Adele gained fame through social networking rather than having a unique selling point. She conveys the ideologies of supporting the Labour Party and being a role model who achieved success despite a difficult upbringing as a teenage mother living in public housing. While her star persona comes solely from her music, she has used TV performances and appearances to promote her music and supported charities. She conforms to current culture through social media but taking a 5-year break from music to focus on her personal life risked devaluing her star quality by disconnecting from fans.

1. Adele
1. Does the star have a unique selling point?
She doesn’t have a USP however it doesn’t matter because she got famous
through social networking.
If there is anything unique about Adele it is that she is just a singer. She
hasn’t presented on television, or starred in television advertisements.
She has appeared on multiple television shows as ‘herself’ singing, such as
Saturday Night Live, MTV Unplugged and Katy Perry: Part of Me.
If you saw Adele in the street and you didn’t know her, you would just
think she was an average person, she doesn’t really have the ‘pop star’
appeal about her.
2. What ideologies do they convey?
She is a supporter of the Labour Party. Anyone that sees her as an idol
could look up to her and want to support the same political party. Adele
was a teenage mother; she lived in a cramped council flat in Tottenham
and never went to college. These things are what makes Adele an idol, as
it proves that anyone can go from being a ‘nobody to a somebody’. Adele
showed her interest in charities by performing at the London Union
Chapel charity concert by supporting Will Young.
3. How do they convey these ideas outside of their music?
Adele’s only gets her star persona from her music because she is not
involved in any advertisements for brands. She has used television
adverts for her music. She performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
as part of the VH1 Divas event which was to raise money for the Save The
Music Foundation charity.
4. Do they conform to the current cultural idea or go against it?
She is conformed to the current cultural ideal by using the social network
site ‘Twitter’ and she got famous by on the Myspace website in 2006. As
most pop artists do nowadays, they will work with the music marketing
company VEVO in producing an adeleVEVO YouTube channel to
distribute her music.
5. Give an example of something that may have or could devalue their star
quality.
On the 14th of February 2012, she released that she would be taking a 5
year break from her musical life to concentrate more on her personal life
and her relationships. Her fans may feel disconnected from the star
because she is taking a break and now has a relationship to think of. This
shows that she is more bothered about herself than her fans, which is why
they may disapprove of this.

2. Adele