One of the biggest singing icons, Rihanna, wasted no time after announcing her performance for Super Bowl Halftime show 2023.
You may not know this but artists who perform for the Super Bowl are not paid. Rihanna, however, saw this as an opportunity to promote her three major businesses and make BANK! 💸 in addition to other streaming services such as Apple Music and Spotify.
Let’s break down the high-level marketing strategies that Rihanna used in her marketing campaign that she disguised as a Super Bowl performance. Today, I will discuss how brilliantly Rihanna executed her campaign by covering the before, during, and after the Halftime show.
BEFORE THE SUPERBOWL:
Rihanna posted on her Instagram the announcement of performing at the Super Bowl, using a strong, mysterious approach that generated excitement and buzz. She remained silent for months, allowing the mystery to build and keeping her fans engaged.
In the weeks leading up to the game, all of her brands referenced the Super Bowl through different images and symbolism, creating a connection between Rihanna’s products and Super Bowl itself.
She also had in-person exclusives for some of her brands that you can only get around game day.
These launch strategies elongated the process and kept fans engaged, ultimately leading to a successful halftime show. You can use these techniques in your own business, such as secrecy, mystery, sneak peeks, and connecting with your desired imagery to keep consumers engaged and intrigued.
DURING THE SUPER BOWL:
First thing first, the pregnancy! It stirred up so much gossip and so many searches, which resulted in people Googling to see if she was actually pregnant, so much so she immediately had hype and excitement once again as it was a trending topic on all social media platforms.
According to Cosmetic Business, Google searches for Fenty Beauty increased by 833% and searches for ‘is Fenty safe for pregnancy’ grew by 3,333% since the Super Bowl Halftime show.
During her performance, Fenty Beauty had a homepage showcasing the products she was wearing, with great product placement throughout.
Her other brands such as Fenty Skin and Savage X Fenty also shared excitement and product information on social media.
These strategies, including generating excitement, Google ads, and excellent product placement, are great for your business and any business launch.
Rihanna’s marketing team did their research and was prepared for the surge in searches and orders following the performance.
AFTER THE SUPER BOWL:
Not only did her three brands utilise this performance to create virality by generating memes and other shareable content that continued the hype around Rihanna, each of her brands cleverly shared photos of her outfit and her dancers. This resulted in people being more excited about Fenty Beauty than the Super Bowl itself.
Instead of releasing the products onto the Fenty Beauty website, they utilised the virality by putting them on the homepage. Even today, the products are still on the homepage due to the continued excitement generated by the performance.
The Fenty Beauty website is still using the homepage to showcase other products mentioned in the performance.
Whether you liked her performance or not, Rihanna’s marketing strategies were brilliant! Despite the fact that the NFL does not pay for their halftime shows, Rihanna made full use of the opportunity to promote all three brands and generate profit.
If you want to read about more brilliant marketing strategies, check out Escapade’s blog posts on Lessons Brands Can Learn From Love Island and The Best Time to Post on Social Media!
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