He isn't convinced that Samsung is really going to get all the cool points it wants. "What they're trying to get is cool points," says Eli Altman, who's with the branding firm A Hundred Monkeys. "So that marketing to you was still happening if you didn't know the album was out."Īs Jay-Z once rapped, " I'm not a businessman, I'm a business man." He's getting promotion out of his deal with Samsung along with millions of dollars.
![samsung buy jay z albums samsung buy jay z albums](https://www.rollingstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/jay-z-black-album.jpg)
"Taylor Swift's face was on the pizza box," he says. Jim Donio of NARM, the music business association, says the campaign worked even if you weren't in the market for her album. Last year Taylor Swift made a deal with Papa John's Pizza - you could get her new CD delivered along with your pie. Hooking your name to a big corporate brand can help.
![samsung buy jay z albums samsung buy jay z albums](https://mediaproxy.salon.com/width/1200/https://media.salon.com/2017/07/jay-z2.jpg)
Over the last decade, it's gotten harder to sell albums - the record industry has shrunk by half. The entrepreneur and rapper Master P, who was one of the pioneers of transforming himself and his label into a brand, said on a recent addition of MTV's RapFix Live, "To be honest with you, I think it's genius." Over 11 million people were watching the game and some 23 million have watched the ad on YouTube. "I think if you said five years ago that Samsung would be rivaling Apple and stealing market share and emerging as the most culturally connected and relevant brand of recent years," says Weiner, "people would have laughed at you." Ben Weiner, CEO of the ad agency WDCW, estimates Samsung spent another $15 million or so on the campaign that he thinks is the highlight of a turnaround. In 2013, Samsung spent $5 million purchasing 1 million copies of Magna Carta Holy Grail to give away to its Galaxy phone users. This time around, Jay's reversed the order. And in November of 2004, Jay-Z released a documentary about the making of The Black Album and his retirement concert, called Fade to Black, that looks quite a bit like the ads he's released in his current campaign. Six weeks later, Nokia sold a special edition of one of its phones pre-loaded with the album. Back in November of 2003, Jay-Z released The Black Album, which was touted as his last album before retiring.
![samsung buy jay z albums samsung buy jay z albums](https://porhomme.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/jay-z-magna-carta-holy-grail-album-2013-samsung-deal-1-million-1.jpg)
If some of this sounds familiar, that's because it is. The night the ad aired, visitors to the Web site read that Jay-Z's new album would be called Magna Carta Holy Grail and that 1 million copies of it would be given away through an app that only works on the Samsung phones Galaxy S 4, Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II. It also features Rick Rubin, who says he isn't actually producing the album.Īt the end of the ad a web site,, appears, and the name of a phone - Samsung Galaxy - comes up, all in white type on a black background. Producers he's worked with before to great success, like Timbaland, Pharrell and Swizz Beatz, appear. The Jay-Z/Samsung campaign had a high profile launch: In case you missed it, a three-minute commercial - a pseudo-verite look at Jay-Z in the studio - aired during Game 5 of the NBA finals. And in an age when album sales are flat and tech companies want to look cool, we're likely to see more deals like this. The giveaway is part of one the highest-profile album and phone promotions ever orchestrated.
SAMSUNG BUY JAY Z ALBUMS DOWNLOAD
On Wednesday, 1 million owners of Samsung's Galaxy phone will get to download rap star Jay-Z's latest album three days before its official release.
![samsung buy jay z albums samsung buy jay z albums](https://www.billboard.com/wp-content/uploads/media/magna_carta_on_spotifty_650.png)
A still of Jay-Z from the commercial for his new album.