By: Anita Elberse
How are hits made and superstars built in today's hyper-competitive entertainment landscape? To find an answer to that question, one could do worse to study Lady Gaga- and the man behind her success, her manager Troy Carter.
Lady Gaga's story illustrates numerous truths about the nature of hit making. The fate she suffered initially, when she was dropped by her first record label after a mere three months, is one that's all too familiar to artists everywhere, even those that go on to be superstars. It's a consequence of the pressure to show immediate results so major labels, with their high costs and large artist portfolios, can justify further investments.
How Gaga and Carter-- also an influencer on LinkedIn-- picked up the pieces in 2008 and gained traction for her first single, Just Dance, by building a loyal fan base in dance, fashion, art and gay communities shows how much new artists depend on so-called grassroots approaches to give themselves a chance at success. By smartly capitalizing on a few early "sparks" in the marketplace and focusing first on those areas where audiences were most receptive, Gaga steadily climbed to the top.
By the time she was ready to release her third album, Born This Way, Gaga was popular enough to justify a global, "swing-for-the-fences" push. Characterized by an unprecedented number of partnerships with consumer-goods companies- Amazon, Belvedere Vodka, Best Buy, Gilt Groupe, Starbucks, Zynga and more- Born This Way ushered in a new era in which the biggest of the big brands join together compounding their influence. "A launch of such scale can't be done with just a record label- they don't have the resources," Carter said. The strategy worked: released on a wider scale than any other album in 2011, Born This Way sold a staggering 1.1 million units in its first week.
With Grant Donnelly, a doctoral student at the Harvard Business School (where I teach) I checked in with Carter-- a bit of a superstar himself in both music and technology-- to reflect on the Born This Way launch and ARTPOP, which debuted on November 8.
For the full story behind Lady Gaga's rise to mega-stardom, along with many other behind-the-scenes looks at the worlds of music, film, television, publishing, sports, and nightlife, check out my new book, Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment.
Read the interview of Troy Carter here: http://hiphopweekly.webs.com/apps/blog/entries/show/35837457-elberse-donnelly-q-a-with-lady-gaga-s-manager-troy-carter
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