I reviewed the article, “Superstars without talent? The Yule distribution controversy”, by Laura Spierdijk and Mark Voorneveld. The article is quite interesting, as it focuses on the world wide phenomenon of novice artists that start their career with little or no talent and end up with all the benefits of being a superstar. The following example roughly illustrates why this may happen. Music has an important social aspect and people tend to follow the crowd, thus creating the snowball effect. This is one explanation, but there are many more that go more in depth.
I also want to touch on my favorite topic of the economics of the superstar, which the commoditization of the superstar. It is the idea that the artist itself is made into a product. This product, just like any other product, can be advertised on television, shown on billboards in Times Square, mentioned on the radio, etc. the image now can be used to promote literally any other brand such as clothing or a beverage. The artist is already well known for their own individual fame and so is now ready to be marketed. When this happens, companies need to take advantage of it and use the artist to promote their own product- “product for product advertising”. And so we cannot blame the company or the artist because both parties are benefiting a great deal. People will be more likely to warm up to the product if they see it being utilized by someone famous to them. They rarely stop and think about how primitive this way of marketing really is. That it takes advantage of the consumer into utilizing the product just because another human being is using it.
