It's neither a secret nor a surprise that performing at the Super Bowl translates to a big increase in album sales. Recent halftime shows have been seen by over 100 million people, which is exposure you can't buy (or, incidentally, get paid for). What is surprising, however, is that Destiny's Child saw almost three times the sales boost as Beyonce.
Of course, Beyonce is Destiny's Child's ringleader and thus probably won't be too upset when she reads that DC sales jumped 630 percent in the wake of the Big Game. But the singer's solo albums were only amplified by 230 percent. Billboard, which reported the album sales increases, aptly notes that the Destiny's Child figure includes sales of "Love Songs," the trio's new album. Though the disc is "new" in name only (it only features one unreleased song, "Nuclear"), the label's plan to use Beyonce's performance to move old product clearly worked.
Curiously, the most popular Destiny's Child song of the week was "Say My Name," which was notably absent from the halftime show. Beyonce's biggest mover was "Halo," which closed her halftime set. The group's song sales jumped over 300 percent, while Beyonce's digital track sales increased 80 percent.
Another possible reason for Beyonce's lower numbers is simple chronology. Fans of Beyonce are likely to have purchased (or illegally downloaded) her latest album, "4," when it was released in 2011. But before "Love Songs," Destiny's Child had not released an album since 2004's "Destiny's Fulfilled," and a number of songs from earlier in their discography were used in the Super Bowl set. Not only may a number of Super Bowl viewers have either been too young or old to be impacted by the DC songs when they were first released, but fans of Beyonce, Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland may have displaced or lost their CDs. In the latter case, the Super Bowl performance was a refresher course which could potentially drive up Destiny's Child sales.
Nielson SoundScan data shows that while a sales bump always comes in the week after a Super Bowl performance, this year's figures are above average. Madonna saw a 165 percent increase in track sales after she performed at the 2012 event. In 2011, the Black Eyed Peas reaped the benefit of a 108 percent increase. The Who trumped all the previously mentioned performers with a 365 percent boost -- but they only increased from 12,000 tracks sold to 59,000 sold, a fraction of the 522,000 records Madonna moved in the week after her performance.
It's worth noting that Nielson's full report on Beyonce and Destiny's Child's sales won't be out until next week. But for now, it looks like their event was a pretty smashing success.
