The guerilla marketing playbook that helped 50 Cent land a record deal & escape adversity.

Here’s the guerilla marketing playbook that helped 50 Cent land a record deal & escape adversity.

Today 50 Cent is a successful businessman.

His ventures range from mining to TV production to Vitaminwater.

But it all got started thanks to his rapping career.

And that got started thanks to what Robert Greene calls “one of the best marketing campaigns in history.”

In 2000, 50 Cent was a rapper from Queens who had achieved mild success.

He had a record deal & was working on his debut album.

But then he got shot. 9 times. With one bullet even going through his face.

Through a miracle (and poor aiming), he survived.

But the record company dropped him to avoid association with violence.

At first, he was crushed.

But then, filled with anger and revenge, he decided to take matters into his own hands and prove himself to the world.

He started releasing mixtapes that, thanks to clever marketing, took over Queens.

Soon, it reached the ears of Eminem, who signed him. The rest is history.

Here is the playbook he used.

👉 Purple cow it

Fifty made sure that his songs are worth talking about so that people share them organically through word of mouth.

As Seth Godin put it in the Purple Cow, great products have marketing built into them.

👉Awareness > money

50 didn’t care about making a couple of dollars from the mixtapes. He wanted awareness. He wanted everyone to hear his music.

But there was a hit on his head. He wasn’t able to handle the distribution.

So he encouraged bootleggers to pirate & spread his music.

👉Ignite a conflict

The key component of purpling his cow was picking a fight & ridiculing the people who were still trying to kill him. + the record label that dropped him.

This wasn’t some online battle about whether you should do lead gen or demand gen.

He had been shot 9 times. His life was still in danger. He was in hiding.

But he kept recording new tunes that humiliated his “enemies” & making sure those got spread.

Conflict, bravery, and ridicule always grab attention. And get the audience to talk.

The “POV marketing/narrative design – so popular in b2b marketing – is also just manufacturing a conflict and taking a stand against something.

👉Ride on coattails

Fifty piggybacked on other artists.

He pirated popular songs. Made parodies of these and recorded new versions with his own lyrics.

This caused even more stir.

That’s why remixes or reaction videos or memes are so popular. You can use a proven hit to advance your own career.

Was the way 50 did it against the law – yeah. But he didn’t care. He was on a mission.

👉Mystery

As his music was spreading, he was still hiding.

This helped him to build even more mystery around him. He didn’t give any concerts. People didn’t know who he was.

Similar to Daft Punk, this caused even more intrigue & word of mouth.

🔥With a little configuration, everyone can use the same playbook, no matter whether you're selling socks or B2B SaaS.

We see the best companies doing it.