Hello! 🙂
I don’t think I need to explain who Miley Cyrus is. She may be my age, but we are world’s apart….In terms of image and well, bank account figures too.
It’s almost a year since #twerking became part of our vernacular after Miley & Robin redefined ‘raunchy’ 2013. I remembered the buzz when her bizarre spectacle was being broadcasted in live TV and the consequent world’s reaction to her arguably disturbing performance.
-> Like Madonna before her (remember her song, Like A Virgin?), the sweet Disney sweetheart grew up from teen idol to a twerking superstar. The tongue, the foam finger, that flesh-colored latex bikini and those risqué moves. Those will forever haunt our minds. For months, all anyone could talk about was the sexed-up, depraved, tounge-wagging songstress who rose from the ashes of Hannah Montana.
So, what can marketers learn from Miley Cyrus?
- Strategic timings
Marketers can learn from Miley’s perfect timing. She debuted her track Wrecking Ball on the VERY SAME DAY she performed (and twerk) at the VMAs. Do you actually think all these were mere coincidence? Of course not! Was it a slip-up then that she decided to used her VMAs to shock the crowd by gyrating, twerking, basically turning the music award show into a porn club? No way. That performance was carefully crafted and rehearsed. Nothing was unintentional or accidental. The result was exactly how she wanted: More Sales. Your marketing campaigns should be just as strategic & intentional.
- Know your audience
The We Can’t Stop singer is very much aware who her fans are. Miley’s not pretending to appear all do-goody to any moms or dads out there. To re-brand herself, she chose to own her provocative image and isn’t apologetic about it at all (Or worry that she might cause offence). She purposely target the Hannah Montana’s audience (who like me has grown alongside her & are now in their early 20s) Coincidence? Again. A big NO.
- Be Memorable
Marketers need campaigns that resonate with their respective audience. Be it a positive or a negative ones, you want people to remember your BRAND and your CAMPAIGN. The number of tweets, re-tweets, likes, iTune downloades and album sales grew higher & higher & Miley’s sudden shot to stardom made headlines everywhere. Had she stuck in her Hannah Montana image, I don’t think she will gain any of these successes. Despite her sometimes vulgar choice of languages, photos & hashtags, Miley has accumulated, to date, 18.7 million Twitter followers. Since departing from Hannah Montana, Miley had to shake-off the ‘good girl’ image brand & compete with pop singers her age like Demi Lovato and Justin Bieber and she knew she had to do something so different & controversial that she’d become ubiquitous & memorable. Sure she can belt out decent, catchy tunes but she also knows that it takes more than that to strengthen her image.
So peeps, there you go. If you have yet another lessons that you think marketers can learn from Miss Cyrus herself, feel free to comment below 🙂
(Fair warning, you don’t have to twerk in order to gain more sales. That works only for Ms. Cyrus)
johaniz7 
Hey,
I did a post on Miley a few weeks and talked about very similar things! Great minds think a like! 🙂
Miley and her team have done an amazing job at keeping her current.
A really interesting thing to do is to look at the changes in her status’ on Facebook. She used to post about animal welfare and similar topics, on these posts she only got a few hundred likes, then she all of a sudden changed her language and her focus and now she gets thousands of likes on her status. 🙂
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Hey Anna!
Much apology for any similarities. I didn’t realize you’ve posted something similar before. But you were right. Great minds really did think alike!
In relation to your comment, yes, despite my slight contradicting opinions regarding her sex-like image portrayal, I do admit her move was epic brilliant. She rose to instant stardom ever since the 2013 VMAs. And yes, on her FB wall page, we can see how Ms. Cyrus alters her way of communicating to her fans (by adding profanity here & there) & actually gained thousand more likes.
Of course, this just shows how twisted the world is right now. People are far more interested on the Kardashian’s latest drama rather than say, world hunger. It’s frustrating, but as they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. I guess it’s all business, eh? 🙂
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Standing ovation for you for writing this. Can I add something to this as well, can we talk about how good Miley’s management is. Because another big act which is currently re-branding itself is One Direction. They are packing up their bags from being a ‘teenage boyband’ and moving onto become respectable, serious artists. But the difference between Miley Cyrus and 1D is that 1D has a HORRIBLE team whereas Miley’s ones are amazing. 1D’s team is still making lunch boxes and fake ‘auto-biographies’ to 8 year olds while the boys themselves are releasing videos thrashing those books and blaming their management. They are releasing a new album soon, where the boys had written with some of the big artists including John Legend, Ryan Tedder, Naughty Boy, Emeli Sande, The 1975, Kodaline but none of those songs have made it to the new album to the reasons which we don’t know. 1D’s management is currently doing no solid promo for the album nor their new single ‘Steal My Girl’ the fans are the one’s who are promoting them. Where as Miley has a team that hits the ball at the right time. When was the last time Miley was linked to another popular celebrity as promo..NONE.
Marketers could really learn some tips from Miley Cyrus’s management team.
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Hello Nelumi! Thank you for your comment & welcome to my blog!
I appreciate your thoughts on this article. Yes, from the general perspective, Hollywood may seemed like this one big superficial industry, but they all work hard to get to where they are right now. (Even so, they work hard to be superficial, they still do work hard. It’s the ‘work-hard’ part that counts!)
Miley’s management team knows just that. Several twerking shows & perfect timing headlines later, BOOM! Miley has suddenly reborn from the ashes of Hannah Montana.
I am glad you compare this case to One Direction. You have to remember Nelumi, that One Direction comes from a different background that Miley’s. One D comes from a reality show & they are a more or less, a relatively new comers in terms of celebrity status in Hollywood while Miley has been around since the good old Disney days & she definitely didn’t come from a reality show. So this just goes to show how entertainment producers emphasis their focus & preferences.
But fret not because not all is bad for One D! Head over to my other article to find out how One D is doing more than just signing 8 years olds’ lunch boxes. They’re currently utilizing Google Cloud platform especially for 1D day & of course, for their album promo.
I’m sure you’re happy to hear just that!
Enjoy! 🙂
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Well, I for one am damn shocked when she 1st appeared on stage at the vmas..like what the hell was that?! but yea now that u mentioned it its all propaganda yo..all to market the album..great piece!
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I think that Miley wants to do things her way and seems to be doing just fine. she has the right to be who she wants to be: to twerk, shout, and make a scene. She deserves this, because she doesn’t take herself too seriously.
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Hello Lizzle. Thank for your comment & welcome to my blog! Interesting point you bring up there. While there are a fair few who disapproves of Miley’s new transformation, I have to admit, her carefree way of branding herself has made her one-of-a-kind & that is what the fans love the most about her. She didn’t take much notice into copying someone else’s image to become an artist. She is after all, herself 🙂
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