Social Media Indicates the Power of a Publicity Stunt
If you’ll allow me to don my conspiracy-theory hat for a moment, I will explain why I believe what happened at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) this past Sunday (9/13), and the days following, is nothing more than an elaborate publicity stunt that was genius in its execution. To support my theory, I look no further than social media.
So, why do I think Kayne West stealing the microphone from Taylor Swift at the VMAs was a publicity stunt? Three reasons:
- All the players had a vested interest in generating buzz around their names.
- The timing of everything was perfect for all involved.
- And, I believe strongly in Stephen Colbert’s mission “Humble Kanye.”
Please let me explain my theory.
The Players and Their Motives:
- Jay Z – His new album hit stores on September 1, 2009
- Kanye West – Has a vested interest in the success of Jay Z’s new album because he is featured on one of the tracks. Oh, and he hasn’t had his name in the headlines for like two weeks.
- Taylor Swift – A burgeoning artist looking to shake loose the image of teenie-bopper pop star.
- Beyonce Knowles – Wifey of Jay Z. Let’s be honest, if Jay Z wins, she wins.
- Jay Leno and NBC – The Jay Leno Show premiered on NBC on September 14, with a performance by Jay Z, Kanye West and Rihanna.
- MTV – MTV’s VMAs is in need of a significant shot in the arm to gain back that anything-could-happen appeal it once had.
- Universal Music Group – The record company of Taylor Swift, Kanye West and Rihanna. — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Universal_Music_Group_artists
It should be noted here that I’m not looking to bash these people for their roles in this. I’m actually applauding because of its genius and execution. Kudos to whomever dreamt this up — unless it was Kanye.
The Plot
Here is how I believe Operation “Swift Publicity from the West” played out.
MTV hosts their annual VMAs on September 13, 2009. Taylor Swift’s label is informed of her upcoming award. MTV floats an idea by them that would build much needed awareness for a number of entities, including: The VMAs, Jay Z’s new album (The Blueprint 3 featuring Kanye West and Rihanna), Taylor Swift, and the premier of The Jay Leno Show (NBC). (Side Note: MTV and NBC have partnered at least twice in the past year — The Action Sports Tour and the reality show “I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here.”)
During the VMA’s, Kanye is instructed to be himself and cause a scene by interrupting “innocent” Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech, and instead point the spotlight on the lovely Beyonce.
When Beyonce won her Moon Man later that evening, she is nudged to solidify her class by giving the stage to Taylor Swift, who is conveniently backstage getting ready to perform. Everyone in the audience lets out a collective AWWW and allows their heart to bleed all over their nice, new dresses and tuxes. Swift is now forever tied to the established Beyonce.
Fast forward to Monday. From major news outlets to small blogs, everyone is actively discussing what transpired and if Kanye would appear on The Jay Leno Show that night like he is scheduled. All the while, NBC continues to promote the premier of The Jay Leno Show, with special guests Jay Z, Kanye West and Rihanna.
On the show, Jay welcomes out Kanye for an “unplanned” interview. It is here Kayne earns a 2009 Emmy for best Supporting Actor by portraying a truly remorseful talk show guest. The Interview ends and now everyone is sympathetic towards Kanye and applauds him for being a man and apologizing. Cue the performance of Jay Z’s latest single.
The next morning, Taylor Swift is welcomed on to The View to discuss the incident and for a little additional media exposure.
The genius of this publicity stunt is everybody involved wins ... even Kanye. The VMAs get their edge back, the performers get their names in the headlines, Swift shows the world she can handle herself in a very mature manner in the face of immaturity, Jay Leno instantly creates buzz around his new show, and Kanye is able to salvage some of his reputation by pretending to show us his emotional side on national TV.
The Result
For an indication as to how well the stunt actually worked, you need to look no further than the buzz it created throughout social media.
Twitter:
The chart below shows how the topics “Kanye West” (red) and “Taylor Swift” (blue) trended over the past week on Trendisitc.com. On Sunday night, 4% of all tweets discussed what happened on the VMAs, and 24 hours later, when The Jay Leno Show premiered, 2% were still discussing it.
For some perspective, when President Obama addressed the joint session of Congress regarding healthcare, the topic made up 5.5% of all tweets but dropped to below 0.5% 24 hours later.
Online Video
According to Google, 3,520 Kanye West-related videos were posted within 48 hours of the event.
- The Hitler Parody - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0PwqvwyG54
- This response video by a YouTuber named TechNewz received 1,310,252 views between 9/13 and 9/15 at 10:23 p.m. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-YpzMgGifA
- Yo Obama - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxKIcrDsJAs&feature=player_embedded
Blogs
The chart below from Technorati shows how many times Kanye West was mentioned in blog posts over the past 7 days. On September 15, almost 4,500 posts contained his name.
Sales and Viewership
Yeah, but did it result it viewership for the VMAs and Leno, and album sales. The viewership numbers are not out yet, but check out number 1, 7, 8 and 9 on the iTunes top 10 songs chart on Sept. 15 (right).
The Takeaway:
It’s pretty amazing how quickly buzz, news, gossip, etc. can spread throughout social media — whether its planned or not. Either way, it’s important to make sure you are monitoring and staying up-to-date with the trends in the social media sphere.
If circumstances arise and you believe it’s in your, and your organization’s, best interest to respond to something online, it important that you already have an established presence in social media, whether on Twitter, a blog, YouTube and/or Facebook.
It will be virtually impossible to deliver a timely response to prospects, customers, employees and media via social media if you have not taken the time to establish yourself and build a following. For this reason, it is of the utmost importance to start participating now, so when something does happen and people want to hear what you have to say on the topic, they'll know where to turn.
Some others who share my publicity stunt view:
- PR Junkie — Rapper’s Outburst on MTV Stage a wonderful PR Stunt
- Kalen Brest’s Blog – Is Kanye West a Genius?
- LA Times – Gold Derby by Tom O’Neil
Keith Moehring is a consultant at PR 20/20, a Cleveland-based inbound marketing agency and PR firm. Follow Keith on Twitter @keithmoehring.
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Photo Credit: Kanye West - Originally posted to Flickr as 8. Billy Dec - Kanye West - Underground - 8.3
Reader Comments
Jen
September 17, 2009 12:15 PM | Permalink
BTW... Beyonce is Jay-Z's wife. And I do agree with you that it was an attempt at a publicity stunt for Kanye, but I honestly think it backfired on him.Taylor and Beyonce came out looking the best in the whole ordeal. This time people didn't pass this off as simply another 'Kanye act of narcissism'. People were offended by it.
Keith Moehring
September 17, 2009 1:01 PM | Permalink
Jen, I agree he took the biggest hit by far. And thanks for the update about Beyonce's relationship status.marcusfaith
September 17, 2009 1:57 PM | Permalink
why is it so hard to believe that he's just a dunce? this conspiracy theory violates ockams razor yo.Joe Pulizzi
September 17, 2009 2:01 PM | Permalink
Interesting theory. If you are right, Kanye's acting job on Jay Leno was first rate.Laurel Miltner
September 17, 2009 2:02 PM | Permalink
Marcus -In my opinion, you just left the best comment we've ever received. Thanks! :)
Alison
September 17, 2009 2:11 PM | Permalink
So this whole time, I've been unsure about whether it was staged or not. I've flip flopped about a hundred times. So I'm going to continue by not taking any sides.But a couple of things: 1) Kanye will be able to save face if they ever admit it was staged.. remember the whole Bruno/Eminem thing?
And 2)while most of your evidence is interesting and noteworthy, the song stats are out of context. What were the top sellers the week/day(s) before? And isn't it possible for Jay-Z's song to have debuted at #1 without this (assuming that's the new single in the #1 spot.. I don't really follow his music).
But all the rest of your "proof" is interesting to see!
CopperBot
September 17, 2009 10:40 PM | Permalink
Playing devils advocate here but "buzz" for me doesn't necessarily translate directly into sales. Sure you can see the top 1,7,8,9 albums are in some way tied to those individuals but take someone like me for instance: I couldn't care less for any of the artists involved. I've never purchased an album from any of them nor will I. Why? Not my flavor.So is the media buzz really increasing their sales or are those sales merely to individuals who would have gobbled up anything they spit out anyway? Or, as Alison said above isn't it possible that Jay-Z merely debuted at number one? He's a pretty popular artist regardless of this little stunt and it's no surprise that a new release for him would be popular.
Keith Moehring
September 18, 2009 8:14 AM | Permalink
Thanks everyone for the comments, especially you Marcusfaith. Ockhams Razor. Very funny!CopperBot and Allison, I'm sure that this stunt isn't the sole reason those singles are on the iTunes Top Chart. Actually I'd bet the stunt had relatively little to do with it. What I do know is that I had no idea Jay Z had come out with a new album, nor would I have ever listened to the Kanye, Rihanna single if this whole event hadn't happened. If nothing else, the media buzz exposed a lot more people to the song that may not have been otherwise.
JC Jude
September 18, 2009 5:10 PM | Permalink
Yup, I and my friends thought the same thing, we figured it was all a set up by Kanye West in order to make someone’s career grow or prevent from going down…that’s Hollywood for you!!! Nothing is ever real expect maybe for some “real life” shows/reality shows, but even those, I’m sure, are edited to a certain extent.Lori Johnson
September 25, 2009 2:55 PM | Permalink
Yep, it is hard to tell, Marcus, whether that Kanye is just stupid or not. My first impression when I heard about it was, wow, without his mother he's lost.I think that the new music would have been very high on the charts everywhere just becasue of all the other press and buzz they were generating on TV and radio especially BET. The only reason I know about them is that I have children who are in that whole generation and Beyonce, Kanye, JZ are their favorites. I really didn't pay attention until it hit CNN and the talk shows. So now a middle ager is very aware of and I might even listen to these performers' music just to see why so many people care about what they do. Interesting concept though, Keith. I love a good consipiracy theory.
Itaz
November 03, 2009 6:05 AM | Permalink
We use social media for marketing our products and getting adequate feedback for our new products. We realise that there are other methods to utilize social media, even deviously, for a pure publicity stunt.Matt
January 10, 2010 7:04 AM | Permalink
mind you i cant verify this but a friend of mine who works in entertainment financing heard that NBC actually paid Kayne west for the stunt. Kayne got kicked off the tour he was about to go on, so assuming he knew the out come before the VMA's getting paid by some one to pull a stunt like that makes sense, he would still be making money and no longer have to spend time going on tour.Leave a Comment