Social Media and Branding: How Kelly Rowland Can Position Herself to Create a Brand in R&B

Social Media Strategy and Branding: How Kelly Rowland Can Position Herself to Create the Pre-imminent Brand in R and B Music





The great thing that social media has created is scale. Social Media platforms provide the platforms where great amounts of people can congregate and communicate. This is true in the music industry. No longer do singers need agents or large marketing labels to create a music brand. If a singer has compelling content, the singer can produce a record, make a video, and place it on YouTube. If the singer’s content is compelling enough, large amounts of people will listen to the song. A modern singer does not need a major label to back them any longer. A singer can take their song and market the song on Facebook and Myspace for free. In 2006, Cassie cut a record, "Me and U". By marketing this song through Myspace, this song became the top selling song in the country in the summer of 2006.


In our new media age, Kelly Rowland can become the preeminent brand in R and B dance music. To do this, she will have to create the proper branding and positioning strategy. Once this strategy is created, she will need the proper social media strategy.


Music is microcosm of the social media economy as a whole. The scale of social media has created an explosion of singing content. It is impossible for people to follow every singer and every song. There is just too much content. This is why Al Ries and Jack Trout has devised the marketing strategy "Positioning". Positioning is a strategy of PERCEPTION. To create a brand, a marketer must define, in a customer’s mind, a difference between their product, and all the other products in the marketplace. With an exploding marketplace, positioning allows a singer to define their content. This positioning then allows a singer to create a pre-imminent brand.


To position a brand, a marketer takes their brand and places against a competitor. In Kelly’s case, I think she should position herself against Rihanna. At the present time, Rihanna is space leader. To become the pre-eminent brand, I think that Kelly should employ an "Uncola" strategy.


A benchmark for positioning strategy is 7-Up’s strategy against Coke in 1967. In this strategy, 7-Up changed the conversation. At the time that this strategy took place, Coke and Pepsi occupied most of the shelf space in a market. There was little chance for a new brand to get a foothold. At the time, if you asked for "a soda", the vendor would give you either a Coke or a Pepsi. There was virtually no chance that you would be offered an orange or 7-Up.


Seven-Up decided to change the conversation. Since everyone’s mind was concentrating on Coke, 7-UP defined their brand as the "Uncola". This concept worked and the campaign became one of the most successful of all time. Kelly Rowland should position herself as the "un-singer".


This is how this would work. Rihanna and Kelly each of have won Grammy’s. Both of them are among the top brands in all of music. Kelly shouldn’t position herself in the music or in singing. Kelly can create a brand by positioning in the video area. As I write this in April of 2011, Rihanna’s album is a top seller. The lyrics in her songs are edgy. What Rihanna has decided to do is create videos that are sexual farce to take the edge off. At the present time, Kelly has a video of "Motivation". In this video Kelly has concentrated on quality dancing and beautiful, beautiful dancers and models, male and female. This video is quite stylish.


Her male dancers are getting a lot of attention. They all have classic "six-pack" abs. These dancers have classic bodies. Female viewers love this, as evidenced by their comments. Male viewers love the six-packs as well because this what they are trying to develop when they go into the gym. Don’t forget a major part of this demographic are customers who enjoy going to the gym. Video is an important device in selling music. It is how a song is branded. They are easy to download off YouTube, and sent among friends. The passing of material from one friend to another is a critical part of modern social media strategy. Beautiful, stylish videos, that emphasize "six-packs" will give Kelly the position she will need to overtake Rihanna’s brand.


The passing of material cannot be emphasized enough. One of the classic campaigns in social media is The Fiesta Project from Ford Motor Company. The reason why this campaign worked so well is because so much content was passed along in the web. There were many touch points. If Kelly creates stylish videos that emphasize "six-packs" she will create many touch points for herself that Rihanna can’t.


In my next article, I am going to explain how Kelly Rowland uses her present video "Motivation" to create a brand for herself.





Dean Hambleton


dnhambleton@gmail.com