Lady Gaga as a case study in the act of creative reinvention for emerging business leaders and economies. http://afripol.org/
Quite easy will it be to simply write-off those in entertainment industry, when discussing the act of reinvention as a tool to bolster enterprise and marketing in the rough, tough and tumbling world of business. When one mentions Lady Gaga, the popular pop singer as a case study, many people probably will not take the study and analysis serious. But wait for a minute, this musician came out from nowhere and within a space of time she has rose to become one of the richest and most popular entertainers in the whole world.
There is something to learn from her, she has a quantifiable talent but she was never original. She took most of her style from another popular entertainer named Madonna. But what made Lady Gaga special was her brilliant and flawless combination of her original talent, an innate creativity together with emulated methodology and came up with her own style.
Harvard Business do not teach creative reinvention
The top business schools do teach the act of reinvention but they never understand nor teach the act of creative reinvention. The difference is the power of creativity where one does not necessarily have to sacrifice originality in order to dabble into copying what works. The major point is to keep one’s originality as one emulates the established road map and adding it together and making it their own. Many developed economies and business countries have utilized the act of creative reinvention and maximize their growth and development. This is more than ‘reinventing the wheel’ but consist of developed strategy that involves copying what works while retaining the original creative juice.
To reinvent a wheel is one thing but to package it and add another component to it is quite a task. To bring in creativity in the process of reinvention requires a special talent and ingenuity. The idea to borrow a style, form or a strategy may be a simple process but to repackage to a wider appeal is where the power of creativity steps in. The final consumers must be made to notice the new product or service by the creation of something new that is attractive and compelling. There is nothing really new in the market place or in the market store of ideas. Most of the new software written and computer hardware produces were not original works in the first place and that is similar to music industry. This is the reason that popular music superstar Lady Gaga was chosen as a case study.
Taking a look at the music sing and produced by Lady Gaga, if you listen to 1980s and 1990s music you must have heard something similar in beats and style. If the guess is good as mine, then it is music of Madonna. The dressing and singing are pointing towards conspicuousness and the tactics deployed by Madonna to attract and sustain attention, which she used to increase her market value and demand for her music. When Lady Gaga came to the scene, she has a talent but she reinvents the tactics and captured her market with her enormous talent and reinvention of the old wheel.
African business enterprise can benefit from creative reinvention
This type of business concept employed by Lady Gaga is readily available to emerging business executives especially in the developing world where role models are limited in field of scope of ideas. Many African business men and women can applied a talent and originality together with worthy ideas gathered from other business executives to develop a commodity or service that can be marketed for an appreciable dividend.
Creative reinvention is not only limited to those in entertainment business but the formula can be utilized by individuals in any field of human endeavor. The point here is not so much for the business executives to emulate the outward conspicuous personality of lady Gaga but understand the complexity of marketing genius that propel her to a force to be reckon in her own field of human endeavor.
Emeka Chiakwelu is the principal Policy Strategist at Afripol. Africa Political and Economic Strategic Center (Afripol) is foremost a public policy center whose fundamental objective is to broaden the parameters of public policy debates in Africa. To advocate, promote and encourage free enterprise, democracy, sustainable green environment, human rights, conflict resolutions, transparency and probity in Africa. http://afripol.org/