Rihanna's Super Bowl Halftime Show

Whether you’re a fan of American football or not, it’s pretty hard to escape the Superbowl. Dominating the news agenda on both sides of the Atlantic, a core focus is always the halftime show.

And this year, as ever, it didn’t fail to entertain.

With Rihanna performing her first live concert in seven years, there was already a lot of clamour about this, but it was amplified significantly by the singer herself who caused a stir by announcing her second pregnancy as part of the show.

It wasn‘t just the personal news that got people’s attention though, with Rihanna employing some clever marketing savvy by promoting her makeup line mid-performance. With the crowd roaring, the knock on effect saw searches for Fenty, the makeup line in question, increase by 883%. With its massive audience, the Super Bowl has long been held up as the pinnacle of advertising and wider marketing, with TV ad spaces being sold for eye watering sums – so who can blame Rihanna for plugging her own brand?

Not only does Rihanna know how to put on a show, but her marketing skills are phenomenal, and her use of social media impeccable. Posting on her beauty account several days beforehand with a video based around the Super Bowl, the video received more than 13 million views and 1.7 million likes. In the words of the superstar herself, "All I see is signs. All I see is dolla signs." Managing to swerve any advertisement costs by putting on a show to remember,  would Rihanna rather be known as a singer and song-writer, or a mother and marketer? I think both work extremely well for Ri-Ri. 

Cutting through with your marketing is challenging, but when you’re given the biggest platform from which to do it, Rihanna took the opportunity with open arms, creating quite the popularity show the next day. My social feeds in the following days were basically Ri-Ri central, and I imagine that was the case for most people (or certainly the people likely to buy her makeup).

The Super Bowl crowd itself isn’t that huge, with 68,000 people in attendance, but the wider audience is colossal – and Rihanna took full advantage to maximise her appeal. So, all I can say is well done Ri-Ri.

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