What You See is What You Get?

I was nostalgic for the younger years the other day when reminiscing with a high school friend and so I thought it would be nice to play one of our favourite albums by Tupac Shakur.  Looking at the album cover while listening to it, I noticed that the album was released years after Tupac’s death. Five years to be exact. I know that it is very public that these new albums are being released because Tupac stored a lot of work away without publishing them. Now that he has died, of course his label wants to cash in his work. That all makes sense except statistics shows that he is releasing more albums than artists who are alive such as Eminem and Pearl Jam.

Regardless of the truth, this is one lucrative marketing scheme is it not? It seems to work in favour of both the record label and Tupac (if he is in fact alive).

In a way this can be seen as “re-inventing” an image. Much like products that want to go under face lifts, Tupac allegedly dying has only made his popularity go up. Why? His fans are still his fans because he continues to crank out new material and it’s a pretty cool story wondering whether or not he is alive.

I like a good marketing campaign with a story behind it. It intrigues me and most of the time make me want to try out the product or service just because I’m that curious. It started with Trix, the cereal when I was younger. I always wanted to witness when that rabbit would finally get away with the cereal and when he would no longer hear, “silly rabbit, Trix are for kids!”

I never knew what happened to the rabbit and why the cereal was discontinued in Canada.

As for Tupac, I really hope he is in a better place. If he came back and told everyone it was just an extensive hoax…I just wouldn’t see him in that light anymore…

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