This whole week we've been inundated with everything Lady Gaga. (Seriously, I've read more stories about Born This Way's album release than the tornado in Joplin.) From Amazon's 99-cent download to GagaVille to appearances on American Idol and Letterman, it's hard to go on the Internet without seeing a barrage of Gagaisms.
And obviously a lot of that is due to the cult of Gaga, but the record industry is pushing it to the hilt because, well, Born This Way's 360-deal is the best example of how the music industry can continue to gouge audiences make money in today's digital world. (If you didn't know, a 360 deal is a business model that gives record companies a cut on all of the musicians' earnings beyond music sales, whether they're endorsement deals, merch or appearances).
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That means Universal Music Group's Interscope Records has a cut of Lady Gaga's deals with Google, Polaroid, Estee Lauder's MAC, Sprint's Virgin Mobile USA and fragrance giant
Coty.
That said, everything Gaga does–even the super obvious marketing ploys–has that Oprah-esque quality that wants YOU, the listener, to love and accept your neighbors, believe in yourself and be free. And that makes everything pretty darn enjoyable to watch, from ads for GagaVille to Google Chrome. Here's a few of our favorite parts:
1. That Google Chrome deal: Apparently, Lady Gaga is rumored close to signing a deal worth $10 million as the face of the new Google Chrome laptop. And only Gaga can make us feel choked up when watching a freaking commercial for a browser, showing us just how she “builds one of the world's largest fan bases by using the web to talk directly and openly to her community.”
2. The Farmville Invasion: GagaVille, a FarmVille neighbor with unicorns and crystals, was launched by Zynga on May 17 to let visitors first hear unreleased songs from Gaga's album. It bundled Born This Way as a free download with a $25 Zynga game card and also included a “Words With Gaga” contest in Zynga's mobile Words With Friends game. Players got a chance to win concert tickets and a signed copies of the album.
3. Revitalizating Dying Brands Like Polaroid and CE: Gaga worked for 16 months as Polaroid's “Creative Director” to produce the GL10 Instant Mobile Printer, camera glasses (yes, glasses with a camera in them!!!) and a digital camera, where even details such as the finishes (brushed metal and textured surfaces with leather accents) are all her input. As even Polaroid says, “who are we to say, Lady Gaga, you can't do whatever you want?”
4. A Perfume Made With Lady Gaga's DNA: “I took a sample of my own blood and extracted the molecular structure scent of that and injected it in to the perfume so that it would smell and feel like me.” Coty comes out with the Gaga scent in 2012.
