Big Brands Love Lady Gaga & Her Little Monsters

Lady Gaga's album Born This Way drops today in the States (Amazon is selling it for 99 cents) amidst a frenzy of media attention. From TV appearances, such as the Billboard Awards, Saturday Night Live and American Idol, to opportunistic coverage by media outlets seeking to benefit from the media frenzy, Lady Gaga's album release is well supported.

Yet some of her most interesting current endeavors are commercial tie-ins to major brands that leverage her music but seem to be more about her fans, her fashion exploits and her trend setting status as we've already seen with efforts like her role as Polaroid's Creative Director and her deal with Estee Lauder. Here are a few of the many ways in which Lady Gaga has recently built on her fame to increase her fame and support the success of her latest album with varying levels of musical involvement.

Lady Gaga's ad for Google's Chrome browser, broadcast during her appearance on Saturday Night Live, features the single Edge of Glory but seems more about raising the visibility of the browser as a facilitator for all that social video activity by her fans aka Little Monsters. Apparently this is the ad that started rumors of a Lady Gaga commercial for Google Music Beta which would have made sense except for the lack of a major label deal.

SRCH by Starbucks is a scavenger hunt currently featuring Lady Gaga which is in the early stages and most likely offers clues related to different aspects of Lady Gaga's appeal. They'll also be playing her music in stores including a takeover today of the Starbucks Digital Network.

Nicola Formichetti: Lady Gaga Inspired Styles

A partnership with Gilt Group features Lady Gaga-related fashion events and, in a nice change of pace for a pop superstar, forefronts her stylist, Nicola Formichetti, plus the fashions of Thierry Mugler. The offerings began Friday with both fashion sales and tickets for special experiences.

The GagaVille campaign within Zynga's FarmVille surprised me but makes perfect sense in terms of creating a fantasy environment in which to sell digital merch. Given that they were streaming unreleased tracks ingame, it's no surprise that Farmville activity got a sudden boost after a period of decline.

Lady Gaga's brief stints as Metro US Guest Editor-in-Chief and V Magazine columnist seem more about her sociocultural status and, perhaps, her love of libraries!

Despite all this social business activity, The Wrap says Lady Gaga's publicist refused their questions because they were writing a "business story" and Gaga's team were focusing on music press. She also told Harper's Bazaar that the music is what she finds meaningful, not the money, which is a smart statement cause, if the music isn't taken seriously, then everything else collapses.

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. Flux Research is his business writing hub and All World Dance is his primary web project.