ADvanced concepts

When I was on Yahoo this afternoon, (yes, I search on yahoo, not google. Strange, I know) I saw this article about Lady Gaga's video "Telephone" being a big ad and if this makes her a sell out. Of course its a big ad. With all the hype that video got, I would be surprised if it wasn't a commercial. You have to consider many things with this. Artists and records labels do not count on album sales as revenue as much as they use to. This is where 360 deals come in, this article does a better job at explaining it, but basically record labels are looking to make money anyway they can. Also, you have to consider how much that video must have cost. You have to cover the cost somehow. And lets be honest, the music business is fickle. Lady Gaga might be the next Avril Lavigne. Or she could be a female Elton John. Who knows, but at the end of the day, I'm sure she is wise enough to have her set up to be financially set later on when wearing telephones in your hair isn't cool anymore. So I wouldn't call her a sell out, just doing her job. Plus, having endorsements in videos is nothing new. I feel like most trends, especially technology, are some what fueled by music videos. You might hate to admit it, but the popularity of G-Shocks might have been influenced by the Bow Wow/Soulja Boy "Marco Polo" video.

Here are the "Telephone" and "Marco Polo" videos, can you count the product placements?: