December 7, 2024

Justin Timberlake’s ‘20/20 Experience’ Album

The term has become shorthand for all the ways a star can exploit popularity through product endorsements, media partnerships and side deals. As a celebrity career strategy it has become de rigueur.

But for an illustration of celebrity branding elevated to the virtuoso level, look no further than the marketing of Justin Timberlake’s comeback album, “The 20/20 Experience” (RCA), which sold 968,000 copies in its first week out, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The campaign behind the release was a barrage of media. Mr. Timberlake was in commercials for Bud Light Premium and Target, and made a breathlessly promoted appearance at the Grammy Awards. iTunes streamed the album before its release, stoking huge advance sales. Then there were his performances around the Super Bowl and South by Southwest, his fifth time hosting “Saturday Night Live” and a full week as a guest on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.”

Yet the master stroke, music and marketing executives say, was the personal touch that Mr. Timberlake brought to every aspect of the campaign, giving his fans the impression of direct contact and feeding them a steady stream of topics to amplify through social media.

“Now everyone wants V.I.P. access,” said Jayne Charneski, a marketing executive at the Intelligence Group, a division of the Creative Artists Agency, who was not involved in the Timberlake campaign. “They want to feel that they know the artists, that they are insiders, and now through social media they can literally and figuratively be friends with the stars.”

The planning behind the campaign began last summer, according to Tom Corson, the president of RCA, through meetings with Mr. Timberlake’s manager, Johnny Wright. (As Billboard has documented in an extensive timeline, though, fan expectations have been stoked for years.)

But when it came time to announce his return to music after nearly seven years Mr. Timberlake insisted on doing it through his Twitter account and Web site, well before the news release and radio promotions.

“Justin smartly wanted to deliver the news to his fans directly, through the tweet and the countdown video,” Mr. Corson said. “The single went out across all radio formats, but it felt organic because it came from him.”

“The 20/20 Experience” is only the 19th album to sell more than 900,000 copies in its first week of release since SoundScan began keeping accurate count of record sales 22 years ago. Of its sales last week 47 percent were digital.

While album sales have slid precipitously over the last decade, nearly each year tends to bring at least one blockbuster with around one million sales in its opening week. Last year Taylor Swift’s “Red” had 1.2 million; in 2011 Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” had 1.1 million, and Lil Wayne’s “Tha Carter IV” had 964,000.

The campaigns behind these albums show how high the bar has been set to market a megahit. The advertising budgets of big consumer brands or major retailers is essential, as are appearances galore and a constantly evolving story for social media.

The extent to which a high-priority album can be promoted wherever fans might be is startling. When Ms. Swift released “Red” she was promoted not only by Target, Walgreens and Keds sneakers, but also on pizza boxes from Papa John’s.

As the center of power in the music industry has shifted away from record companies, top artists also require resourceful managers and agents who can book those deals, sometimes independently of the record company. In the case of Mr. Timberlake he and his management control his image rights, while the label controls only his music.

For the thousands of artists who lack the benefit of such marketing blitzes sales are less impressive.

Also on the Billboard album chart this week, Kacey Musgraves’s “Same Trailer Different Park” (Mercury Nashville) opened at No. 2, with 43,000 sales; Bruno Mars’s “Unorthodox Jukebox” (Atlantic) is No. 3, with 41,000; Luke Bryan’s “Spring Break … Here to Party” (Capitol Nashville) is in fourth place, with 38,000 sales; and at No. 5 is Pink’s “Truth About Love” (RCA), with 36,000.

David Bakula, a senior analyst at Nielsen, noted the disparity between the few Justin Timberlakes of the world and everybody else.

“No one will look at No. 5 and say, ‘Oh, those numbers are great,’ ” he said. “But the top of the top is doing really well.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/arts/music/justin-timberlakes-20-20-experience-album.html?partner=rss&emc=rss