THE LEMONADE EFFECT
“KRA-KOOM! ”
A THUNDEROUS BANG QUIETS THE ROUGHLY 40,000 FANS WHO’VE GATHERED AT HOUSTON’S NRG STADIUM. THE LIGHTS CLICK OFF, PLUNGING THE VENUE INTO DARKNESS. A SPOTLIGHT APPEARS, SILHOUETTING A FIGURE ON THE STAGE. BEYONCÉ, SPORTING A WIDE-BRIMMED BLACK HAT AND CLAD IN A SHIMMERING, ROSE-COLORED BODYSUIT, IS FLANKED BY A DOZEN DANCERS.
She starts bobbing her head along to the now-familiar twanging noise that opens her politically charged single “Formation.” It takes a few moments to notice that the sparkly image displayed across her chest is a black panther, baring white teeth through its roaring red mouth. “If you came to slay tonight, say, ‘I slay!’ ” she shouts. Her acolytes obey, screaming the words in unison as the music soars.
It’s around 9 p.m. on a Saturday night, and Beyoncé’s latest album, Lemonade, has been out for two weeks—almost to the hour. Unveiled during an April 23 HBO special that had been advertised as a “world premiere event” (with no further details), the 12-song collection was streamed 115 million times in the first six days alone. Each song has a unique music video, and together they make up a 65-minute film that weaves evocative imagery, wrenching poetry, and a rumored-to-be-autobiographical story line about infidelity. Lemonade debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart, making Beyoncé the first artist in history to hit the top spot—and also the first to debut at No. 1—with her first six albums.
Yes, Beyoncé knows how to slay. And her impact is much greater than even these statistics imply. She has become one of the world’s most distinctive brands, a single-name powerhouse. She’s not only redefining how artists market themselves, building an uncommonly loyal customer base known as the Beyhive, but her successes are reverberating more broadly across the business landscape, too—prompting a reevaluation of rules, tactics, and strategies as enterprises large and small consider the pros and cons of cultivating their own Lemonade moment.
Beyoncé’s career has both closely tracked the rise of the digital age (her first solo album, 2003’s Dangerously in Love, came out five weeks before the launch of MySpace) and encouraged its evolution. No pop star has better navigated the tectonic shifts in the music industry, from iTunes to YouTube, Facebook to Spotify. What’s more, she has traversed the ever-more-complex tendrils of global culture with cleverness, discipline, and sophistication. “As a product, she is incredibly consistent—every album, stage performance, video, interview, and marketing deal,” says Jonathan Mildenhall, chief marketing officer at Airbnb. “On top of that,
