Best in brief: Marketing the material girl

Stephen Brown

Reviews article by Stephen Brown 'Marketing the material girl', (Business Horizons). The article discusses how Madonna has succeeded by breaking all the normal customer-focused rules.

best in brief

Business Horizons: Marketing the material girl

Stephen Brown

Douglas WestUniversity of Westminster

Madonna's marketing success relies more on the fact that people like to be shocked than in her ability to shock them. People enjoy being affronted and expressing outrage at her transgressions.

As such, her marketing model is antithetical to the traditional 4Ps model. Hers is not the customeroriented ethos that is the prerequisite of marketing theory and practice. Instead, her successful marketing model is based on seven Ss: subversion, scarcity, secrecy, scandal, 'sellebrity', storytelling and sublimity.

Subversion relates to Madonna's contemptuous regard for her...

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