Azz said:

Didn't the over exposure of I am Sasha kill her last album?

In this market where Rihanna can still be on tour for her last album and having your last single still riding high on the charts and still release a brand new album? Probably not.

IMHO, "Run The World (Girls)" killed any momentum she could've had. Unfortunately, due to her absence on the Pop charts, it will be like she never released "4" for Pop radio/charts.

I'm expecting her '13 to be turned all the way up. She gonna try to pick up where she left off with her last huge Pop hit. Her working with the Dream again (Single Ladies) says as much. To me anyway.

And yes, I'm aware of "Dance For You" doing well on the R&B charts/radio but that's not enough for her. Just sayin......

Sidenote: For me, it seems like Rihanna has had new music out constantly every since "Umbrella". Def Jam struck gold (platinum) and haven't let up since. Talk about striking while you're hot.

[Edited 12/11/12 12:38pm]

Pepsi's Beyonce Promotion Is The Choice Of An Old Generation

Pepsi has agreed to spendan estimated $50 million on ads, a Super Bowl halftime show, and unnamed “collaborative projects” with pop star Beyonce because, as one of its execs put it, “Consumers are seeking a much greater authenticity in marketing from the brands they love.”

Paying off a celebrity is certainly authentic in a blunt, mercenary sort of way. It’s also marketing circa 1985. The saddest part isn’t that it won’t sell a single case of soda pop, but that Pepsi (and its advocates in the extra-dimensional world of branding) will claim success nevertheless. There will be other explanations for why sales and profits continue to slide, even as Beyonce garners zillions of likes and song downloads.

No slight to Beyonce intended, by the way. She’s immensely talented, incredibly beautiful, and seems genuinely nice when interviewed. And she got a great deal. But the plan is pure inanity for Pepsi, and I’m surprised more marketers aren’t calling it out for what it is. Here are the reasons why it makes no sense…and will make no cents:

It’s an old idea. Pepsi first hired Beyonce in 2002 after Britney Spears fell out of favor (it had spent $8 million just to run Britney’s spots on the Super Bowl). Coke similarly wasted many millions sponsoring Christina Aguilera (whose mug appeared on cans just like Beyonce’s will next year). Christina would eventually swap sides and do promos for Pepsi internationally. Out of the gazillion possible new marketing strategies, some truly revolutionary, Pepsi chose to use the Wayback Machine?

Celebs don’t sell soda pop. There’s no reliable data on whether Britney et al sold anything a decade ago, and no reason to believe Beyonce will now. It’s all about branding and, as such, its benefits are measured in intangibles of awareness. Yet both Pepsi and Coke don’t have awareness problems; they face immense challenges of selling global brands in increasingly segmented, discreet, and critical communities (just think of what’s happened to national beer brands).

Sponsorship isn’t authentic. Beyonce isn’t working for Pepsi because she loves the product; she’s said as much, reassuring her fans in a statement that the deal lets her take Pepsi’s money “…with no compromise and without sacrificing my creativity.” Buying a celebrity and her or his distribution network is serious Old School, since it’s no more authentic than buying a popular broadcast TV show with lots of regular viewers. Pepsi made achannel decision and is trying to elevate it to something strategic. It’s not.

Pepsi’s branding is officially adrift. I can imagine this pendulum swinging wildly at corporate HQ, leading its marketers to embrace nutty futuristic theories about social engagement with the failed Pepsi Refresh Project a few years ago (also touted as being collaborative and authentic, though it was neither, and it certainly wasn’t marketing). Now it’s reaching into the past to revive the Pop Diva Gambit. What’s still missing is what makes Pepsi real and relevant right now, in the present.

I wish the company would face that challenge of “now” and announce some radical stuff. Its flagship brand is losing steam, having given away 2nd place in the cola rankings to Diet Coke and, as of the last quarter, reported a 3% sales decline on a 7% decline in net sales (yielding a 16% drop in operating profit for its Pepsi and Gatorade businesses).

A new generation of marketers would give us ideas that scared us, didn’t make sense, and that challenged the very boundaries in which they’ve elected to work since time immemorial. They’d come up with stuff nobody thought of before, and make sure that every action contributed to providing real, compelling, and sustainable reasons for consumers to buy Pepsi. Not like or think fondly about it. Buy it.

Sponsoring a wonderful pop artist would never come close to making that list. Pepsi’s latest deal is the choice of an Old Generation.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathansalembaskin/2012/12/11/pepsis-beyonce-promotion-is-the-choice-of-an-old-generation/

Pepsi Gave Beyonce $50 Million To Make America Even Less Healthy

Forget the ring. You will like it if we put Beyonce’s face on it. At least that’s Pepsi’s strategy by hiring the mega pop star to be their new “brand ambassador” where Beyonce is getting paid $50 million to make American even less healthy.

The 31-year-old will not only have her face appear on Pepsi cans, bottles and in-store displays, but she will also appear in the company advertising campaign as well as the Super Bowl halftime commercial, which is sponsored by–you guessed it–Pepsi.

Of course, $50 million is not enough for Beyonce. She strategically made sure this mega-million dollar deal coincided with the release of her new album in 2013. It’s a move that she calls creative with a “lifestyle brand”:

Pepsi embraces creativity and understands that artists evolve. As a businesswoman, this allows me to work with a lifestyle brand with no compromise and without sacrificing my creativity.

What exactly is a lifestyle brand anyway? Is that what we’re calling products that are destined to make us fatter and more unhealthy? Hey, 70% of America is already overweight or obese, so we might as well consider that the new lifestyle. That’s just wrong.

On top of that, the ads featuring Beyonce are part of Pepsi’s “Live for Now” campaign. Does anyone else find that a tad ironic? Or at least irresponsible? Telling consumers to not worry about the future, just live in the moment, drink that soda, who cares what it does to your body and your health. Just keep drinking Pepsi and live for now.

Sigh.

Of course, Pepsi thinks all of this is a brilliant idea. Brad Jakeman, president of PepsiCo’s global beverage group said:

Consumers are seeking a much greater authenticity in marketing from the brands they love. It’s caused a shift in the way we think about deals with artists, from a transactional deal to a mutually beneficial collaboration.

Trust us. There’s nothing authentic about using one of the biggest pop stars around to push consumers into buying fat-inducing, cancer-causing soft drinks by using her sex appeal.

We say, live for the future.

Read more: http://www.blisstree.com/...z2EmMrWGd6

Read more: http://www.blisstree.com/...z2EmMlhnz9

Kanye says, "Beyonce doesn't care about fat people!"