Celebrity Marketing Lesson: Bruno Mars’ Content Strategy

Prioritizing engagement and context in content creation needs to be the blueprint for a successful digital strategy.

Ask any business owner: their best customers are their existing customers. And if you’re looking to grow in customers, you should have your customer care strategy process written down and running.

You see, no one can sell your product as well as your customers can. With the right strategy, these customers evolve into brand ambassadors that distribute your brand’s qualities and successes into their everyday conversations, and if you’re lucky, into their own social media making you grow via word of mouth or shares and saves of your digital content.

This strategy should be organic and contain content that’s naturally made to show how much you care for your product or service. It should reflect your brand’s personality and promises.

By definition, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the combination of practices, strategies and technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle.

So this means CRM is a powerful tool brand managers use to keep track of their customers’ purchases, reviews from day zero to beyond. CRM helps brands UNDERSTAND who their brand is reaching; how it’s doing and furthermore, what can the brand improve to reach more people and get more sales.

Bruno Mars implements CRM for his digital community making these really unique Thank You videos for each major city he performs in, speaking a language understood between him and his fans.

For his Mexico City, Kyoto and Sao Paulo performances he catered to his fans making these fast-paced, funny videos where he dresses up like a luchador with a Mariachi (Mexico City); Gets a tattoo in Brazil, or visiting the viral Don Donkey Store in Tokyo.

Using fisheye camera angles and vintage cam-corder like filters, he sings chants in the local language with concert footage to thank his fans and promote his tour.

His team has been making these thank you videos since 2016. He really cares about creating this “close friends” digital intimacy with his fanbase. Even if you actually were in the concert or not, a sense of belonging and excitement is felt in his videos.

He seems to be having fun making these videos. It’s not forced and he does this for his international fan base, which oftentimes feel ignored by performers, even when these densely populated countries generate so many concert ticket sales for performers.

If you’re an early listener of Bruno you’ll remember this… his silly, flirty and outgoing personality was always part of his personal brand. When he launched "The Lazy Song” music video, where he has a monkey mask on while singing the song very chill, very unbothered and happy. Since then, he has grown into the “silly goose”, “boy-next-door” archetype of world-class performer he is.

His major hits like “Uptown Funk,” “That’s What I Like”, “24K Magic” and “Treasure” are all upbeat, happy party songs that have just the right notes to put anyone in a good mood. His ballads, songs like “When I was your Man”, “Just The Way You Are”, and “It Will Rain” are always these impossible to not sing along songs where anyone can relate to this heartbreak and can’t live without you feeling.

Debate me on this but I feel he brings both feminine and masculine energy to his music game; the lyrics are longing but the sound is fresh and bomb; his style choices are very masculine, 90’s vibes rocking his mustache and bold colors like red and yellow and pink.

Not only does this show how incredibly involved he is in the creative direction and development of his music making, performance and delivery; he also understands his product offer perfectly and how having a defined brand identity can push him up the charts.

He understands the power of duets and reaching different niche audiences/markets through collaborations with Cardi B in “Finesse”; Rosé with “APT”; “Die with a Smile” with Lady Gaga and Chris Stapleton with “Blow,” to name a few.

Bruno not only cares about making sure his concert is filled with unique performances, amazing light and music quality but also immerses in the cultural context of the cities; he understands the power of being present and showing this mindful approach to being in the now and just plain old having fun.

An effective Customer Relationship Strategy involves an effective content strategy and by putting your customer’s emotions and beliefs first.