It’s always a good thing to learn from those who succeed and there’s a few marketing lessons we can learn from Drake’s Hotline Bling.
Drake is smashing the charts these days and he’s kind of doing the same to the internet. Although it’s seemed to die down, the Hotline Bling video has been a pretty big deal on the internet lately. Fans took to their preferred social media channels to poke fun of Drizzy’s dance moves and spread the hotline word across the information super highway. Here’s a few observations and marketing lessons we can maybe take out of the whole campaign.
Stop – if you haven’t seen Drake’s Hotline Bling video please, have a peek first.
Marketing Lesson 1 – It is Not Just About Making Your Content Easy to Share
… It’s about making your content easy to interact with. Watch the Hotline Bling video again, it’s broken up into easy to handle, simple, colourful, segments – it’s might as well be raw green screen footage. This is a perfect video for an audience to create content with while taking into consideration the dabbling amateur video editor. Being easily transformed into memes, funny vine videos, or anything else kicking around the socialsphere these days this piece of content, or music video, is being repurposed again and again
Like the song itself the video is quite repetitive – the same remarkable (some might say ridiculous) dance moves over and over again with the only thing really changing being his outfit – which is pretty on point if you ask me. The video is made to be sampled, remixed, pulled apart and then put back together. And just like the video the song is already springing up covers and remixes – being repurposed in a different way.
Do a quick hashtag or topic search on any major social media platform – the content is overwhelming.
Marketing Lesson 2 – The Kid’s Got Some Reach
Drake has gotten more social reach than he and his marketing team could have ever hoped for. We’re at the point where the Hotline Bling video arguably could be on track to becoming a permanent pop culture moment if it’s not already there. Drake’s 26.4 million twitter followers speak for themselves in terms of social reach but this – this is so much more.
Fresh of his hip hop beef with Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill where Drake would rack up a lot of his social media juice. With the battlefield being social media and the artillery – memes. Drake has been developing his online pull for quite sometime, cultivating a following ready to react at a moment’s notice to anything new and appealing in the Drake world – and did they ever.
Marketing Lesson 3 – Timing is Everything
Have you check the charts lately? There’s four Canadian artist in the in the top 5 – that’s the first time in history us Canucks have dawned 4 of the top 5 spots the billboard ever – it’s a pretty big deal. Drake is riding high off a number of songs that have charted in the top 100 over the last couple of months and has capitalized on a perfectly timed release of both the song itself and the video – which has made some unbelievable waves both on the charts and in pop culture.
Take what you will from these marketing lessons but try and argue that Drake didn’t hit a homerun with the release of the Hotline Bling video. Drake took a risk with some of those outlandish dance moves but is not taking it all on the chin and doing it with a smile. Fans have Drake topping pizzas, playing tennis, throwing poké balls, and all sorts of other great things.
We haven’t heard much from Drake or his camp in regards to the attention this video has seen online and I really doubt we will but there are definitely a few marketing lessons to take away from the whole ordeal.
