Lady Gaga, the reigning queen of pop culture, has announced that singles from her new album will debut on...Farmville?
At this point, if you are a marketer, you would be well within your right to throw up your arms and say, "I give up."
I've written recently about a cultural singularity, when disparate aspects of pop culture come together, and how that contributes to, rather than alleviates, the struggles marketers are having. This is another case in point.
It's possible that you saw Lady Gaga coming in 2008:
And sure, it's possible you knew Zynga's social game was going to blow up in 2009:
(It's interesting to note that these two artifacts of culture seem to have come into the popular consciousness at almost the exact same time.)
But even if you were savvy enough to see them both coming, I doubt that you saw them coming together to give the world Gagaville. Now, five years ago we would have spared a thought for the poor record companies. But they're so dead we don't even consider them anymore. Now we scratch our head and wonder how MTV.com, iTunes, Amazon, Pandora or maybe even Verizon let this get away from them. Any of those and we would have nodded and said, "Of course. Smart move by Gaga and Amazon."
But Gaga and Zynga produces a different response. While we puzzle over those that missed this opportunity, we quietly go to our office and shut the door when we have to think about how Zynga landed this deal. What does it mean when a game that lives inside Facebook built on the premise that people want to take care of imaginary farm animals does a deal with one fo the biggest names in music - and nobody says, "That's crazy!" but rather,"Hmm, shrewd."
If you try to create a Facebook ad targeting people in the United States who like both Lady Gaga and Farmville, do you know how many people you'd reach? How does 14.5 million sound? 14.5 million people who have the opportunity to engage in a unique, exclusive, interactive, shared experience that combines two things they've already told you they are interested in. Oh.
But this is bigger than Lady Gaga and Farmville (and that's pretty big). This is about changing the rules. This is about redefining what's possible.
These "asymmetrical partnerships" are ones that are the most interesting. This one is particularly interesting because both parties are polarizing. People either love or hate both entities, and apparently several million love them both. This will be one to keep an eye on.