Gone but not forgotten. And actually, not gone exactly, either.
Their corporeal presence may no longer walk among the faithful, but their albums, movies and other effluvia continue to sell. So what does a savvy marketing manager do to make sure those hits just keep on coming? Or at least, the orders for those hits? Create a social media presence so fans can 'interact' with the dearly departed.
As the line between our online and physical? actual? lives becomes fainter, the notion of what death actually means may be under review. Ownership of the celebrities body of work, as it were, is usually controlled by a trust established for that purpose or by a corporation that bought control of the rights. The magic of digital entertainment - and fandom - means that contemporary music from whatever contemporary era, rarely seems to go out of style.
That the Baby Boomers remain the largest population cohort in human history assures that the music and film with which they grew up will continue to have an enthusiastic and scalable audience. Which also means there is money to be made from tracks that may have been laid down half a century ago or more.
To stimulate that interest, marketers are simply following their market online. No one believes that Michael or Tupac are tweeting from the Great Beyond, but those who like or friend these celebs (or their images) appear to like that there are others who share their devotion. Tupac was even featured as a hologram with live entertainers at the most recent Coachella music festival. Initial concerns about the reception this innovation would receive were blown away by the positive reviews from the crowd and the media. Plans are now being made to expand the 'opportunity' for others.
The implication is that the very act of listening to music or watching a movie requires some suspension of disbelief. Extending the aura to a few new platforms is not such a stretch. And the results speak for themselves, digitally that is. JL
Dorothy Pomerantz reports in Forbes:
Just because a celebrity is dead doesn’t mean he can’t tweet. The handlers managing the estates of dearly-departed stars have realized that if you want to keep your A-lister relevant, it helps to have a social-networking presence. Just because a celebrity is dead doesn’t mean he can’t tweet. Just look at Michael Jackson. The pop star (who earned $140 million in the last 12 months) has 884,000 followers on Twitter, where he has sent out 572 tweets, including, “RETWEET if you’re bad! #whosbad.”
Obviously it’s not Michael Jackson sending out these tweets. The singer passed away in 2009 at the age of 50.
But the people who manage the estates of dead celebrities have realized that if you want to keep your star relevant, it helps to have a social-networking presence. A surprising number of the stars we looked at for this year’s top-earning dead celebrities list have active online social lives.
We turned to Starcount, a Singapore-based firm that tracks social networks, to help compile a list of the dead celebrities with the biggest social networking footprints. Starcount tracks 11 social networks around that world. Of course Twitter and Facebook are in there but they also look at sites like Renren and Orkut.
Michael Jackson tops our list of the Most Social Dead Celebrities. Jackson’s biggest presence is on YouTube, where his channel has attracted 1 billion hits. The most popular video on the site is for “Thriller“, the short film Jackson made in 1983 with director John Landis.
But Jackson’s team also uses the site to promote new Jackson projects like Bad25, a reissue of Jackson’s iconic Bad album. The release will coincide with a documentary about the album from director Spike Lee which will air on ABC Thanksgiving night.
Living stars need to use social networks to keep in touch with fans. Stars like Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian and Lady Gaga have shown how powerful it can be to have fans feel like they are friends with a celebrity.
It’s a slightly different story for dead celebrities. It would be extremely weird if a dead celebrity replied to a fan’s tweet or Facebook posting. Instead, the estates use the sites mostly to keep fans up to date on any new products and to give fans a place to interact.
“A few years ago, it was rare for deceased stars to have official presences on social networks,” says Daniel Dearlove, head of data at Starcount. “The accounts can serve as communities for fans of the dead star.”
On Tupac Shakur’s Facebook page, for example, there are images of Shakur murals from around the world submitted by fans. The site recently shared a photo by Abdul Kashem of a mural in Birmingham, England, of Shakur’s face. It attracted 1,000 shares and 57 comments.
Shakur ranks third on our list of the Most Social Dead Celebrities. Like many of the musicians on our list, Shakur is most active on YouTube where his channel attracts more than 100,000 hits per day. The channel has been viewed 39 million times.
Musicians do well on our list because fans can watch their videos and listen to their music through their fan sites. Ranking second in between Jackson and Shakur is Bob Marley. The reggae singer is having a resurgence thanks to a marketing push from his estate, which now sells a Marley-branded “relaxation” drink, as well as Marley headphones, speakers and bags.
The singer has 41 million fans on Facebook and is the most popular reggae star, living or dead, on social networks, according to Starcount.
John Lennon ranks fourth on our list. The singer’s YouTube channel has been viewed 21.9 million times. Yoko Ono recently put up a video thanking fans for their devotion to Lennon on what would have been his 70th birthday. Fans can also watch videos of Lennon’s music on the site.
Rounding out the top five is Elvis Presley. The King has legions of passionate fans who can read about his new music on his Facebook page. And no, that’s not a mistake. Presley is featured in a duet of “If I Can Dream” with Celine Dion on the Canadian singer’s latest album, which hits stores this week.
0 comments:
Post a Comment