Those kids can sing a marketer's tune

My wife and I recently have fallen in line and, every week, i now follow the remaining nine American Idol contestants. We argue over who's getting booted off the show, whether or not Simon is correct in his criticisms and what Paula Abdul is drinking that night.

The kids can sing. No doubt about it. But, they really are a marketers' dream come true. With everything from video games to mobile revenue-generating, from charity drives to commercial tie-in's, from websites against American Idol (http://www.votefortheworst.com/) to their record-breaking website (http://www.americanidol.com/) and their tie-in with Itunes (http://www.itunes.com/), American Idol has really taken the entire operation to the next level.

Figure this: Out of all the major network's, according to a recent Nielson Report, American Idol's website got 32.96% of the market share. That's almost three times the number of the second place finish by Deal or No Deal and Dancing With The Stars got a cool 9.31% of the market share in third place.

American Idol is currently the number one ranked show on television and is making all kinds of strides to capitalize on its current fame. When I watch American Idol, I can:

• Vote on my mobile phone, house phone, or online for my favorites;
• Jump on ITunes and buy both the in studio version of a song or the live on-air version (which, mind you, is always about 2 minutes long);
• Watch all kinds of in-show tie-in's for ITunes, Ford, and Burger King;
• Follow all the action online and even buy gear and tickets for the follow-up Idols Tour (http://www.idolstour.com/);
• And, I can purchase my American Idol video game and compete with friends online.

All-in-all, it's pretty impressive. I was trying to figure out whether you have to be this good at marketing a show like this or are they just really good at marketing this show? The answer is both. According to a Colorado Marketing Association's current speaker on television marketing, I Love Lucy, when it was the number one show in the 1950's reached 45% of the U.S. market. Today, American Idol, while far-and-gone the biggest show on television, only reaches about 5% of the U.S. market.

That means the marketing executives have to embrace all the opportunities that come with advertising and marketing this show in all the various ways that technology will allow. Online contests, tie-in's, and viral marketing all pay serious dividends for the show.

Plus, these are only the directly owned moneymakers. I'm a member of http://www.sportsbook.com/ for the occassional "recreation bet" and I can bet on the winners of American Idol as long as they get their 10% juice.

I'm not complaining though. I'm really not. A year or so back, I complained about a friends chicken burrito because, well it had no chicken on it, and I realized that wasn't my fight to fight. I see American Idol's marketing team as a sort of virtual Iron Chef. They know that right now they're cooking up the best mix of marketing that any television series has done in a long time and they don't necessarily "need" any one company helping them out. They're just simply saying get on for the ride or don't. Either way, somebody will be singing about something at the end of the day. Which is good news for them considering (to the best of my knowledge) that the winner of American Idol has never sold less than 2 million copies of their first cd release after winning the competition. That's no chicken burrito.

Is Dove For Real?

Dove has a campaign called "Campaign For Real Beauty" and it's supposed to help the self-esteem of millions of teenage girls to free them from the restraints of the beauty industry. To let them know: You have real beauty.

That's right. You have real beauty before you buy your $20 shampoo. Before you put on that eye liner, and lipstick, and blush, and foundation, and eye shadow, and lip liner, and anti-shine cream.

You have real beauty and Dove (owned by Unilever) thinks it's about time you knew it.... Of course, the problem some industry experts see here is that Dove (eh, owned by Unilever) is the mass marketer and producer of most of these industry products.

Nonetheless, the campaign has been a searing success so far. Dove has released two very well-done, and sometimes criticized, commercials for their campaign. To really get the feel, you got to take a look....
Dove "Evolution" commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U&NR=1
Dove "Onslaught" commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaH4y6ZjSfE

Those are some pretty heavy commercials. Pow! Right in your face, especially "Onslaught," it's like hey everybody out there is talking to your kids about looking good and we're going to sell the crap out of her if you don't take a stance.

So, there's the tyranny of the situation. The Yin and Yang aren't really panning out on this one. I mean should we mind that Unilever also produces the Axe commercials? I guess we should distinguish between the product branding of both Dove and Axe.

But, here's what we're learning in advertising school about using information systems to get your products point across:

A) It works - more people are increasing the amount of time they spend watching online videos - that includes product commercials. After watching "Onslaught" I actually took myself to ITunes and did one more consumer step: I bought Simian's La Breeze (which just so happens to be the commercials music soundtrack.)
B) It can reach lots of people - As of March 2, 2008, when I just checked www.youtube.com, The "Onslaught" video had rung up 1.3 million views. That's not bad for free press. As for "Evolution," 6,232,000 views and counting! That's just unfair. Spell it: F. R. E. E. advertising
C) You're going to open yourself up to criticism. I also noticed plenty of professional and not-so professional knock off videos which were actually worth seeing as well.

Either way, you decide on this one - let me know. My thoughts are that you can't fault a company for trying to get involved in something "bigger." Whether that's the Internet or the cause they are supporting. Everybody is trying to make something bigger. Using information systems like the Internet, companies, campaigns, television shows are all becoming bigger than real life.