KIMU

Artist manager du jour and cultural entrepreneur Troy Carter has announced a partnership with Lady Gaga and photographer Terry Richardson to create a new consumer product, POP Water – due for official debut in early 2013 – coinciding with the release of ARTPOP.

Gaga will feature in the campaign (along with her music, I assume), that will be shot by Richardson, the brand’s creative director.

As someone who has worked on some of the biggest cultural collaborations in soft drinks history (notably Diet Coke by Karl Lagerfeld and Jean Paul Gaultier) and who has had visibility on campaigns such as Mark Ronson’s Olympic campaign for Coca-Cola and Nicki’s campaign for Pepsi, it strikes me as somewhat odd that Troy Carter would go as far as to say that “none of the brands had music in their DNA”.

Pop music has a hugely strong heritage with both Coca-Cola and Pepsi (Madonna, Elton, Britney, Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Jackson and so forth), so it will be interesting to see how intrinsic pop music will actually be to the launch and ongoing consumer engagement for POP, and how the team plans for its marketing to be so vastly different from its competitors.

POP will be marketed as a healthier alternative to sugary soft drinks — an 11.2 oz can will contain 30 calories and 7 grams of sugar. Flavours at launch will include apple, orange, pineapple and grape.