A Breakthrough Strategy Inspired by Drake
With Degrassi fans as a starting point, Drake leveraged his influence in Toronto to create a buzz with his music in America. His marketing strategy used a combo of traditional hip-hop marketing and digital tactics like Myspace and personalized email to build a U.S. fanbase. He built one big enough to spark a bidding war for a major label deal. Today, the philosophy of Drake’s breakthrough strategy can still be seen in his current marketing tactics.
Photo Credit: Young Money Entertainment/Cash Money Records
I won’t talk about Drake without first acknowledging my personal connection to Jimmy. When Noggin adapted The-N, I watched Degrassi from my Grandmother’s basement for years. I consider myself part of a seminal group of girls who started out with Jimmy in the halls of Degrassi Community School and ended up streaming him. Maybe she found him on Myspace while surfing her first laptop from bed. Maybe she went to a daytime concert at the local mall. She blew her weekly allowance on a set of frog earrings from Claire’s and a Frappucino. I was in middle school by then. The tween fan fantasies. That first listen to Comeback Season.
Shake up the world, that is what I'm about to do.
Next, I’ll go on to remind you that Degrassi was one of the most successfully branded Canadian teen TV shows of all time.
Recently, HBO Max announced they were rebooting the show in a mix that already includes Gossip Girl. It’s proof of the allure of Degrassi in America both then and now. When Drake was ready to apply pressure on his music career, he had the benefit of a sizable audience of existing fans. The timing provided an opportunity to cross markets.
The marketing choices that pushed Toronto stateside were rooted in the same strategy essentials that have sustained Drake for more than a decade. One of the very first of those decisions was launching Drake’s music career with a focus on Degrassi fans. The team used Jimmy’s energy to create an initial buzz and then used digital tactics to expand. With the right pressure, buzz creates momentum. Then, momentum creates scale.
An approach from the angle of Jimmy required that Drake have a clearly defined brand early on. Those who loved Jimmy needed something outside of Degrassi to connect with in order to sustain the growth of Drake the artist. He needed to create other touchpoints with his fans that delivered to them on the level of fantasy. To do this, Drake leaned into digital tactics with the gusto of a true Millennial rapper. Channels like Myspace, the ‘Talk to Drake’ email address, and October’s Very Own blog gave fans direct access to Drake through behind-the-scenes updates and music releases. These platforms were new forms of distribution in an industry leery of giving things away for free. Still, they were effective methods for building a fanbase.
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Behind Drake’s icon is the strategy that grew him to superstar status. He took what rappers like 50 Cent and Lil Wayne did with mixtapes and invested in a heavily-digitized bottom-up distribution model. In the beginning, those methods worked to bring him success in the U.S. Eventually, those methods took him worldwide. This is how the perfect storm of marketing strategy broke Drake and helped sustain his boom for more than a decade.
The Rap Music Release Plan
The early strategy was built from the bones of a common rap release model of the time. It included building a fanbase, grassroots style, through local performances. As an artist acquires new fans on the road, their fanbase grows in size. Eventually, smaller audience hives emerge within the larger group who have their own distinct interests and characteristics. Teen girls who watch Degrassi and then, maybe college students. As the hives break out and grow, their influence spreads too. All this adds up to mean more fans.
In 2005, the Degrassi cast did a series of stateside mall tours for the fans. Drake’s own myspace reported that groups as large as 20,000 would attend. It checked the box for the first part of the model as Drake’s exposure to new markets helped grow his Myspace page. As the page grew, he used the traction to secure features from prominent American artists like Robin Thicke, Trey Songz, and future mentor, Wayne.
Oftentimes, driving brand awareness in a new market requires some kind of cultural connection. With Drake, music features were just one connector. There were other tactics that aligned him with American fans too. He took acting roles in productions like the 2002 TV movie Conviction starring Omar Epps. Culturally it was a great fit since Epps had also starred in movies like In Too Deep and The Wood. Drake was in the right orbit for hip-hop fans to start taking him seriously. Another relevant connection was Drake’s partnership with Lebron James and by proxy, the NBA. James hosted the mixtape release party for So Far Gone in 2009. Drake penned the anthem for More Than a Game that same year. With the synergy between the NBA and hip-hop, Drake’s association with an NBA superstar only added to his own allure.
Read: What Hip Hop Means for the NBA’s Brand Culture
By tailoring his release model to the digital marketing opportunities of the time, Drake built enough early popularity for a record deal. The three-year evolution of his strategy is clear. With his first mixtape, Room for Improvement, Drake was handing out physical CDs. It sold 6,000 copies. By Comeback Season in 2007, Myspace had become an integral part of his efforts. At its peak, he had over 10,000 friends and 30 different online fan clubs. By the time Drake released So Far Gone in 2009, he had fully crossed over into the U.S. market and sparked a major label bidding war. Later, the lead single, “Best I Ever Had” was nominated for two Grammys.
The Feature Heard Around the World
Mixtapes mean a lot to the Millennial rapper. Drake, J. Cole, Wiz Khalifa, Wale, Kendrick Lamar, to name a few, used them as a vehicle to create traction at the start of their careers and the streaming era. In function, mixtapes were a marketing vehicle that allowed artists to shine even before recording an album or signing a major label deal. Using them to get into the industry is credited to 50 Cent, who turned mixtapes into an avenue for mainstream success. The next evolution of mixtapes comes from Wayne, who used them to build momentum between albums. From 2005 to 2008, Wayne gained massive popularity, in part, from mixtapes featuring instrumentals of the hottest songs. His versions often became more popular than the originals. Releasing music on such a regular cadence allowed Wayne hundreds of hours of practice on his craft.
In Drake’s strategy, mixtapes may exist to extend momentum, but so do features and in more ways than one. They extend reach, getting the music beyond its original scope. They’re a great promotion tool that can promote current projects and tempt virality online. Both mixtapes and features can keep artists relevant between projects. In the three years between Carter II and Carter III, Wayne stayed relevant partially through a slew of mixtapes, a personal favorite: No Ceilings. The right features are great for fan sharing. When it comes to Drake though, I think about features as a means for global impact. The ones he chooses are a mark of taste; what Drake cosigns must be next. The sounds that fans respond to are signals for musical direction and most oftentimes heavy online chatter. Test different flows and sounds on features, see what people are saying online, see what the streaming numbers say. Use that to inform album work.
Read: Wayne’s Foundations for Hip-Hop
In the beginning, features were about extending Drake’s reach into the U.S. Now, features are about global impact. Picture him crooning from the speakers of a hookah bar in Mexico with Bad Bunny. When you catch Drake on a feature with Skepta or Wizkid or Popcaan know that international artists are Degrassi mall tours on an international scale. Global reach through cultural influence. That is the data-driven impact of features for Drake.
There’s so much more that I could say about the marketing strategy behind Drake. I haven’t even begun to touch on the rich cultural legacy of Wayne and his brainchild Young Money Records. I haven’t really mentioned Drake in pop culture beyond music. I haven’t analyzed the impact of his numerous records and accolades and streams.
This is ultimately the story of heavily digitized bottom-up distribution at a time when social media still held so much wonder and potential. Innovative digital tactics, combined with tried-and-true hip hop marketing erased the limitations of physical location and brought the 6 God stateside.
