About Viral

M.I.A. gets 14 million in 3 weeks with Paper Planes

How does M.I.A. release a song in 2007 and over the course of three weeks in August 2008 all of a sudden get 14 million hits?

Listening to the radio recently you will have no doubt noticed M.I.A. has reached the top spots on popular count downs with her single Paper Planes. The catchy beat, gangster style, and provocative lyrics appeal to a large audience as the song has climbed to number 18 on the American Top 40 (September 25th, 2008). But why did Paper Planes get popular now? M.I.A. released the song in 2007 on the album Kala, but it’s only reaching number one on local stations today? Last year she played Virgin Fest in Toronto, Canada, worked with Timbaland, and had her music in the season four finale of Entourage. She’s out there, her music is out there so why the gap and what happened in the summer of 2008?

The only plausible factor to M.I.A.’s success had to be the release of Pineapple Express by Apatow and company. The song was dubbed over the trailer which saw national and international play during the release. This was the big leap M.I.A. needed as 14 million YouTube views came between August 7th and August 30th. Coincidentaly the same three weeks Pineapple Express trailers were in full circulation. Idolator.com reports 434 000 digital copies of Paper Planes had been sold as of the end of August, one 10th of those in just a week. Looking at those numbers it seems M.I.A. hit the jackpot as the trailer seemed to launch the song to new heights and is the reason why your hearing it on the top 40 chart today.

Music as you might know is the most popular category on YouTube. Recently the ever reigning Evolution of Dance was beat out as the all time most watched video on YouTube by the Canadian singer Avril Lavign. Avril became the first person in history with a video to crack 100 million views with her song Girlfriend.

100 million, That’s insane!! It redefines the classic idea of fame being based on record sales. Fame in the music business is no longer tracked by the number of albums on the shelf anymore. We started looking at the YouTube.com indicators for Paper Planes around the beginning of August and have been amazed at the results since.

The movie itself didn’t do so bad either. At last check box office receipts totalled $93 million. Some could argue that Paper Planes was a big part of that success. Maybe Apatow should be sending M.I.A. the thank you card?

This type of marketing relationship is not easy to identify. What is certain however, is that in 2007 and early 2008 Paper Planes wasn’t on the popularity map, but it is now. For a stakeholder in either M.I.A’s music career or the Apatow house they were probably not looking at YouTube videos as an indication of success, but watching their fame blow up on YouTube like it did in August could arguably be considered a legitimate rating tool.

In the next few years as the rules of the Web 2.0 game continue to evolve and turn the entertainment industry on its head, marketers are no doubt evolving as well. This revolution is opening an opportunity for some to jump in and associate their brand with popular music. The agency that can harness that power and see the same rise in viral success for one of their big brand clients will set the bar for all others to follow.

In the mean time, keep watching Paper Planes… we’ll be interested to see how high it flys because its not done yet.