Barbz doll just in time for the holidays

Nicki Minaj Pink Friday album cover

There is no question this year is Nicki Minaj’s year especially with the success of her debut album Pink Friday. In just one year, the album has earned her over 30 nominations and 13 awards including Favorite Hip-Hop artist and Favorite Hip-Hop album surpassing Lil Wayne, Jay-Z and Kanye West. Recently, Billboard music held an event honoring women in the industry and named her the Billboard Rising Star of the year. Her acceptance speech was a heartfelt thank you to her barbz who she calls her fans. She gave them the much-deserved credit and is known for always giving credit to her barbz.

Nicki Minaj at Women in Billboard Music event

She is always connecting with her fans every chance she gets. Just look at her twitter account that currently stands at around 7.5 million followers with over 9,000 tweets. Nicki Minaj has a powerful impact and influence in today’s music and culture. Her ability to cross over to many genres from rap, hip-hop, r&b, and pop is her secret weapon. She recently just finished the Femme Fatal tour with Britney Spears, which gave her more exposure and the ability to branch out in a different niche market. It’s no question that Nicki Minaj is an extremely marketable artist stemming from her influence and impact that she has achieved all within this year.

Sophia Grace and Rosie meeting and singing with Nicki Minaj

On December 2^nd it was announced that Nicki Minaj had joined the toy maker giant Mattel to make a one of a kind Barbz doll. All proceeds will benefit the Project Angel Food foundation, which provides food for woman, children, and men that are affected from HIV and AIDS. The doll will be available on charitybuzz.com website on Wednesday December 7^th and will be showcased at a five-day gala event in Los Angles, California. This doll is only for auction with all bids starting at a mere $1000.00 dollars.

I think this is a great idea but I see some problems with this idea. First, who has $1000 dollars in this economy during Christmas season to spend on a Nicki Minaj doll? Second, what about her barbz? How are they going to participate when all the bids start at $1000.00 dollars? Instead I think they should have thrown the charity auction event months ago with the one of a kind doll and make another Barbz doll for her fan base for the holiday season. The proceeds from the holiday doll would still go to the charity foundation. I think that this would have been more effective because her barbz wouldn’t have felt left out. Take her biggest fans Sophia and Rosie for an example; do you see their parents spending at least a $1000 dollars for a bid or how about spending $100 for a Christmas gift?

Barbz Doll

Merry Christmas NBA Is Back!

Saturday morning around 5 am I woke up to news alerts on my phone from twitter. Everyone was buzzing about the NBA lockout, which quickly became the number one trending topic “NBA lockout is over”. At first I didn’t believe all the hype so I went to CNN to find out the facts. In deed the NBA lockout was finally over after 149 days of deliberations and meetings this including the last meeting, which lasted for over fifteen hours. The specifics of the deal were not disclosed but both the owners and players finally came to an agreement. Maybe the players felt the pressure to get the deal done considering they had missed the first payday on November 15th or maybe they were worried about not having a season. I would like to think that someone within the NBA organization realized the possibility of an increase of revenue by starting the season on Christmas day. I personally can’t think of a better way to start the season. Let’s take a look at the some of the facts: 

• A regular season of basketball has 82 games but this season will only have 66 games starting on Dec. 25^th.
•  The 149 day lockout cost the league an estimated $500 million dollars in losses 
• Media Partners T-Mobile, Nike, BBVA, General Motors, Orbitz and LG Electronics
•  Media Sponsors Kia, MillerCoors, American Express
• Television outlets ABC Sports/ESPN, Time Warner
•  The average revenue stream for a full regular NBA season is estimated around $375 million dollars.
• Total Ad sales from last year NBA playoffs and finals estimated at $417.7 million dollars. 
•  Total Ad sales revenue for an NBA season is estimated at $1.25 billion dollars. 
• Last year’s Television ratings for Christmas day games increased by 45% from 2010.

As like many people did this morning and throughout the day, I took to twitter to show my excitement for the sport and here are some reactions:

“Man I just got up not to long ago and see we have a deal! I feel like my kids on X-mas day! So juiced!! Excited for the fans that stayed patient with us! #NBAlove” 

~ Lebron James

“The NBA is back baby!!! Congrats to the players” ~ Michael Vick

Here is a refresher from previous commercials leading up to Christmas day.

 

T-Mobile and Dwayne Wade “Outta Here”

Mariah Carey and NBA "All I Want For Christmas" 

Here is the Christmas day line up:

Game 1: Boston Celtics at New York Knicks

Game 2: Miami Heat at Dallas Mavericks

Game 3: Chicago Bulls at Los Angeles Lakers

                

    

                 

  Like the recent Nike commercial said #BasketballNeverStops

Mission Unlock Marketing Campaign Success

With the continuing growing impact of social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube it is not a surprise that more artists are embracing these sites. Take the recent marketing campaign for Rihanna’s upcoming album Talk That Talk as an example. The unlock mission started on September 20^TH with focus primarily on Facebook. The goal was to like the new missions and each mission lead to a new clue about the upcoming album. By Rihanna fans (Rihanna Navy) liking the missions they were getting a sneak peak of the new album.

There is no doubt that this was a huge success for Rihanna. The first single of the album “We Found Love” became her 11^th number 1 charting single and making her one of the fastest artists to achieve 20 Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles. The music video has only been out about 3 weeks and has over 40 Million views on YouTube. According to Billboard Social 50 Rihanna ranked at 10 before the unlock campaign and now she is currently number 3 on their list. This campaign increased her likeness on social medium sites, she gained over 1 million followers on twitter totaling over 9 million and she gained 750,000 likes on her artist fan page now totaling over 47 million on Facebook.

MTV recently coined the Talk That Talk album as the Best Pop album of the year but it hasn’t even been released yet! The album release date is set for November 21^st but fans can pre-order the album through iTunes. With the success of this campaign it will be interesting to see if other artists will follow in Rihanna’s footsteps of using social media to market their upcoming albums. 

Rihanna Social Marketing Sites:

Facebook Page 

Twitter Page 

YouTube Channel