Advertising Age reported Beyoncé is seeking an agency to handle her website. Look for a shootout between Drogas 5, Translation and will.i.am.
Beyonce’s Brief to Agencies: Fix My Website
Starlet Seeks New Web Presence to Match Her Burgeoning Brand
By Rupal Parekh
One of the biggest stars in the world—Beyonce—has turned to Madison Avenue to offer up some branding help, Ad Age has learned.
Awareness is no problem for Ms. Knowles, of course, but apparently, her web presence is. Industry executives say that the starlet’s team recently contacted advertising agencies, asking them to pitch ideas to revamp BeyonceOnline.com.
“Beyonce herself hates the website because she doesn’t think that it looks like who she is as an artist, someone who likes fashion and art and photography and travel,” said one executive familiar with Ms. Knowles’ plans. “She has all sorts of interests and wants to communicate that,” said the person, adding that the star wants the new site to be “daring and forward-thinking.”
The site is now formatted like a blog, largely centered around the posting of Beyonce-related news once or twice a day, such as a link to an article or a music video. Ms. Knowles is known best as a singer, but she’s also starred in several films and has several lucrative product-endorsement deals, including one with L’Oreal. She’s a marketer in her own right, too, with her House of Dereon clothing line and her fragrances, Beyonce Pulse and Beyonce Heat.
As busy as she may be (among other things, prepping for the arrival of her first child with hip-hop mogul husband Jay-Z), Ms. Knowles is understood to be making time to be personally involved in the online project, even willing to meet agencies in person. Added the executive: “She was the client and ultimate decision maker, which could be a cool opportunity for an agency—but given how thin the brief was, not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
For those out there who complain that marketers operate on tight deadlines, the world of entertainment is a lot tougher. Beyonce’s team was said to have asked for a turnaround of about 48 hours. One reason she may be looking for a fresh look for her website is she’s out from under her previous manager, under whom the current website was created. Ms. Knowles was formerly managed by her father, Mathew Knowles, but the two split professionally earlier this year. She is now under the management of Parkwood Entertainment. Representatives for Beyonce did not return a request for comment by press time.
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