Ariana Grande: “thank u, next”
Ariana Grande released a hit single that gathered SOOO much attention. “thank u, next” was released with nothing but promotional teasers and yet, it topped the charts. What did Grande do to make her promotional single sky rocket? Well let’s see…
Tease Filled Twitter Feed
Ariana Grande did much of her promotion on Twitter. She started off by tweeting song lyrics. No one knew that these tweets were a hint; however, as she consistently kept tweeting the phrase “thank u, next” and responding about the persistent usage, fans got the very obvious hint. Her final move that let fans know about the upcoming song was a screenshot showing the song playing on her phone.
Grande very often tweets back to fans and voices her thoughts very openly. Once her single was released, many misheard a lyric and apple music added to the flame by having the incorrect misheard lyric typed out on their lyric page. Soon enough, this misheard lyric became a meme. Moving on from the memes, her Twitter feed still stayed with teasers revolving the song, but this time about the video. She kept the hype about her video by responding to fans about how “different” and “fun” this video would be from her previous ones. The teaser tweets that gathered the most attention though were the pictures she would upload giving hints of movie references within her video.
ICONIC Mashup Video
The reason Ari’s song gathered so much attention was because of the references in her video. Ariana Grande did something that no one else thought to do. She made many references to not one, not two, nor three, but four famous romantic comedies. She referenced Mean Girls, 13 going on 30, Bring it On and Legally Blonde. Not only did she include reenactments from these movies into her music video, but she also had many guest stars appear. She had her co-stars from Victorious, actors from the movies, and to tie it all together Kris Jenner was thrown into the mix. How can this not gather attention? She starts her video with fans talking about her and only her. She has them say all sorts of ridiculous things and one even references the meme involving the misheard lyrics. Combining the childhood memories of many, gathering celebrities, centering the video around her, and the overall use of bright colors makes the video all the more interesting.
Radio/Live Televised Performances
Though her main audience came from Twitter and the millions of viewers on YouTube, the fact that this was a promotional single released it to different radio stations. If people hadn’t heard of it via different online methods, the radio gave a helping hand. The radio wasn’t the only thing helping her reach a wider audience, she also had live performances for Ellen and the Billboard’s Women in Music. These performances were televised giving her a broader reach towards an audience.
Overall, “thank u, next” was a huge success; Ariana was able to affiliate with her audience in many levels by using widely used platforms and referencing works that brought on nostalgia.
