Mrs. Carter. Queen B. Sasha Fierce. Beyoncé. Everyone knows her. Everyone knows she owns the world. So why is she being protested by Target and Amazon?
Only one person could release an album without any press or information leading up to it. This person is Beyoncé. Not only was she recording an album without anyone knowing, but she also made almost ten million dollars in the first week. However, two large corporations are not happy about the release of her latest album.
Beyoncé released her album exclusively through iTunes. As a result, Target and Amazon are refusing to stock and sell the CD version of her self-titled album. Target issued a statement saying “While there are many aspects that contribute to our approach and we have appreciated partnering with Beyoncé in the past, we are primarily focused on offering CDs that will be available in a physical format at the same time as all other formats. At this time, Target will not be carrying Beyoncé’s new self-titled album ‘Beyoncé.’”
The last thing any company should be doing is making enemies with the Queen B. This reaction by Target has made the corperation look petty. Beyoncé doesn’t need them to sell her albums. She is obviously capable of selling music without them. In retaliation against Target, Beyoncé visited a Wal-Mart store (who sold her album) and offered every shopper in the Wal-Mart a 50 dollar gift card, totaling up to 37,500 dollars. The clear winner here is Beyoncé.
This feud also comes at an inconvenient time for Target. Over Christmas, someone hacked into Target’s online system and stole thousands of credit card numbers.This breach has affected over 70 million Americans. In light of this breach and the subsequent bad press it would make sense for Target to be doing everything in its power to ensure that it maintains a positive image with the public. This includes selling Beyonce’s album. (See GRACE’S HEADLINE HERE, for more information.)
The decision of Target and Amazon is nothing more than a knee jerk reaction to prepare so they can avoid future cases in which artists side step major retailers when selling their music. However they should not worry about something like this ever happening again because it is unlikely that any other artist could pull off something like this. Beyonce’s decision exclusively to sell on iTunes was for her own good. It undoubtedly prevented the secret from getting out early and ultimately ended up with more profit for her.
There is no way Target and Amazon will win the fight against Queen B Target and Amazon might hate her, but the rest of the world has fallen in love with her. She is role-model, for all the right reasons and she speaks for women all over the world. Protesting on of the biggest artists in the world will only end up hurting Target and Amazon even more.