Kanye West - Marketing Genius?
Whether you’re 9 or 90, you’ve probably heard of Kanye West, the rapper, producer, and fashion designer. Kanye is one of the world's best-selling music artists, with over 140 million records sold worldwide. He has won a total of 21 Grammy’s, making him one of the most awarded artists of all time.
Kanye’s life outside of music, especially his outspoken views, have received significant attention. What goes unnoticed is the marketing strategy at play behind the scenes. The following examples highlight a marketing pattern that Kanye seems to be following.
On September 13th, 2009, during the MTV Video Music Awards while Taylor Swift was accepting her award for Best Female Video, Kanye went on stage and grabbed the microphone to proclaim that Beyoncé's video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", nominated for the same award, was "one of the best videos of all time". He was subsequently removed from the remainder of the show for his actions. When Beyoncé later won the award for Best Video of the Year, she called Swift up on stage so that she could finish her acceptance speech. Kanye was criticized by various celebrities for the outburst,and by President Barack Obama, who called him a "jackass". In addition, Kanye's VMA disruption sparked Internet memes from blogs and tweets with the phrase "Let you finish”. Kanye posted a tweet soon after the event where he stated, "Everybody wanna booooo me but I'm a fan of real pop culture... I'm not crazy y'all, I'm just real." Kanye claimed that the outburst was due to overwork and fatigue from recording his album “My Beautiful Dark and Twisted Fantasy”, which was set to be released later that year. After all of the negative responses to his outburst with Taylor Swift, Kanye released the album one year later in November 2010, after much anticipation from fans.
In May 2018, Kanye caused controversy during a TMZ interview by saying, “When you hear about slavery for 400 years.. That sounds like a choice. You were there for 400 years and it’s all of y’all. It’s like we’re mentally imprisoned.” He responded to the controversy on Twitter with, “Of course I know that slaves did not get shackled and put on a boat by free will. My point is for us to have stayed in that position even though the numbers were on our side means that we were mentally enslaved.” and “The reason why I brought up the 400 years point is because we can’t be mentally imprisoned for another 400 years. We need free thought now. Even the statement was an example of free thought. It was an idea. Once again I am being attacked for presenting new ideas.” Days later, he started promoting his new album “Ye” on Twitter which was released just 2 weeks later.
Most recently, on July 4th, 2020, Kanye announced that he is running for President of the United States. On July 7, West was interviewed by Forbes about his presidential run, where he announced that he would run as an independent under the "Birthday Party", "because when we win, it's everybody's birthday". He then stated that he no longer supported Trump because he "hid in a bunker" during the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 15th, official paperwork was filed with the Federal Election Commission for West, under the "BDY" Party affiliation amid claims that he was preparing to drop out. Kanye held his first rally that weekend, on July 19th. At the rally, Kanye said many controversial things including that he and Kim “almost aborted North”, his daughter, which sparked a media frenzy. The day following his rally, July 20th, Kanye started to promote his new album, DONDA, on Twitter.
Are you seeing the pattern here? This isn’t all coincidental, it’s a strategic marketing plan. Various political writers have speculated that Kanye's presidential run is a publicity stunt to promote his upcoming music, and we totally agree. Kanye does something controversial, everyone talks, he posts on Twitter, and he releases an album!
Kanye clearly doesn’t mind being perceived as outspoken and over the top, because it sells albums and makes him money. Similarly to his wife, Kim Kardashian, leaving her sex tape easily accessible on the Internet, if Kanye wanted to have all of the hateful comments and memes removed, he has the money to make it happen. Clearly he has similar values to Kim that ‘any publicity is good publicity’. There may be many controversies surrounding Kanye, but you have to admit, he knows how to get media attention, get people talking, and promote his albums.
