Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Lady GaGa: Wearing a virtual dress of virtual steak from virtual cows

I know that team GaGa just want us to talk about this, and so even snorting is playing into her hands, but what new bloody hell is this?:

Lady Gaga is set to debut songs from her new album, Born This Way, in Zynga's popular online social game FarmVille in the week leading up to the record's official release on May 23rd. The game, in which 46 million players around the world manage virtual farms, will feature a special GagaVille farm beginning on May 17th. In GagaVille, users will be able to execute Gaga-themed quests in order to gain access to Clear Channel's digital radio service I Heart Radio and stream new songs.
If you listen to all three songs, and complete a further task, you'll get a special code which you can type into YouTube to see a live stream of the marketing circlejerk from which this idea first spumed out.

Now, I'm all for an innovative bit of digital tie-in, but where is there any logic in Lady GaGa being a farm?

Sure, Farmville started off as a superficially interesting way of spending time, albeit one with rapidly diminishing returns and which now seems to be little more than a way of getting dupes to hand over hard cash for an experience that is, at best a simulacrum of the real thing. So I'm not saying there are no brand synergies with Lady GaGa, but this is just such a random 'this is popular, and this is popular, so let's bring them together' mismatch that you're wondering if the pairing was pulled at random from a black bag. Like a Manchester United v Rushden & Diamonds cup-tie, or a Coronation Street/The Only Way Is Essex crossover.


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