The National Fenty League

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​I’m in your inbox on a Monday because I wanted to watch the Rihanna concert that featured a football game and use it to build content for you. I’ve been deeply inspired by the Apple Music rollout of the content surrounding the Super Bowl and the integration of Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty brand into every aspect, so much so, that fans have taken to jokingly replacing the meaning of “F” for football in the NFL to Fenty.

​Image provided courtesy of Apple Music - All rights reserved.

​The rollout is a classic example of the content teams integrating music, lifestyle, and emotional content into a campaign that delivers on both the hype and momentum surrounding a performance. What I loved about the approach is that neither content team took our showing up for granted – they worked to earn our eyes by drawing on the reasons fans connect with Rihanna: her humble beginnings, then exploring the ways she drives that connection deeper through her integration to ballroom culture, and finally, taking a tongue-in-cheek look at Fenty Beauty using the foundation to dye footballs.

​Each spot in the campaign stood on its own but also fully represented Rihanna. This is the difference in content developed through the lens of the creator as an extension of their artistry, and this is the power of a creator-led business model.

​Here are a few lessons we can take from this partnership and apply to our own creator-led business:

​Lesson #1: Don’t take anything for granted

​Whether it was the hyper-targeted spots, prominent placement across all of Apple’s owned platforms, or the multiple commercials custom-made for dissemination across social media – you seemingly could not escape that Rihanna was performing at the Super Bowl. The teams didn’t take football fans for granted nor did they rest on the idea that people would automatically show up for the performance: they went to work.

​I saw ads across social media, websites, and Apple TV. If the largest brands in the world didn’t take their audience for granted, you shouldn’t either. Don’t be afraid to lean into content across all the channels where your ideal audience will be, after all, repetition is what initiates consistency.

​Lesson #2: Authenticity reigns supreme

​What do you get when you mix the audience of one of music’s biggest stars with the world’s most loved technology platform and sport? Content that you can’t turn away from. It’s tough to align around a singular brand personality when you must factor in multiple brand identities, but this partnership managed to do it in a way that was completely authentic to each brand and audience. The lesson here is that authentic effort always lands where it should: engrained with the audience and ever-present. Apple Music didn’t have to ask for brand loyalists to show up; Rihanna didn’t have to ask her fan base to show up, and surely, The NFL knew where its fans would be – but each brand did what they could to prepare, engage, and deliver.

​As a creator, it can be so easy to get so caught up in what everyone else is doing and lose sight of what we should be doing to reach our target audience. I don’t build content for everyone – I build it for you, and you show up each week to get the goods.

​Lesson #3: Always your work

​This is the lesson to end it all. Always promote yourself. Rihanna integrated Fenty Beauty into the rollout and used the foundation on stage during her performance. In the 12 hours since, Fenty Beauty and SavagexFenty, her clothing line, have garnered about $8.2M in earned media as the result of searches, and subsequent purchases of the brand. Streams of her music have seen a 2,400% increase, and sales of both have no doubt skyrocketed.

​Rihanna wasn’t paid for the Super Bowl performance, but she’ll no doubt win in the end thanks to the halo effect that comes from positioning her brand at the forefront of the discussions.

​The lesson I’m walking away with is the need for strategy and a commitment to the execution of it even in the face of unexpected changes.

​Final Thoughts

​Whether you think Rihanna killed her performance or not, we can all agree that the content strategy and subsequent discussion of the brand afterward, is a BIG moment. Creators can take these 3 lessons from studying the rollout of the partnership and apply them to their own strategies:Lesson #1: Don’t take anything for grantedLesson #2: Authenticity reigns supremeLesson#3: Always promote your work

​That’s all for this week.Thanks for reading.

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​​​​​​Love + Light,

​​​​​​LaTecia

​​​​Want more? Follow @lateciarising and let me know how I can help you scale as a creator. Want to support this newsletter and get featured? Drop me a line & I’ll be happy to collaborate.