The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
Sales & Marketing
Strategy / MBA Resources
Case Study SWOT Analysis Solution
Case Study Description of The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best
Britney Spears is one of the most successful female recording artists in contemporary music, world-wide. Herein, we analyze how Britney Spears and her team of employees rely on social media applications to communicate around this pop icon, and create and maintain her celebrity brand image. Specifically, we look at the use of social media during the launch of her single 'Hold It Against Me' and the associated album Femme Fatale in early 2011. The interplay of postings on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook-combined with comments on her webpage, BritneySpears.com-can be seen as a prime example of social media usage to support new product introductions.
Authors :: Andreas M. Kaplan, Michael Haenlein
Topics :: Sales & Marketing
Tags :: IT, Marketing, Product development, Public relations, Social platforms, SWOT Analysis, SWOT Matrix, TOWS, Weighted SWOT Analysis
Swot Analysis of "The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best" written by Andreas M. Kaplan, Michael Haenlein includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Britney Spears facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, IT, Marketing, Product development, Public relations, Social platforms and Sales & Marketing.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, geopolitical disruptions, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies,
increasing government debt because of Covid-19 spendings, increasing energy prices, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Britney Spears, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Britney Spears operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Britney Spears
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Sales & Marketing field.
4. Making a Sales & Marketing topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Britney Spears
Strengths The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Britney Spears in The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best Harvard Business Review case study are -
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Britney Spears has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Britney Spears has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Britney Spears has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Britney Spears has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Strong track record of project management
– Britney Spears is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Diverse revenue streams
– Britney Spears is present in almost all the verticals within the industry. This has provided firm in The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best case study a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Britney Spears has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Britney Spears has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Ability to lead change in Sales & Marketing field
– Britney Spears is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Britney Spears in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Innovation driven organization
– Britney Spears is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Analytics focus
– Britney Spears is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Andreas M. Kaplan, Michael Haenlein can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Organizational Resilience of Britney Spears
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Britney Spears does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Learning organization
- Britney Spears is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Britney Spears is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Weaknesses The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Britney Spears is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best, it seems that the employees of Britney Spears don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Britney Spears supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Britney Spears vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Britney Spears has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Britney Spears has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Britney Spears even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
Ability to respond to the competition
– As the decision making is very deliberative, highlighted in the case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best, in the dynamic environment Britney Spears has struggled to respond to the nimble upstart competition. Britney Spears has reasonably good record with similar level competitors but it has struggled with new entrants taking away niches of its business.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best HBR case study mentions - Britney Spears takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best, is just above the industry average. Britney Spears needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Britney Spears has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Britney Spears, firm in the HBR case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Britney Spears is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Sales & Marketing segment. Britney Spears needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Britney Spears to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Opportunities The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best are -
Developing new processes and practices
– Britney Spears can develop new processes and procedures in Sales & Marketing industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Sales & Marketing industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Britney Spears can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Britney Spears can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Britney Spears can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help, as suggested in case study, The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best, to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Britney Spears to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Britney Spears to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Britney Spears in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Sales & Marketing segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Loyalty marketing
– Britney Spears has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Britney Spears can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Britney Spears can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Britney Spears to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Britney Spears can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Britney Spears operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Sales & Marketing sector.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Britney Spears can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Sales & Marketing segment.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Britney Spears is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Britney Spears can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Threats The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best are -
Increasing wage structure of Britney Spears
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Britney Spears.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Britney Spears can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best .
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Britney Spears.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Britney Spears in the Sales & Marketing sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Britney Spears high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Britney Spears is facing in Sales & Marketing sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Britney Spears will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best, Britney Spears may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Sales & Marketing .
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Sales & Marketing field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Britney Spears can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Britney Spears with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Britney Spears needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Sales & Marketing industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Britney Spears in the Sales & Marketing industry. The Sales & Marketing industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of The Britney Spears Universe: Social Media and Viral Marketing at its Best is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Britney Spears needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.