The Branding, Marketing and Business Message of Lady Blah Blah

Several years ago, there was a young go-go dancer in Manhattan named Stefani Germanotta. She tells a story of how she was performing in a bar and was being ignored by the crowd.  Stefani didn’t want to be ignored, so she undressed down to her lingerie and started playing piano. Seems everyone began to notice Stefani Germanotta. Now the world is watching Stefani, who is better known as Lady Gaga.

Musical taste aside, let’s explore the fact that Lady Gaga is not a blathering marketing kook who stumbled on some luck and hit it big. She communicates her message as a business model that we can all learn from. You don’t have to arrive in an egg to learn some slessons here.

How are you communicating your business, brand, and image? Are you Lady (or Mister) Blah Blah, or do you have powerful message that’s drawing people to you?

Above the Noise

In 2009, Forbes Magazine music writer Dirk Smillie wrote an article on Lady Gaga’s business model. Here are some insights that can be applied to people like us. After all, it’s either Blah Blah, or rise above the noise.

1. This is not an accident. Forbes says Lady Gaga’s every dance move, step and expression are “debauchery that is is purposeful fodder for social media and the mainstream press..by showing up wearing a bird’s nest or a model of the solar system on her head, every Gaga appearance becomes an item (11,500 mainstream media stories cite her in 2009).” You may not parade into the next Chamber meeting or Tweet-up with a bird’s nest on your head, but you can still create a buzz…in a professional way of course.  For us, it’s called charisma.

2. This is edgy. Magazine industry veteran Simon Dumencohe says, “She’s  a perv, but Lady Gaga understands viral marketing better than anyone on the pop scene today. She is directing every frame of her music and her life, imagining how clips will appear on YouTube, and what people will tweet after she appears on the Video Music Awards.” Do you visualize success before it happens, seeing the positive end result and then making it reality? Do you dare to make a blockbuster “mental movie” or is yours a sleeper in the same league as Warren Beatty’s 1987 ”Ishtar”?

3. This is not left to last minute. Reporter Smillie from Forbes writes, “She’s meticulous about imagery, especially the sets of her live shows.” Do you choreograph your business, speeches, and meetings? Can you use the word meticulous, or are you cutting corners and taking the easy way out?

4. This is not just music. In 2010,  Lady Gaga had more than 1.6 million Twitter followers. She tweets about hairspray and her father. She reveals her personal side. Do you weave in your personality when appropriate? Are you using all the available social media channels to reach your people?

5. This is not about secrets. No, whatever you think or don’t think of Gaga, consider this. Cassie Schmidt is a staff columnist for an independent newspaper at the University of Connecticut. In March 2010, she wrote, “Lady Gaga won’t be going anywhere soon. The image she has created and publicized is one for the ages. She sparks controversy and conversations around the water cooler that the best of reality TV couldn’t get going.”  Have you created an image that’s ”one for the ages?” Does your brand and business spark conversation when you’re not in the room?

To some, she is the brilliant and talented Lady Gaga. To others, she is Lady Blah Blah, an untalented twisted sexual something who needs extensive therapy. But no one can argue she has created a marketing allure that is nothing short of genius.  Way to go, Stefani.