Case Study: Beyonce’s Beyhive

Case Study: Beyonce’s Beyhive

1)Discuss how Beyonce fans- the Beyhive- connect with your understanding of the role of consumer identity and lifestyle marketing. Are there particular personality or lifestyle characteristics that members of the Beyhive share?             

Lifestyle Marketing acknowledges that people divide themselves into groups based on their interests, their disposable income as well as how they spend their leisure time.  The Beyhive is responsible for promoting and defending all brands of Beyonce. The group has divided itself into sections with each playing a role. Those who belong to worker bees play the role of the amateur journalist, the honey bees focusing on praising Beyonce, and finally, the killer bees who have dedicated themselves online, to defending the artist against any attack.  The lifestyle Marketing technique mainly focuses on people who use products in a desirable setting to help them express their social identities (Solomon,2016).  This is evident in the case of the Beyhive who express their identity by choosing products and services related to Beyonce. By looking at the pattern of their behavior, the consumers can be better understood. 

The consumption pattern of a consumer that entails the decision about they spend their money and time is a reflection of their lifestyle. For this reason, the choices they make play a significant influence in shaping the consumer's identity. The members of the Beyhive share a lifestyle characteristic in that they have a strong sense of loyalty to Beyonce brands. They have dedicated themselves to promoting and defending Beyonce and her brands. As described by Alice Marwick of Fordham University, this strong sense of loyalty may be shown by fans viewing an assault on Beyonce as an attack on them and expressing that identity by rallying to her rescue.              

2) Describe Beyonce’s brand personality. How does it compare with other celebrity brand personality with which you’re familiar?              

Brand personality is a collection of characteristics that individuals assign to a product as if it were a person, such as the Beyhive to Beyonce product. They have become loyal to her brands as they associate the brand with Beyonce’s personal nature of music. Most of her songs focus on aiding women to become fearless as well as empowering them. The songs can thus be very uplifting and motivating especially to those who feel marginalized as well as create an extreme kind of loyalty. Due to this strong loyalty, the fans are playing a major role in defending her online and promoting her brand. An evaluation carried out at Nordstrom on Ivy Park Clothing revealed that over 40% of individuals who purchased a commodity from the new clothing line as well bought Beyonce's music, with approximately 25% purchasing Lemonade (Solomon,2016). Beyonce’s fanbase has played and continues to play a major role in propelling her to greater levels as an artist and entrepreneur.             

Compared to Drakes’s Brand Personality, Beyonce has a far more reaching and active fan base who continue to play a major role in promoting and defending her.  Although Drake also has a strong fan base due to his successful musical career and business success, it can not match the Beyhive. Drake has been a hit maker and a successful artist since he entered the mainstream industry. Due to this success, has been able to receive endorsement from brands such as spite and Burger King. He has been signed with Nike, partnered with Apple Music, and is the ambassador of the Toronto Raptors (Mark, 2021). He also has a clothing brand through OVO and owns several businesses as well. This has been made possible due to his fans. 

3) What kind of opportunity does the existence of the Beyhive community present to marketers? Consider not only products that Beyonce might offer but the many that she could endorse. Develop a list of specific marketing and promotional tactics they might use to reach this target market.             

The existence of the Beyhive community presents a beneficial opportunity to marketers as they are able to look at the consumers more holistically and understand what patterns emerge from their behavior. By understanding their behavior, the Marketers are also able to know there are opportunities to combine forces with another company to further promote their brand. Most consumers display their reaction to a brand by showing love. It is thus easy to express love especially when the brand is an individual and not just a commodity (Solomon,2016). Due to this strong feeling, the Beyhive community can transfer their feeling about one product Beyonce promotes to another brand she offers. The fans would also be able to buy most of the products she endorses in order to express their consumer identity.            

The marketers can learn consumer behavior from the Beyhive and thus develop brands and commodities that align with their personality. The brand marketers can also use a narrative to connect the brand they want to promote to consumers by mainly focusing on linking what the brand stands for to the values the customers care about. This creates a strong sense of brand personality since the consumer personality influences their response to marketing stimuli and consumers are more likely to buy products associated with their personality. The Marketers can also hire Beyonce as a brand ambassador due to her assess to a large and loyal fanbase. These fans would be able to promote and consume the brand she is promoting. This would send the fans buzzing in speculation once they hear about the new product. The fans who have created a strong sense of loyalty would be willing to try out the new brand as they purchase the other brands associated with Beyonce. 

References

Mark, B (2021, September 28). Drake Aubrey Graham, or four ways to elevate your personal branding. Medium. https://bettermarketing.pub/drake-aubrey-graham-or-four-ways-to-elevate-your-personal-branding-c9de6bdab6fd 

Solomon, M. R. (2016). Consumer behavior: Buying, having, and being. Prentice Hall.