Who knew that creating a successful top-selling album would entail ditching the ole’ rule book and dismissing the typical release of an album?
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter stirred up a commotion in the music world, making the music cosmos realign when she secretly released her surprise visual self-titled album. Without notice & publicity, Beyoncé showed she “runs the world” by deciding to do things her way — breaking barriers and spearheading what may be a future trend.
At 12 a.m. on Dec. 13, 2013, King Bey dropped a bomb that would fuel massive excitement. Unexpectedly, Mrs. Carter introduced her self-titled visual album, “Beyoncé,” via a short 15-second clip from her Instagram with the tagline— “Surprise!”—but wait, there was a twist. The visual album was only available via iTunes download until a week later, Dec. 20, when released to retailers. The option to buy physical copies at a store was not announced right away.
The “Diva” instantly created a musical frenzy, making the universe “Bow Down” with salivating mouths to their computers and digital devices hungry for honey from the “BeyHive.” It was as if the nectar had been sucked dry from their lives since “4,” her previous album, and they were anxious to taste that sweet nectar again.
Fans went wild, and even those who thought the 17-year veteran was overrated had to commend her keen stunt. The visual album, packed with 14 songs and 17 videos, created a pause in the universe, making any other groundbreaking news subordinate the day of its release.
Let’s take this album as a play-book play-by-play.
First, let’s look at the traditional way of promoting an album versus a nontraditional way (Beyoncé’ edition):
Now, let’s look at some statistics from the “Beyoncé” visual album release with no warning, publicity, or lead single:
In just three days “Beyoncé” sold almost 829,000 copies internationally totaling to more than $13 million in sales just on iTunes alone. Fastest album to ever hit iTunes, breaking the first-week digital sales record for an album in the U.S. (Beyoncé’s biggest sales week EVER).
— Debuted No. 1 on Billboard Top 200.
— No. 1 in over 100 countries across the world.
— Release generated over 1.2 million tweets on Twitter in 12 hours.
Has Beyoncé created a new trend in music marketing? Is no publicity now the new publicity?
Culture is always changing, and someone must be brave enough to depart from traditional ways to captivate and exceed old results and goals. Here are five ways to promote a successful R&B album by learning from the release of “Beyoncé.”
1. Create anticipation.
Anticipation is often an overlooked tactic that creates eagerness and excitement for your project and increases involvement or participation. The less people know about something, the more they want to learn about it.
How do you create anticipation? Do something where people feel they must have it now—not later. Do something different.
Apparently, producers and Bey’s label, Columbia Records, were stumped on what direction to take Beyoncé’s music after her “4” album because it didn’t reach the success of its predecessor, “I Am…Sasha Fierce .” Every time someone inquired about the progress of her music, it was pretty much the same answer—“it’s being delayed” or “there is no set date.”
Whether done intentionally or not, this created anxious fans who anticipated hearing a solid date when they could expect new music. This effortlessly had fans on edge, gritting on the enamel of their teeth.
Once the anticipation stirred and thickened like cake batter, Bey dropped a ‘birthday cake’ surprise, a form of anticipation within itself. For most artists the surprise would be the revelation of a short snippet of a track or an early release of a video revealing the lead single, but for Queen Bey, it was an entire album.
Once the anticipation is built, it sets up the alley-oop for a slam dunk reaction: “I want it now, I need it now, later isn’t an option.”
Here is where “exclusivity” comes into play. If you create something only available in a certain format, creating exclusivity, people fall into the mindset of wanting to have it now and wanting to be a part of that movement as if to say “It’s an exclusive and—I—have it.”
By only releasing “Beyoncé” digitally on iTunes (only available as a whole unit, singles could not be purchased individually), it made fans not only jump from the anxiety of waiting so long for new music but because it made them feel “special.
2. Deliver a ‘bang for the buck.’
Beyoncé made every penny of the $15.99 iTunes visual album download worth it. She exceeded expectations and presented us with a carefully articulated package that consisted of 14-tracks, each with an accompanying video. Stretching our coins a bit further, Bey included two videos for the two-part tracks, “Haunted” and “Partition,” and another bonus video track, “Grown Woman,” providing us with 17-videos total. Wow, Bey! Mrs. Carter delivered more than an album, she created an experience—a movie.
“I see music,” the 32-year-old diva explained in her part one of her “Self-Titled” documentary series, which explains her vision for “Beyoncé.”
“It’s more than just what I hear. When I’m connected to something, I immediately see a visual or a series of images that are tied to a feeling or an emotion…and they’re all connected to the music…and I think it’s one of the reasons why I wanted to do a visual album.”
“I wanted people to hear the songs with the story that’s in my head because it’s what makes it mine. That vision in my brain is what I wanted people to experience.”
Beyoncé filmed videos for the album within an impressive six-month span between June and November 2013 in locations ranging from Paris to Coney Island in New York.
3. Create a movement.
When promoting a successful album, you want to create a movement that people feel they want to participate. Make it an event.
As soon as “Beyoncé” was released, the “Halo” singer created energy around the album. Here are a few things she did:
— She released the beginning of what would be a five-part documentary series the day the album was released giving a glimpse into the album’s creation. Each part of the series was released between four to eight days apart.
— Made capitalized pale pink lettering on a black background (album artwork) a consistent common theme which took off past the realms of the album.
— Utilized catchy phrases or words from her music lyrics (i.e., “Surfboard” “Flawless”) that people caught on to and made them into merchandise with black crew neck sweatshirts inked with pink lettering.
— Created an Instagram Q&A where fans could post a video question with the hash-tag #ASKBEYONCE to ask questions about the album. Answered Instagram questions at The Director’s Screening in New York City Dec. 21, eight days after the release of the album.
Beyoncé took a risk and created this organic experience that everyone could be a part of to some degree. It’s almost like she created a culture that fans, directors, and many more could embrace.
4. Utilize social media.
Social media is a powerful promotional tool, and it creates free publicity with the touch of a button in minutes—even seconds. More importantly, social media builds and maintains relationships. Without Beyoncé’s fan base, this effort would not have been as successful.
Social media bridges the barrier between fans and artists, allowing them access to one another instantly. Artists can relay information to the fans directly and the fans the same.
With Beyoncé’s decision to release her surprise album through this platform, all the Queen had to do was sit back and let viral marketing run its course.
Bey’s decision to release her album online and announce it on social media logically made sense. It created a heightened level of convenience for the buyers as they didn’t have to travel to a store and everything was provided right at their fingertips.
Yoncé’s visual album beamed through cyberspace and had many Instagrammers posting morning selfies with the tagline—“I woke up like this.” “Beyoncé” was shared, re-tweeted, commented, hashtagged, liked and every other social media jargon you can think of. This is a testament to the successful use of social media.
5. Do something different.
You can’t do the same thing expecting different results, right? You must do something different to stand out and make your mark.
“I didn’t want to release my music the way I’ve done it,” stated Beyoncé. “I am bored with that.” She created her own script and followed her own rules. Sounds more fun, right?
Instead of creating anticipation by slowly releasing information bit by bit, she created it by withholding every detail. The surprise album even had a code name, “Lilly,” known only to those working on the project.
When creating the music videos, Beyoncé and the producers used earbuds so that the music would not get leaked. Music videos were candid and organic, unlike her peers’ usually planned and thought-out music videos.
With no real promotion like ask-all tell-all interviews or morning show appearances, it was not until the album was unleashed that she did her version of promotional activities.
Instead of a buzz single before the project, her lead single in the U.S., “Drunk in Love,” wasn’t released until three days after the album on VEVO and a day later to urban contemporary radio stations. Beyoncé also released “XO” simultaneously as a lead single for contemporary radio.
To celebrate the success of a ground-breaking endeavor, you must have an album release party. Most artists either have a listening party or a release party on the day of the album’s debut at a nightclub venue. Taking the road less traveled, Beyoncé’s album release party was held Dec. 19 (five days after the album dropped) at the adventurous Dave and Buster’s in Time Square right after her “Mrs. Carter Show” concert at Brooklyn’s Barclay’s Center. She created a fun environment appropriate for her electro-R&B album.
This is what you call different.
Beyoncé successfully sold an album by rewriting the playbook herself. She elevated to another level of success by taking risks and letting down the outer walls of the complex layers of her artistry. She created anticipation, delivered a ‘bang for the buck,’ created a movement, used social media, and did something different. Here she devised the menu for selling a successful R&B album.
Love it! This is a very good article!
Amazing!!!! Article!!!!
This could only have worked with an artist on HER level though, her playbook may not work with every other artist. but i applaud her and her TEAM for this amazing album and direction. She truly did something historic that people will talk about in 20-30-50 years to come. She’s kind of like the ‘Michael Jackson’ type entity for us.
A nice article about Bey but she is not a R&B singer. Her music is more PoP/Hip Hop as Rihanna, JLo, but she is no Janet etc. In this era her fans may label her Queen Bey but the real Queen is Mary J and Real R&B Singers are Toni B, Alicia K, Fantasia, old SWV, Tamar etc…! She is a Good Performer but not so Good Singer.
This is bad advice if you’re not “Billion Dollar Famous”. She doesn’t promote because he doesn’t have to and as MamaV mentioned, she’s not an R&B singer and never really was. She just did good on the R&B charts. Conversely Alicia Key’s used to be a bonafide R&B Neo/Soul Artist and now she’s mostly Pop. BTW I find that skin whitening cream, beyonce is using, disgusting.