Skip to main content
Part of complete coverage on

Inside Beyonce's business empire: How she became a global brand

By Catriona Davies, CNN
May 8, 2013 -- Updated 1324 GMT (2124 HKT)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Beyonce has built a global brand around being one of the biggest names in pop
  • She has made her name in fashion, beauty products, film and advertising
  • She remains closely involved in all the brands she endorses

Leading Women connects you to extraordinary women of our time -- remarkable professionals who have made it to the top in all areas of business, the arts, sport, culture, science and more.

(CNN) -- With 17 Grammy awards, $75 million in world record sales and a fourth world tour underway, Beyonce is one of the world's biggest names in show business.

From performances at this year's Superbowl to the presidential inauguration, few celebrities have the success, drive and international cachet of the high profile soulstress.

But she doesn't just dominate the music charts and the stage ... Beyonce is a global brand and works hard to keep it that way.

How Beyonce boosts her brand
Oprah: Being a brand is difficult
The baroness and the jazz musician
Sandberg: Women must toughen up

Her name appears everywhere from fashion labels to fragrance bottles and Pepsi commercials. On the heels of her own HBO documentary 'Life Is But A Dream', she and husband Jay-Z were also named the pop music industry's first billionaire couple.

Watch: How Beyonce became businesswoman

Forbes also ranked Beyonce as the 32nd most powerful woman in the world last year, estimating her earnings at $40 million, a figure likely to grow as she reaps the rewards from her Mrs Carter Show World Tour and lucrative H&M campaign.

Through a carefully-managed image, the 31-year-old star shows she can do it all by portraying herself as a sexy performer, an astute businesswoman, a dutiful wife and loving mother and a girl-next-door from Texas.

"Beyonce inspires others to dream because she is always reminding us that she was just a young girl from Houston, Texas, who had a dream to be a performer, and look at her now," says Cori Murray, entertainment editor of Essence Magazine.

"She had a dream, she envisioned it. Hard work, determination, and this is the result," sums up Gail Mitchell, senior editor at Billboard Magazine.

Family ties

The daughter of a hairdresser and an IBM marketing executive, Beyonce took to the stage early. She began performing with a girl band -- later known as Destiny's Child - at the age of eight, managed by her father Matthew Knowles and his marketing expertise.

Beyonce's father represented Destiny's Child, including Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams and Beyonce, as their manager. He remained Beyonce's manager until 2011.
FRANK MICELOTTA/GETTY IMAGES/FILE

It took some years before Destiny's Child made their major label breakthrough by signing with Columbia Records in 1999 with the album "The Writing's On The Wall" and two number one singles "Bills, Bills, Bills" and "Say My Name."

She has become the poster child in terms of her brand being so well recognized.
June Ambrose, fashion stylist

Matthew Knowles left his job at IBM and remained Beyonce's manager into her solo career -- which began in 2003 with her album "Dangerously In Love" -- until 2011 when the pair parted ways.

Watch: Beyonce's father says he's 'proud'

"It was hard for me to let her go -- it was hard for both of us to let each other go," her father later told The Sun newspaper. "This was not a normal ending of a business agreement. This was a dad and a daughter and it was incredibly painful and it had some difficulties."

Aside from her music, she has mastered the art of celebrity endorsements over the years by striking lucrative deals with Pepsi and L'Oreal and launching fragrances with Tommy Hilfiger.

Savvy sponsorship deals

Sealing a $50 million multi-year deal with Pepsi in December, the partnership includes commercials and print ads as well as a fund to support the singer's chosen creative projects. Far from featuring old tunes as many ads do, Beyonce's latest Pepsi commercial previews a new song "Grown Woman," which will feature on her forthcoming album.

Beyonce Knowles, Britney Spears and Pink drink Pepsi during the making of the soft drink music commercial "Pepsi Gladiators" in Rome on September 22, 2003 in Italy.
JOHN GICHIGI/GETTY IMAGES FOR PEPSI/FILE

"Beyonce's influence in pop culture [is] not just in the music industry, but also in the beauty industry and in fashion," says fashion stylist June Ambrose. "She has become the poster child in terms of her brand being so well recognized."

Read: Beyonce takes to Super Bowl stage

The singer and her mother Tina Knowles run a fashion label House of Dereon, named after the star's seamstress grandmother.

She stays involved at every stage of her campaigns, giving her control over her own brand.

This is not a woman who just lends her name to it and then she is off to her yacht.
Cori Murray, entertainment editor of Essence Magazine

"This is not a woman who just lends her name to it and then she is off to her yacht," says Murray of Essence Magazine.

The control extends to her own image. In her current world tour, she refused to accredit press photographers and banned all but authorized pictures from her own entertainment company, according to several media reports.

Career evolution

Beyonce is executive producer of her own HBO documentary "Life Is But A Dream" in which she tells her story through her own eyes. The film is filled with home movie clips from her childhood in Houston to her show preparations and her life with Jay-Z and 15-month-old daughter Blue Ivy.

Beyonce Knowles attends the "Dreamgirls" premiere at the Ziegfeld Theatre on December 4, 2006 in New York City.
BRYAN BEDDER/GETTY IMAGES/FILE

From starring in her own documentary to films such as "Dreamgirls," "Cadillac Records" and "The Fighting Temptations," the songstress has kept her name in lights by contributing to movie soundtracks, most recently film director Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby."

Luhrmann wrote in Time Magazine as it named Beyonce among the world's 100 most influential people in 2013: "She and Jay Z are the royal couple of culture, and she is the queen bee.

Power networking

"She's gone beyond being a popular singer, even beyond being a pop-cultural icon ... Right now, she is the heir-apparent diva of the USA, the reigning national voice."

U.S. President Obama greets Beyonce after she sings at the inauguration ceremony in January 2013.
WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES/FILE

From granting Oprah an exclusive OWN interview to supporting President Obama's 2012 re-election campaign, Beyonce's proven her influence extends well beyond her voice by making friends in high places.

In return, Obama called the singer "a role model for his daughters" at an election fundraiser hosted by the power couple and she performed the national anthem at his second inauguration.

While stellar performances and lucrative endorsement deals far from guarantee a star's long term future in the fickle world of entertainment, one thing is for certain --Beyonce has proven she is a survivor.

ADVERTISEMENT
Part of complete coverage on
October 2, 2013 -- Updated 1757 GMT (0157 HKT)
Helen Clark
There isn't much that rattles former New Zealand PM Helen Clark. But how has she become the third most powerful person at the United Nations?
September 27, 2013 -- Updated 1017 GMT (1817 HKT)
Maisah Sobaihi isn't just lifting the veil on the lives of Saudi Arabian women. She's smashing down the door and inviting you in for a cup of tea.
September 17, 2013 -- Updated 1133 GMT (1933 HKT)
Helene Gayle
Helene Gayle must be one of the few chief executives who dreams of a world where her job doesn't exist.
September 23, 2013 -- Updated 1031 GMT (1831 HKT)
Frugal, discreet and boring -- just some of the ways Angela Merkel has been described by peers.
September 13, 2013 -- Updated 1447 GMT (2247 HKT)
Gisele Bundchen tops Forbes' list of richest models, earning $42m last year. But the world's top models aren't earning the cash from the catwalk.
September 5, 2013 -- Updated 1134 GMT (1934 HKT)
Melinda Gates discusses her philanthropy while reflecting on balancing her relationship at work before she wed Bill Gates, then CEO of Microsoft.
September 20, 2013 -- Updated 1538 GMT (2338 HKT)
Conductor Marin Alsop made history in London becoming the first woman to preside over the largest annual event in the classical music calendar -- the Proms.
September 20, 2013 -- Updated 1540 GMT (2340 HKT)
Sarah Parcak, Egyptologist and anthropology professor
In Egypt's northern Delta, Sarah Parcak is on the hunt to unearth ancient settlements, pyramids and tombs lost in the sands of time.
September 20, 2013 -- Updated 1537 GMT (2337 HKT)
Jude Kelly along the south bank of the Thames near London's Southbank Centre.
From wayward Liverpool teen to artistic director of London's Southbank Centre, meet the powerhouse behind British arts, Jude Kelly.
August 20, 2013 -- Updated 1208 GMT (2008 HKT)
Marissa Mayer following Yahoo!'s acquisition of Tumblr in May 2013.
CNN takes a look at the pearls of wisdom shared by some of the world's leading businesswomen on getting to the top -- and staying there.
August 7, 2013 -- Updated 1654 GMT (0054 HKT)
How do you reinvigorate a brand? It's a question that has long marred CEOs, business strategists and some of the world's sharpest marketeers.
July 31, 2013 -- Updated 1525 GMT (2325 HKT)
Angelina Jolie has beaten some of Tinseltown's best-known starlets to top spot in Forbes' annual list of highest-paid actresses. How did she do it?
July 11, 2013 -- Updated 1132 GMT (1932 HKT)
Meet Zhang Xin -- the woman who rose from the faceless assembly line of a Beijing factory to a property magnate richer than Donald Trump.
September 30, 2013 -- Updated 1018 GMT (1818 HKT)
Karen Nyberg onboard the ISS during the interview with CNN.
While traveling in the Earth's orbit over 240 miles up, astronaut Karen Nyberg joined Leading Women anchor Becky Anderson for a live interview .
See the full coverage of CNN's Leading Women -- the show that connects you to extraordinary women who have made it to the top.
ADVERTISEMENT