Beyoncé - The Study

Beyoncé has now been considered Ivy League material by Harvard University and students are now studying the megastar as a corporate case study. Her fifth solo album released in December 2013, required a unique marketing strategy whereby the singer released a full album with each song accompanied by a new music video. The Harvard Business School’s stance is to analyze and evaluate the measures which were taken to gain triumph with this costly and risky project. Ramifications included current market conditions, technical obstacles and possibly ambitious sales expectations facing Columbia Records. There were also other implications from traditional retailers who were rejecting sales of a physical album later on no matter the success of the record. The outcome and effect on the music industry was enormous as well as fascinating. A case study has been published by Elberse and Smith simply called ‘Beyoncé’ in honor of her self-titled endeavor, also reflecting the icons influence.

Harvard Business School have asked students to place themselves in the shoes of Beyoncé’s staff and decide on the financial implications of such a campaign, but also to understand how and why it succeeded in the unconventional way in which it did. Students are similarly analyzing the unconventional album announcement and release as well as the team’s relationship with Facebook, Apple and Instagram in creating publicity overnight. Beyoncé is now being referred to as a ‘philosophy’ by Harvard by way of her albums explosion on iTunes overnight in 119 countries. There is an obvious emphasis on Beyoncé’s artistic desire to reflect her work through this album, but students are considering that Beyoncé may be the only artist who could ever do this successfully simply due to her label as a ‘superstar’.

Beyoncé’s success means many know and understand her power and presence as a celebrity. Nonetheless, what is absolutely stressed here is the possible fallout which was anticipated before the project was released for those involved. Anita Elberse, Harvard Business School professor has verbalized that this is a very popular class to take because students assume they know what the project ‘Beyoncé’ entails from afar but actually how wrong they are.