While Beyonce and Taylor Swift may have outshone Lady Gaga at the Grammy’s, it doesn’t change the fact that Gaga has become quite a music industry sensation. But similar to what we saw with Mariah Carey, the details behind Lady Gaga’s business model success shows how even today’s superstars are embracing more nuanced business models that make use of free music and focus on selling unique scarcities. When it comes to free music, apparently that’s been a huge part of Gaga getting attention:
In fact, much of Gaga’s audience got her music for free, and legally. They have listened to free streams–by the hundreds of millions–on YouTube and the other online services that Gaga currently leads, according to research firm BigChampagne. On MySpace, Gaga has had 321.5 million plays. By contrast, singer Susan Boyle tallied only 133,000 plays, despite scoring the No. 2 selling album of 2009.
And while she has been able to sell music, she’s also making a ton of money from live gigs and corporate deals, including Polaroid and Estee Lauder — which are examples of Gaga selling the attention of her fans, as well as some tangible goods (such as makeup, similar to Mariah Carey).
Again, nothing about this is revolutionary at all. But it again shows that even today’s megastars are figuring out how that just selling music isn’t the only way to make money these days, and, in fact, having the music available for free can often be quite helpful in getting even more attention in ways that aid the other parts of the business model.
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