeted the pic to fans professing love for them. Now fans are getting their own Little Monster tattoos. By giving the group a formal name, it gives fans a way to refer to each other. Fans feel like they are joining a special club. (Related business examples: Maker's Mark Ambassadors and Fiskar's Fiskateers.)
2. Make it about something bigger than you. During her concert tour, Gaga recites a "Manifesto of Little Monsters" (text) (video). Although a bit cryptic, most Little Monsters see it as a dedication to them, that her fans have the power to make or break her. (Related business examples: Smoque BBQ (pdf).)
3. Develop shared symbols. The official Little Monster greeting is the outstretched "monster claw" hand. As all Little Monsters know, the clawed hand is part of the choreography in the video of her song "Bad Romance." Gaga tells the story of watching a fan in Boston greet another fan with the claw hand and that's when she knew this was the Little Monster symbol. Even Oprah knows the Little Monster greeting. Shared symbols allow fans to identify each other and connect. (Related business example: LIVESTRONG yellow wristbands.)
4. Make your customers feel like rock stars. One staple of Gaga's "Monster Ball" tour is to call a fan in the audience during the show. She dials the number onstage, the fan screams out, is located and they are put up on a big screen. While the rest of audience goes bananas, she invites the fan to have a drink with her after the show. (Related business example: eBay Live Conference where attendees walk through a gauntlet of applauding eBay staff as they enter the closing gala)
5. Leverage social media. Gaga has the requisite Facebook fan page (over 5 million fans) and Twitter ID (almost 3 million followers) but it's how she uses them that drives loyalty. On Twitter, she tells fans what she is doing, such as tweeting them before she opened the Grammy Awards. She also tweeted to fans that she was buying them pizza for waiting overnight at an album signing.
Some artists are very protective of their image and prohibit recording devices during performances. Gaga doesn't allow professional photographers into her concerts but is ok with fans recording and putting videos on YouTube.
Whether Gaga will have staying power remains to be seen. But she is making waves in the music business and teaching plenty of people the power of fandom.
Wouldn't you like to have fans like these?
UPDATE: To further illustrate Gaga loyalty, watch this fan-created created video card montage of Little Monsters from around the world for Gaga's 24th birthday. Many of the fans get emotional talking about how Gaga has inspired them to be themselves, and not care about what others think.Other blogs that reference Loyalty lessons from Lady Gaga:
Lady Gaga really is an example to small businesses especially that if we make our customers feel like an important facet of our business that they'll keep coming back for more. I like Lady Gaga's music (not so much the videos) but the fact that she has so many Little Monsters loyally following her is a lesson to all in the art of marketing and being authentic.
Great article! I like Lady Gaga's music but don't consider myself one of her little monsters. These 5 lessons are lessons that all small businesses should use, even if they aren't one of her fans. She knows what shes talking about when it comes to music as well as marketing.
exactly, she's a marketing ploy. I have noticed too, the dedication and how she convinces her fans she is a one woman show and entirely dedicated to them. Obviously she has a team of people scouring the net searching for GaGa related links, videos etc.
She then tweets on twitter as if she has just found it.
Plus, I don't think she came up with this media marketing idea. I mean, come one, she has a team of people around her. She would have been advised on this. I think that the standfirst should be: There's a lot marketers can learn from the team behind Lady Gaga.
it's contrived and sad, her fans are buying into it and her self-labeled image of being avant-garde, when she is about as avant garde as my toe.
http://tabbysmusings.blogspot.com/2010/03/go-go-gaga-world-vision.html
Lady Gaga is downright an icon. Its funny how the most successful people will always have negative people.. the haters. No one can deny how quickly she became such a success.
Look who has the #1 Video of all time on YouTube.
http://mashable.com/2010/04/14/lady-gaga-bad-romance-youtube/
Lady Gaga's a living symbol of how good investment in social media marketing and other relevant fiels can really give you the results one needs. The post is exhaustive, good work.
Correction: Lady Gaga's a living symbol of how good investment in social media marketing and other relevant fields can really give you the results you need. The post is exhaustive, good work.
I am a fan of Lady Gaga and think it's not just about her tactics, but she is a great product too at the foundation. That was the topic of my blog article at: http://blog.kuehlmarketing.com/2010/02/25/3-keys-to-social-media-success-take-it-from-lady-gaga.aspx
Great article, though Apple success was created by making customers belonging to a club and making them feel special. All those queues in front of their shops 24 hours, or longer, before a product is being sold...
Its good to see Lady G learning from Apple and applying some of their tactics!
Another reason Little Monsters around the world are loyal to Gaga is because all of the points you mentioned are genuine. Nothing is forced or contrived. That kind or organic relationship with her fans makes her someone people want to be loyal to because it's a two-way street.
Great post! Particularly enjoyed the note about Gaga calling on a fan in the audience. Though seems to me the real social media savvy she displays is by her use of Twitter to have a running dialog with her fans. She reinforces that she identifies with her fans every chance she gets. Most importantly, they believe she shares their frustration and fears.
Daniel Perry
Twitter: DanielPerry http://twitter.com/danielperry
She is OK but she's the third biggest female after Madonna and Britney.. No matter what she does, she will never be recognized as big as these two queens.
One of the other points..... that you have sort of mentioned but is really key to Gaga's success. Is her accessibility. She really really strives to make herself appear approachable and contactable. She answers her followers twitters, and mentions them in interviews. She pops into randomn wedding pictures, and goes to the same dive bars in NYC she did before fame. She sends personal video messages to troubled fans, and sometimes it almost seems like there's 10 of her. She makes a point to say she is an artist and NOT a celeb. After years of the Paris Hilton types and watching things like BP's PR mismanagement of their crisis.....and especially during a recession.....having an artist who is unusual but strives to show she's just like you or understands you is very significant.
I do really agree that she connects with her fans and that is a key to her success. She stays real. Fans love that.
she is nice person even though she always act like nobody care for her,.i know she just do her character coz she also know thats the way why people know her :)
One of the more interesting aspects of Lady Gaga’s stardom is that she became famous in a very old fashion way. That is she started out by playing in clubs all around New York city, and was a self-promoter who was never discouraged by failure. She didn’t become famous by winning a reality television show like American Idol, or things of that nature.
