Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone (aka Madonna) is one of the most influential American Icons in the 21st century. She uses her sexuality and feminine characteristics to convey her beliefs to the public. She started a trend among youngster “wannabes” during the mid 80s (Cengage, 2003). These youngsters adopted Madonna’s messy hairdo and bold wardrobe such as lacy undergarments fully expresses the female sexuality and seductiveness. In this report, we will analyze Madonna’s career as an entertainer from the perspective of the Product life cycle and evaluate Madonna as a brand. A product life cycle describes how a product goes through the stages of introduction, growth, maturity, and decline.
Introduction stage
During the introduction stage, the product is initially launched and slowly grabbing the public’s attention (Solomon, 2008). Madonna’s career as an entertainer entered its introduction stage when the Warner Bros released her first self-titled debut “Madonna” in 1983. Madonna’s “funky, rhythm-and-blues-tinged sound” (Cengage, 2003) slowly caught the attention of New York underground club dancers and audiences. Madonna and her band members often visit the hottest clubs to attract more audience by wearing multicolored wardrobe and performing provocative dancing.
Growth Stage
During the growth stage, the sales of the product increase rapidly and expand its market by adding variations to product (Solomon, 2008). Madonna’s career experienced a rapid growth when her first single “Holiday” was released in 1983 (Grant, 2008). Following the success of “Holiday”, Madonna establishes consumer loyalty by launching more music that contains sexual innuendos as well as addressing unspoken issues like teen pregnancy. Madonna gains market ...
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...lomon, 2008). Warner Bros (the firm that invested in Madonna’s career) benefited from Madonna’s power to capture the market. Madonna’s unique persona helped her establish high customer loyalty. Warner Bros received an unexpected sale increase during Madonna’s first tour when the initially planned small concert has to add new seats and move to a larger arena because her concert tickets were sold-out within the first hour (Cengage, 2003). The success in selling Madonna’s books and albums are resulted from people’s perceived quality of racy and erotic contents in her work. Madonna puts both her career and personal life on the spotlight to create maximum customer awareness. Although there are some negative associations with her name, Madonna’s ability to reinvent herself to fit the public’s desire has kept her one of the most influential American icons in the world.
8. Tilton, K. N. J. ed. (1997) Contexts of Dialectic: Constructivism in the works of Madonna. University of Oregon Press
8. d'Erlette, F. A. I. (1992) Semanticist pretextual theory in the works of Madonna. University of Oregon Press
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‘Analysing popular music: theory, method and practise’ (Tagg, 1982) is an article that illustrates brilliantly the issues and nuances of analysing and discussing popular music. It lays out a scientific method for achieving analytical goals, using some of Tagg’s previous work to help explain his methodology and process. In the first part of this essay, I will discuss the analysis of ‘Kojak Theme’ (Goldenberg, 1973) and ABBA’s ‘Fernando’ (ABBA, 1976) that Tagg writes about in his work.
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