How Powerful Brands Make Big Deals Out of the Little Things

What was one of the biggest news stories across the globe just a few days ago? A 16 year old boy getting a haircut.

Why is this news? Well, because it wasn’t just any teenage boy, it was Grammy-snubbed, chart-topping, Canadian-born teen pop star Justin Bieber. You know, the one that sang for the President of the United States? Yeah him.

Well, in case you didn’t know, Justin Bieber’s hair is big business. (See for yourself.)

After pretty much converting his swooshy hair into an iconic product, Justin Bieber’s decision to “mature” his look was made into an event, building anticipation and enthusiasm for the eventual unveiling. It was like the Super Bowl for teens and tweens alike. And it all started with a few little tweets:

Then, Justin Bieber made sure to debut the money shot on a huge, highly distributed, highly trafficked platform: Celebrity news media powerhouse TMZ. Voila! Before you could say, “Baby, baby, baby, oh!,” Justin Bieber’s haircut was transformed into an instant media frenzy, giving his holy follicles primetime coverage, trending topics and the ever elusive “buzz” that everyone seeks on the internet.

While the more cynically minded among you might take this as just another example of our warped celebrity-obsessed culture and its misplaced priorities (as if people didn’t make a big deal about Elvis’ pompadour pouf and the Beatles’ moptops), it’s also an example of the power of creating an event.

Mobilizing Your Marketplace

Events get people excited and as Justin demonstrates, they don’t always have to be high budget productions to foster engagement. And this holds true beyond the cult of celebrity with brands like Apple, who can pretty much hold a press conference about changing the brand of staplers in their headquarters and generate thousands of blogs posts and articles about it.

As content creators, sometimes we get stuck on the sidelines, relegating ourselves to always being the observer rather than the kickstarter. But Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson understands the power of the event, and it’s why he still believes in magazines: Each issue is its own event.

“Events can mobilize the marketplace in a way a stream can’t,” Anderson told us. “There’s a reason that Hollywood has openings, opening weekends, and they marshal all the marketing around this one thing. The fact that you couldn’t get it yesterday but you can get it today, has economic value. So I think that event publishing is the essence of being periodical, and we want to keep that.” SOURCE: BusinessInsider

Often times, we doubt ourselves when it comes to making noise about what we’re doing. This isn’t a big deal, no one will care about this, we tell ourselves. But in today’s market, sharing is caring.

People like to feel like they’re witnessing something. They want to feel like they’re a part of a moment. So think about something worth making a big deal of, plan out your content strategy and pull out the bullhorns so you can shout it out to the world. Even if it is something as trivial as a haircut.

[image: TMZ/JustinBieberMusic.com]

Related articles (about Justin Bieber’s haircut. See??)

• Justin Bieber’s Got a New Haircut (PHOTO) (blippitt.com)
• Justin Bieber will do with his hair whatever he wants (hollywoodnews.com)
• Justin Bieber Shows Off the New ‘Do (tmz.com)
• Justin Bieber gets a little bit of a haircut (hollywoodnews.com)
• Justin Bieber Gets His Haircut! (thehollywoodgossip.com)
• Justin Bieber Gets A Haircut [Pic] (realestateradiousa.com)
• Justin Bieber (and his classic haircut) to get wax figure at Madame Tussauds (cbsnews.com)
• Justin Bieber New Haircut Photos 2011: Fans React Haircut Pics (nowpublic.com)