Cheryl Cole Is An Easy Brand to Sell – Win a CD

The ultimate girl-next door girl, Cheryl Cole is quite obviously the pop princess of the moment, but how did she got so phenomenal?

As the record business as a whole continue to suffer poor sales, Cheryl Cole’s record label are seeing huge profits in the sexy Girls Aloud singer. So how does she do it?

Firstly, we need to look beyond Cheryl’s extraordinarily high profile, her appearances on tabloid covers, her berth in Girls Aloud, her marriage to football star Ashley Cole, her role as judge on The X Factor, her stint as the face of L’Oreal, and see the clever marketing that lead her to the top of the charts.

The label behind Cheryl Cole, Fascination Records made use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to promote their artist, aswell as providing incentives to fans to purchase Cheryl’s music across the online retailers. For example, Amazon were given 200 signed albums to sell, HMV had personalised calendars and Play.com offered a shopping trip to meet Cheryl.

“We had to make sure we were catering for every fan out there. Every outlet felt involved and excited about the release – no one was left out. There is less money to spend these days and you have to be more creative with fewer resources,” said Fascination manager, Peter Loraine.

And the fact Cole is watched by 14 million people weekly on The X Factor, only helped to ensure her single became the fastest selling single of the year, and secured her spot at number one with both her single, AND her album.

Aside from the profile and fame, there is another aspect that made Cole’s marketing that much easier; her personality. She boasts a quality that has won over so many of the nation’s hearts and made her so likeable; empathy.

You see it each time she bursts into tears on The X Factor, prompting the sense that she feels each contestant’s nerves.”I have always been like that. It’s not nice to watch someone squirming. You want to prevent people from suffering,” she has said in an interview. It’s these attributes which create a star.

PR expert Mark Borkowski said: “You have to have the personality. Crucially it’s authenticity. She’s real, she’s vulnerable, she was treated appallingly by her husband, and there’s an honesty that her fans like while everyone around her is trying to be something else. You can dress and style her any way you like, but she is who she is, the ultimate north-east girl next door.“

What do you like about Cheryl Cole? What qualities does she have which make her a massive success? Leave your comments below, the best comment gets Cheryl Cole’s latest album, 3 Words.