Lady Gaga 'Telephone' Video - Amazeballs

 Lady Gaga, Telephone

Just watched Lady Gaga's new nine-minute video for Telephone (twice) from her site.  LOVEEEE!!

A few months ago I posted about Gaga's brilliant branding techniques, and how brands should take a page from her book.  After seeing her concert in London a few weeks ago, it was even more apparent how powerful the Gaga Monster is.  With her signature (claw) hand gesture, which she promotes as a signifier for Gaga fans worldwide, the monster cult strengthens.  Gaga continuously told (a few too many times, in my opinion) the audience that their connection with her is really their connection with each other.  By identifying herself as different (duh!) and an "outlier" she is hitting the long tail of pop worshippers, who are sick of looking up to the cookie cutter pop stars and dying for a newer version of Madonna.  Strong, sexy, surprising. 

She is different, yet the same as her fans.  Super glam yet street.  She can rock cigarette sunglasses while making out with boy-looking-girls on the playground.  Her talent is awesome.

Lady Gaga, Cigarette Sunglasses

The video has everything you'd expect from Gaga and more: wild headpieces/outfits, t&a, crotch grabbing, a super gay dance troupe, Beyonce (as Honey Bee), and loads of pop culture references. MTV has put together a pretty comprehensive list, so I won't duplicate, but def worth checking out. 

There's also a bit of product placement.  I grabbed two Polaroid promos (Gaga was named Creative Director for a specialty line of their products in January) as well as a Virgin Mobile cell phone, Wonderbread, and a quick hook for Plenty of Fish.  Does this add/take away anything?

I imagined Gaga's telephone would be more like some crazy space phone than a Virgin, but whatever pays the bills! Also don't really get the sandwich section (though I love it).

Lady Gaga, Telephone - PolaroidLady Gaga, Telephone - Polaroid

Lady Gaga, Telephone - Virgin Mobile

Lady Gaga, Let's Make a SandwichLady Gaga, Plenty of Fish

My favourite thing about the video is that she's telling a story. A story about her and Beyonce poisoning restaurant partons in a Kill Bill meets Pulp Fiction sequence.  The "to be continued" Thelma and Louise-style ending leaves her viewers right where they knew they'd be: (confused, and) wanting more.

Lady Gaga and Beyonce, Telephone

If you haven't seen it already (it came out today) watch Telephone below. 

All hail Lady Gaga, creative genius and marketing extraordinaire!

Dear Brands: Learn From Lady Gaga

I love Lady Gaga.  She's wildly creative, eccentric, mad, talented, entertaining, and gives incredible interviews. From a marketing perspective, she is the ultimate brand. Gaga she has embraced social media and the internet as a way of connecting with her fans, creating strong, emotive relationships between her and her peeps.  

Her Facebook Page has lots of nice content for fans to engage with.  It boasts 4,360,974 fans, receives thousands of "likes" (ex 5,623) on her posts, and hundreds of comments.  

There's a "Store" tab where you can buy Gaga merchandise, including CDs, t-shirts, bubbles, sunglasses and ear phones.  Clicking "buy it" opens a new window to a merchandise site. Driving e-commerca via Facebook is a great and seemingly obvious move that not many brands are taking advantage of.

"Make Me a Fame Monster" is an application which allows you to select a pic from your account and overlay "I'm a Fame Monster" with the album's drop date.  While the product of this is actually pretty disappointing, it's a nice little promotional tool (I wonder how many fans have done this)?

I'm a Fame Monster

My favourite tab is the Lady Gaga Gift Shop, where you can send Gaga-themed virtual gifts to both your friends and the artist.  Virtual gifts are a great way to increase interaction and passalong with a brand. Gaga uses the credit system, with gifts ranging from free to 20 credits (15 credits cost $3.00). 

Lady Gage Facebook PageWhat about Twitter? She's all ova it.  With 1,622,487 fans and following 155,960 (I'm actually surprised she isn't following more) it's the perfect vain for the artist to speak to her fans and champion them: most recent tweet in point: 

Lady Gaga - Twitter

John Mayer is another musician who uses new digital technologies creatively, most recently in his augmented reality music video.

The last channel I'll highlight is YouTube.  Gaga's official YouTube Channel was created in May 2008, has 160,166 subscribers and has received 20,567,752 channel views.  To illustrate the magnitude these numbers, let's compare Gaga's YT stats with Madonna's: Madge's YouTube Channel has been up since 2005. With 43 updates (just 20 less than Gaga's 63 updates), Madonna has received 3,702,431 channel views and has 44,517 subscribers.  Sooo, Gaga has received over 5.4 times as many Channel views as the "queen of pop"...

I could spend another hour showcasing Gaga's presence online - she's actually everywhere.  By creating and constantly updating numerous digital channels with relevant and entertaining content, Gaga is setting a new standard in brand engagement ... Fame Monster, indeed!

Lady Gaga - Social Media

For now I'll leave you with the new video for Bad Romance, which sits on her home page before entering the site.  Directly below the video is a Fan Tweets mechanic, encouraging viewers to share their thoughts on the new vid, as well as a #badromance. 

And just cause it's awsome, watch this Gagalicious fashion film by Dazed Digital:

For more Gaga goodness, visit her site.