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In researching what has dominated the 21st century pop culture, I’ve identified factors which are believed to demonstrate key methods to creating successful careers for the top stars of our generation. I will explore these themes through the global icon Lady Gaga, highlighting branding and marketing methods used within her old musical directions and most recent rebrand. Within the field of creating an image as an artist, what your branding focuses on will essentially help develop your brand in the public eye. The first model I will be touching on is the AIDA Model. This stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. “The AIDA Model simply gives you better insights into the needs, desires and frustration of potential fans.” (Jamie, 2025)
In a brief explanation of the parts within this model: attention can work in the form of social media trends, interest works as generating interest in your brand like behind the scenes content , desire relies on what makes your audience feel personally connected to you which could be in the form of mailing lists and action which works in the form of selling tickets for shows. The next model I will be using to evaluate my theories are Brand Archetypes intertwined with the Purple Cow theory. Brand Archetypes initially refer to the “universal characters and patterns (the hero, the rebel, the lover) […] For musicians, archetypes can help clarify your creative identity and make sure that how you present yourself in your visuals, storytelling, and sound, aligns with the impact you want to make.” (Delfina, 2025) I’ve decided to link this model to the purple cow theory to help explain Lady Gaga’s shift in branding as it refers to being “completely different in order for customers to notice you.” (Gurkov, 2021)
Throughout my research and previous knowledge of Gaga, I identified that this was a key factor she relied on when promoting herself as a brand therefore, I understood that going into detail about these key points, would help to amplify the understanding of her impactful shift.
To compare her past and present artistic stages effectively, I will be splitting these eras into:
Past – Beginning of her career – 2018
Present – 2018 – Current day.
The presentation of the character that Lady Gaga becomes within her career is one that could be described as eye-catching and fitting the archetype of ‘The Rebel’ perfectly. From the beginning of her career with her second era coined as “The Fame Monster Era”, we can see Gaga covering themes regarding “the darker sides of fame”. This would be featured with “a darker, edgier, and more gothic vibe” (Angulo, 2025) which we would see come up again later towards her present day career.
This would be quite the contrast of what was going on in the music industry at the time as this ‘Monster Era’ ranged from the years 2009-2011 when other stars like Taylor Swift and Beyonce that were her competitors would be captivating the industry with more media friendly images and sounds which would consist of Pop and R&B.
With her foot in the realm of Art Pop which is “a genre of music that combines elements of pop music with art and avant-garde influences” (volt.fm, n.d.), and with the imagery that she used to represent herself within fashion like using “bold and fun headpieces, glasses, crosses and religious motifs” and with a great appearance of the infamous “meat dress […] at the 2010 MTV VMAs” (Angulo, 2025), this evidently pushed her unique image to stand out from what was around her in the industry at the time. Within all these elaborate ways of presenting herself, this would also lead to lots of media attention as this was during the rise of social media. Gaga would be on the cover of Rolling Stone which is a famous magazine covering “music, politics and pop culture” (Magazinecollectors.co.uk, 2015), for 3 consecutive years from 2009-2011(Contributors to Gagapedia, 2024). In 2010, Gaga would also gain attention by breaking social media records of the “first artist to have their videos combined, reach that one billion view mark on youtube.” (Contributors to Gagapedia, 2019) We can see how Gaga has already shown the use of the purple cow technique and brand archetypes within strategically thinking about her branding and gaining a lot of media attention. Following on the other elements of ‘Interest’, ‘desire’ and ‘action’ within the AIDA model, Gaga maintains a connection to her audience and interest to her as a person through being an “active Twitter user, communicating directly with her Twitter followers or an average five times per day.” (Reckhenrich, Anderson and Kupp, 2013)
This maintained a close bond between her and her fans constantly. Also addressing her fans as “Little monsters” (Osak, 2013) ,she developed a specific app for fans to “gather, create and inspire.” (Honeycommb, 2021) Gaga also created a documentary partnered with the streaming platform ‘Netflix’ released in 2017 called “Five foot two”. (Grammy.com, 2017)
In watching this documentary it gives insight into the struggles Gaga had over the past couple years regarding mental and physical health as well as the evolution in her sound, showing her music industry experience to a wider audience.
An effective way in which Gaga has also stood up for her audience and brought awareness is through the many political endeavours she has associated herself with. One would be her ‘meat dress’. This would be in “protest against the United States military’s “ Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy which she believed dehumanised LGBTQ+ people by treating them as if they were just pieces of meat.” (Angulo, 2025) This would correlate to Gaga as due to the genres in which she was partaking in, these were/are very queer dominated art forms and therefore these policies would be targeting her target audience.
She also would launch the ‘Born This Way Foundation’ to “empower and inspire young people to build a kinder, braver world that supports their mental health.” (Born This Way Foundation, 2019) Yet again this enforces her connections with her fans. Lady Gaga has gone through many actions to make herself more accessible to her audience. In this she has gone on several tours over the years having numerous sold out shows for example, her “North American dates already sold out […] in 2011.” (PR Newswire, 2010) This would be her ‘AmericanMonster Ball Tour’. She also released multiple albums with all of them being physical copies as well as downloadable or able to be bought online on platforms like Apple music due to the new social norm of streaming. Overall Lady Gaga has used a plethora of meaningful ways to push her brand into wider audiences whether its audio or visual. We will now be comparing that to her most recent endeavours within musical career choices and how she slightly changes her approach to how she markets her brand.
Gaga still continues to carry the uniqueness of her previous eras within her artistry. We see these same patterns occur with her new and found ‘Mayhem’ era in 2025. She still carries the darkness of ‘The Fame Monster era’ however with a slight twist. “She has described this record in a recent interview as “dark, poetic, and hard” with a chaotic edge” (Angulo, 2025).
With these darker themes being rushing into the charts at a time when pop music is being softer with artists like Sabrina Carpenter and still Taylor Swift in the mix, it yet again enforces the different musical texture in which Lady Gaga is bringing to the music market. This isn’t a far stray away from what Gaga fans are used to which keeps a consistency in her branding.
This comfortability however was challenged in her attempt to have a more “Raw, stripped down” image with “country, and rock influences.” This era would be called ‘Joanne’ and it would make a “major shift from Gaga’s previous work.”“Family is the central theme of ‘Jonanne’, deeply influenced by Lady Gaga’s aunt, Joanne Germanotta. The album has emotional themes like identity, loss, nostalgia and heartbreak.” (Angulo, 2025)
This emotion is also greatly reinforced in the movie ‘A Star Is Born’ where Gaga makes an acting appearance as an aspiring singer songwriter. In watching this movie, the emotion is carried through the song, specifically when Lady Gaga sings “Shallow” with co-star Bradly Cooper. This is a song about “ jumping headfirst into love without looking back.” (genius.com, 2018) This shift bonds Gaga to her audience as showing her vulnerability would allow them into her emotions and feelings which is something that compared to her previous eras, she hasn’t entirely dove into with this extreme yet.
When looking at what archetype Gaga fits into best when following these shifts within career, we can still argue that she perfectly embodies the trope of being ‘The rebel’. This is in connection to her role playing ‘Harley Quinn’ in the movie ‘Joker: Folie á Deux’. Undoubtedly, the character ‘Harley Quinn’ is “playful, unpredictable and fiercely intelligent” (Batman-escape.com, 2024) which some may argue reflects Gaga’s imagine and personality accurately as we can see that she carries this trope within the many eras of her career like previously mentioned before regarding ‘The Fame Monster’ era where she stood out for her flamboyant and colourful clothing as well as her highly intelligent way of using the media to get her points and opinions across like with her ‘meat dress’. We see that through the media, Lady Gaga has not been a stranger to pushing herself to multiple audiences to gain interest and attention. This is seen within her collaboration with the Netflix series ‘Wednesday: Season 2’, to make an electro dance pop song for the soundtrack as well as to star in the show (Still Watching Netflix, 2025). This works effectively with the imagery of Gaga’s brand and the dark themes that bounce off each other, but also as an action of pushing herself towards younger audiences and other forms of streaming networks like television and film therefore making her more accessible to larger forms of media.
To continue to pull interest into her brand, Gaga continues to do magazine shoots and interviews like the infamous ‘Rolling Stone’ which she also participated in 2009-2011(Contributors to Gagapedia, 2024) and now finally having a recorded interview explaining her most recent record (Rolling Stone, 2024).
On top of this, she also does behind the scenes footage of her rehearsals in which she performs at major events yet again giving her fans content to make them feel involved in her endeavours (LadyGagaVEVO, 2025).
Within evaluating my research, I believe it would be fair to say that Lady Gaga’s use of marketing and branding techniques have aided in the success of her career. She continues to connect with fans through her app and social medias like ‘TikTok’ where she has accumulated a follower count currently standing at 17.4 million (Tiktok.com, 2025). Her use of audiovisual elements both in the 2010s and the 2020s has stayed constantly at a high standard of creative dark and edgy quality, once again reinforcing the consistency in her brand.
We can also see the use of different fonts being used to highlight the changes of her eras (Capital_Tourist_2026, 2025).
There may be an argued point that this could enable confusion within her branding to some outside fans, however from a media standpoint, this could symbolise professionalism as it continues the cohesiveness of her brand through change.
Throughout both past and present, Gaga continues to show her authenticity through her unique art forms as well as the messages that she pushes. Whether it is through creating a charity to help aid in improving the mental health of society or through her albums like how “‘Born this way’ is an activist album that promotes and uplifts queer voices” (Malman, 2023), she has used her voice and her influence as a path to spread good meaningful ideals. The success of all Gaga’s career choices have evidently in different ways fit with wider markets. They have all gained global success due to their ‘pop’ themes. This can be seen through her recent album ‘Mayhem’ having peaked at No:1 on the ‘Official Albums Charts’ and her 2009 and 2011 albums ‘The Fame’ and ‘Born This Way’ achieving that same success. (www.officialcharts.com, n.d.)
“Gaga brought about a revived sense of showmanship to the entertainment industry.” (closest, 2016) , “She impacted fashion, music, art, and social issues.”(mynameisnotbecky1, 2016) , “She changed pop music and rebirthed the music industry forever.” (Reddit.com, 2016) In the own words of her fans, Gaga is believed to be one of the pioneering entertainers of the 2000’s to bring a new wave of entertainment and musicality to the industry. I believe it is important to include the opinions of her fans into my findings as it provides a side of research which is vital to include. The experiences of the people that this art form is aimed towards. I do believe that all the sources that I included within this research are reliable as the majority of them are pulled from professional verified websites like: Grammy, Youtube, Official charts and Genius which all tend to report on musical information. Lady Gaga is a well known 21st century icon who has used her platforms to inspire and create while also using intricate branding models to further her career to successfully lead her where she stands today.
Reference list
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