I am not going to admit that I am a Miley Cyrus fan. To be honest, she remained under my radar until her controversial “twerking” antics at the 2013 VMA’s, when, like the rest of the world, I took notice of her.
While some see her recent antics as nothing more than lewd “superstar” behavior, I see them as a calculated marketing risk that will help Cyrus overcome one of the largest challenges that music superstars face – their short product life cycle.
In business a product lifecycle generally goes through five variables: development, introduction, growth, maturity decline. These independent variables follow your typical bell curve and affect the dependent variable of income, or sales. The curve looks something like this:
Cyrus started her development variable at the age of eleven when she was cast in Disney’s Hannah Montana. Her success followed the typical bell curve as the show, her name, and recording career took off under Disney’s marketing prowess. I will go out on a limb and say that Cyrus entered her maturity stage in 2008 with the successful release of Breakout, which, according to the RIAA sold enough albums to be classified platinum. That year she moved heavily into acting, even earning a nomination for a Golden Globe. In 2009 she was featured in Hannah Montana: The Movie, which pushed her into her last remaining untapped markets of country and adult contemporary. In a typical product lifecycle this is when your product is “on its way out”.
She continued to exploit her brand between 2009 and 2011, but it was getting tougher as her marketed image of youth and innocence had reached its full product life cycle as both Cyrus and her fan base approached the twenty-year old mark. By 2012/2013 the Hannah Montana image of cyrus had proliferated all the markets it could and the superstar could have walked away, as many do, extremely rich and highly satisfied.
In my opinion, this is when we witnessed either the true business genius of Cyrus, or some very serious luck. Cyrus left Disney and made her way to RCA Hollywood. Without the watchful eyes of Mickey she could freely change her image. She released the album Bangerz featuring two hits “We Can’t Stop” and “Wrecking Ball’. Both songs were promoted with highly provocative videos ushering in a new Miley Cyrus. Then on August 25th Miley introduced the world to her new “adult” image with her controversial VMA performance that got the whole world talking about her, buying her records, downloading her tunes, and seeking out tickets to her shows.
If this was intended and not a fluke, I would like to give Kudos to Miley and her team, because they have done something that all superstars dream about. They have re-started her product life cycle, which will equate to millions, if not hundreds of millions, of extra dollars for the Cyrus brand. In today’s music business marketplace, superstars overwhelmingly control the marketshare yet their product life cycle is extremely short. They must make their cash quick before time runs out, but for Cyrus it looks like her time is just beginning – again.