9. Lady Gaga: Maybe Fire The Promotion Team?
So, as it turns out, you don't actually need a marketing team in order to release one of the most successful albums of the year; unfortunately for Lady Gaga, it was Beyoncé who found that out. Gaga's 2013 release, ARTPOP, was one of the most anticipated albums of the year - but a bizarre marketing campaign meant that it almost fell flat by the time it actually was released. For starters, there was the rushed decision to release lead single Applause on the same day as Katy Perry's Roar - with Gaga cheekily declaring a "Pop Emergency", only for Perry's single to summarily out-chart Applause worldwide. Then came what proved to be another error, when the (arguably better) follow up single Do What U Want was released for free to those who pre-ordered the ARTPOP album. This made made it ineligible to chart in the UK, meaning that it couldn't capitalise on the hype around the track to get a high chart position to be used for more marketing purposes. By the time ARTPOP came out, it all felt a little bit like some of the air had deflated from the campaign, which meant that even though it was arguably one of her strongest releases to date, the album did not shift as much as Gaga's contemporaries. Perhaps it's time for the Lady to look at what others are doing for 2014 and try to reclaim her throne atop the charts.
