On November 1st, when the world was just recovering from Halloween and its pumpkins, singer Mariah Carey posted a video on social networks illustrating the weight it can have as the end-of-year celebrations approach. Like every year, the return of All I want for Christmas is you, recognizable in a few notes, marks the launch of Christmas, also from early November. A marketing strategy that the American singer has been applying for more than twenty years, to the delight of social networks… and brands.
“She is the queen of marketing,” explains Marc Jahjah, a professor in the Department of Information and Communication at the University of Nantes. She has a real talent and an intuition for feeling the transformations of an era. »
Nevertheless, All I want for Christmas is you, released in 1994, was not necessarily destined for such success. Inspired by her relationship with Tommy Mottola (21 years her senior), it’s a “little bet” according to Marc Jahjah. “In the 90s, making a Christmas album was for old artists in decline. Until the 2000s, the song made its merry way and would become increasingly in demand at Mariah Carey concerts. In 2003, its use in the film Current love, sung by the young Olivia Olson, will help make the song cult. And the singer will figure out how to reinvent it to make it an essential hit.
An empire of marketing and advertising
From 1997/1998, Mariah Carey will transform her song and, over the years, join other artists to release new versions: more R’N’B, or more pop with Justin Bieber, jazz with Michael Bublé… the shape of his environment, he constantly adapts it to social expectations, his career, his feelings for society… This is his strength, observes Marc Jahjah. She has worked for more than twenty-five years to make her title socially, cognitively, and commercially understandable.” From the first musical notes we know what awaits us. All I want for Christmas is you it has become inseparable from the smell of the fir tree and the lights in the snow.
“It will play with its own mythology, and it will be helped by the media, which needs repetition and reference,” develops Marc Jahjah. Mariah Carey introduces herself, and is presented as the queen of Christmas: associating her with her Christmas allows her to be identified, quoted and recalled a reference that (almost) everyone shares.
Especially since over time Mariah Carey has positioned herself on all fronts, chaining advertising campaigns with McDonald’s or other big brands. According to The Economist, the song would earn the singer an average of $2.6 million annually. As of early December 2021, he has been breaking records ever since All I want for Christmas is you was streamed over five million times a day on Spotify. The proliferation of platforms and social networks has continued to fuel the success of the song, through remix and reuse effects. On TikTok, for example, the flagship song takes place both to talk about Christmas gifts and trips to New York, going through many memes and parodies. “It contributes to audience building” according to Marc Jahjah. And then use All I want for Christmas is youit is the certainty that the reference will be understood by the greatest number, even in several years.
An idealization of American society and its symbols
As Marc Jahjah explains in a long documented thread, “Mariah Carey has become a figurative element of Christmas – in the same way as the Christmas tree, hot chocolate… – which today populates social memory”. Why yes, now, Mariah Carey’s flagship song haunts our social networks like big shopping malls with the holidays approaching – it has become a central element of the Mariah Carey icon. “Her little high note with finger on ear, her dance, red cloak, background of snow and fir trees…” lists Marc Jahjah. Many elements that combine to make the diva the queen of Christmas. All the time ? Not necessarily, according to the researcher. “The song will go through the ages but not Mariah Carey. It is the paradoxical redemption of fame: the songs end up becoming anonymous », he points out.
Especially since Mariah Carey not only produces music, but images: on social networks or in her clips, the star feeds a certain image of the Christmas holidays. “It is a phantasmagorical celebration of American life, of secularized Christianity, of heteronormative life, a celebration of market life…” develops Marc Jahjah. And the mestizo star distils a utopian vision of the United States, where whites and blacks walk hand in hand. “In an America quite shaken by the Trump years, his music contributes to peace” adds the professor-researcher. Supported by the media, mixed and remixed by social networks, would Mariah Carey have been more famous than Jesus Christ during the Christmas holidays? “Maybe there’s Jesus and his assistant, Mariah Carey,” laughs Marc Jahjah. In any case, an assistant who leaves the same song in your head for more than a month.
