From a client of mine:
Breaking Through the Clutter
Sep. 30, 2009
Breaking through the clutter in marketing and advertising these days can be a huge challenge. In order to successfully build awareness, your message will most likely have one or more of the following characteristics.
- Consistency - You must be consistent with your message. Kinda like the practice makes perfect saying, if people hear it and see it enough they will inherently get it. Think Apple for a consistent message.
- Targeted - A great consistent message also needs to be very targeted. Knowing the statistics and the demographics of your end user will shape your message and deliver it with outstanding results.
- Disruptive - Who needs either of the above when you can attract attention by simply being over the top — those crazy and outrageous ideas that look beyond demographics or the consistency of the message. It puts all its eggs in the crazy basket and just goes with it.
I bring this up now because, after the big Kanye West hoopla that went on, I came upon a statistic that utterly shocked me. Check out this graph that documented what the public was tweeting about after the MTV Video Music Awards.
Sorry Kanye, nice try.
So why did Lady GaGa get so much tweeting in comparison to the seemingly hot topic of Kanye West? You could say it’s because of the crazy costumes or her above average performance. But I believe that GaGa was able to incorporate all three above practices to successfully brand herself in the current market of pop culture.
I think she gets an A++ for consistency. Her image was very bizarre, but the radical outfits were consistent with her image and kept the camera on her at all times. Targeting and demographics were a big win too. Knowing that a majority of the MTV viewers are connected to the social media frenzy, Gaga was able to spread herself quickly through twitter posts. Another risky event was her performance. Again she stayed consistent with the crazy costumes. The performance itself was also above average and, with the help of some Hollywood blood, she was even able to act like she died at the end. This was a great disruptive tactic that created controversy which in turn increased the talk and views of people blogging.
So what did we learn from this? A tight, focused and consistent branding look and message can really go a long way. People are getting used to outrageous outbursts like Kanye’s interruption. These types of interruptive messages are not thought through, lack any clear message and may ultimately hurt the brand. In Lady GaGa’s case, she was smart and clear with her message and branding. This in turn caused people to want to know more. And judging from all the tweets involving her name, she came out as the real winner of the evening. It’s great to see in the midst of all the interruptive nonsense out there, a quality, consistent and focused message can still reign supreme!
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