Introduction
Madonna's 2008 Sticky and Sweet tour was the highest-grossing tour ever by a solo artist, making $US280 million. And her record breaking thirty seven top ten hits surpass even Elvis Presley's achievements.

How has Madonna been able to achieve, over 25 years, her incredible success? The answer to this question lies in five key ingredients of successful strategy that are equally relevant to companies and individuals.

Dimension 1 – Vision

Madonna’s vision to become a star has been clearly apparent, and her spectrum of personal and professional activities – stage performances, television appearances, albums, music videos, Hollywood films, books, and links to charity – all evidence a remarkable dedication to a single goal: the objective of becoming the world’s foremost female performer. Her commitment to superstardom started at high school, where she was a straight-A student and excelled at sport, dance and drama. She continued her interest in dance during brief periods at colleges in Michigan and North Carolina, and in 1977 went to New York, studying with noted choreographer Alvin Ailey and taking modelling jobs.

Entrepreneurs that do not have a vision of where they want to go soon lose their way through dithering and lack of focus, while an individual who does not develop career plans or long-term goals can be similarly distracted.

Dimension 2 –Deep Understanding of Customers and Industry
Madonna’s performance at the First Annual MTV Video Music Awards in 1984 at the age of 26 is considered to be the first stroke of genius in a career that would see many more. She took the stage to sing ‘Like A Virgin’ wearing a combination bustier and wedding gown. The performance was shocking to a mid-1980s audience, but only served to increase her popularity with her main target group, teenage fans. Showing her ability to tap into youth sub-culture, Madonna’s bleached blonde hair with brown roots, sexy lace gloves, lingerie on the outside and "Boy Toy" belt buckle defined teen-pop fashion of the era.

While ‘focus groups’ have been used to help sell everything from washing powder to political parties, Madonna has been one of the world’s first artists to bring this approach to the music industry. In 2005 Madonna partnered with DJ and producer Stuart Price to test songs in clubs from Liverpool to Ibiza. The tunes, with Madonna’s distinctive vocals removed, were played and the reactions of the crowds were filmed and used to determine the final track listing of Confessions on a Dancefloor.

Madonna is a skilled self-publicist - a critical ingredient for success in an industry that sees new competitors entering on an almost daily basis. Understanding that the music industry is heavily influenced by very few big players like MTV and the big record labels she teamed up with the network early in her career. Her first album sold only moderately at first, but thanks to heavy rotation MTV, Madonna gained nationwide exposure and the album peaked at number eight on the Billboard chart, and went platinum five times. It ultimately sold close to 10 million copies worldwide. MTV aggressively marketed Madonna's image as a playful and sexy combination of punk and pop culture, and she soon became closely allied with the network.

Dimension 3 – Leveraging competences and addressing weaknesses

Another important element in Madonna’s success has been the ability to acknowledge her own competencies and weaknesses. Through the use of her extensive network of support personnel, including musicians, technologists, producers, dancers, and designers she is able to address her weaknesses and even compensate for them.

Very early on in her career Madonna realized that neither her dancing abilities nor her voice were strong enough on their own. She started to team up. One of her first and probably most important and successful alliances started in 1982. She flew to Los Angeles to convince Michael Jackson’s manager, Freddie De Mann, to help her launch her music career. De Mann did just that, and eventually dropped Jackson altogether. In 1983 her self-titled first album, Madonna, was released, and its hit single, ‘Holiday’ was Madonna's first top 20 hit single in several countries.

Dimension 4 – Consistent Implementation
Madonna has also been able to stay on top through an impressive ability to implement her strategy and measures. Perhaps most impressive is the fact that Madonna is not the product of any music company – her success has been very much the outcome of her hard work and ability to get the job done. Despite the increasing dominance of the global media sector by multinational firms such as Warner Brothers, Sony, Bertelsmann, and Vivendi Universal, Madonna has maintained her independence while expanding her influence.

Most of Madonna’s entertainment interests have been owned and operated by her own companies. She is the owner of Boy Toy Inc. (publishing), Siren films, and Slutco Inc. (video), and in 1992 formed the recording and management company Maverick Inc., a joint venture with Warner Brothers Records. Her Maverick deal guaranteed her a base salary of $8 million a year plus a share of the profits generated by other Maverick artists. Despite the radio success of ‘Justify My Love’ in 1990, the sexual content of both the song's lyrics and video saw the song embargoed by network executives at MTV. In response, Madonna's record company decided to sell the video as the world’s first ever "video single”. The video sold over 400,000 copies, and the CD single went on to sell over one million. In late 2005, her entire catalogue became available for the first time on iTunes after direct and tough negotiations with Apple.

Dimension 5 – Continuous Renewal
The fifth element to Madonna’s success has been her ability to renew her popularity again and again. Within a year of the commercial flop of her American Life album she embarked on her ‘Re-Invention World Tour’, during which she played fifty-six dates across the world. The tour became the world’s highest-grossing tour of 2004, earning more than €100 million. And compare her abilities in re-invention to many ‘one-hit-wonders’ in the music industry, or to performers such as the Rolling Stones who have enjoyed long periods of success, but whose fan-base has aged or remained largely unchanged.

The frequent reinvention of Madonna’s style and sound has reflected an acute awareness of changing styles, social norms and attitudes in a fast speed industry. From her punk-pop look of the early 1980s, her ever growing fan base has witnessed multiple reincarnations. These have included her glam-rock look of the late 1980s, a Marilyn Monroe retro look, her soft-core porn image of the early 1990s, her high-fashion look of the mid 1990s, a spiritual image that accompanied motherhood in the late 1990s, and her disco look associated with the release of Confessions on a Dance Floor. Perhaps not surprisingly she is known as the ‘queen of reinvention’ within industry circles.

Lessons for entrepreneurs
Few would argue that Madonna has incredible music or dancing talent. Her various acting roles have rarely attracted anything but scathing criticism, and her American Life was panned by critics, who described it as an indication that she was "in need of a vacation" from the stress of her career. But despite apparent gaps in her capabilities and the occasional setback, she has been able to reincarnate her career time and time again through the delivery of the five key elements of successful strategy. These five elements are as equally important to any entrepreneur as they are to global pop-stars, and organizations and individuals who fail to take into account all of these dimensions risk being sidelined by more nimble and strategically oriented competitors or colleagues.

Author:Martin Kupp
Head of Practice Group Technology-Based Industries, ESMT Customized Solutions and ESMT Faculty Professional