KRIS ALLEN WINS AMERICAN IDOL 8! an upset win

the results are in, the dark horse has upset the favorite, KRIS ALLEN wins american ido 8.

our forecast did not get it right!

American Idol 8 final performance - ADAM WINS!

after seeing the finals, it is clear adam lambert will win american idol 8!

kris underperformed and actually did badly in song #2 and song #3. adam on the other hand had flawless and outstanding performances in all 3 songs.

adam's artistry and mastery of showmanship was in full display. he showed class and he is a star. we are glad adam as we had annalyzed it (see posts below) where he showed his soft side. he gave up part of himself and that part he gave he pushed it close to things that kris were good at.

kris for some reason was on the dry side. he was not as hungry to win. he did not leave his comfort zone. he stayed inside it most of the time, venturing out only on the fringe. doing essentially what he has been doing the whole season will not be enough to get switchers from adam's supporters, the undecided and new viewers.

kris got into the finals when he showed courage. in the 3 songs he sang during the finals, he did not show any of it.

Adam Lambert Wins American Idol 8 - a marketing forecast

We are writing about American Idol Season 8 not only because we watch it but also because we wanted to point out the applicability of marketing and marketing principles to almost anything, including a reality tv contest like American Idol.

From a marketing perspective, these are the basic components of American Idol:

Target Audience/Market: American TV viewers
Products/Brands: Adam Lambert and Kris Allen
Product/Brand Attributes (or drivers for preference):

• voice
• performance (showmanship, confidence, choreography, stance, delivery)
• song choice
• looks (attire, hairstyle and make-up)
• likeability

For any of the finalists to win, his goal is at minimum to retain his fan base and to capture new viewers and pull switchers from the other finalist.

We think Allen's strength is among women, tending to be older and more mainstream. Adam on the other hand, is among men, tending to be younger and more adventurous. In a simplistic description, Allen is more pop while Adam is more rock. Those are very different music genre with unique audience profiles. That is one way to explain the point we made in a previous post saying these two finalists cannot be more different from each other.

For Kris Allen to win, he needs to get out of his comfort zone, to be more adventurous and more creative, similar to what he did during the top 3 performance where he took Kanye's song and interpreted it in his own way. It was a very unexpected song choice and certainly a game changing interpretation.

The question on Kris Allen is this - was his top 3 performance a one-off performance? That was his boldest move  throughout the season and it was the only time he did that. In fact, he had more performances where his judgement and strategy failed him.

We think a real danger for Kris is he might over-think it, set the bar too high for himself and he might fall short in delivering it. He is the underdog and the dark horse - he needs to work harder and the greater pressure to overwhelm the audience is his.

For Adam Lambert to win, he needs to give away part of who he is and move that part towards getting closer to who Kris is. He needs to show his soft side, showcasing his vocal skills at a similar level that Kris has. He should NOT do an exact Kris, but he needs to dial down a bit his rock star persona and vocal performance.

Adam's greatest strength is his virtuosity at showmanship, the performance, the over-all package of a singing star. He needs to sing a song that is precisely on that and another song in the same delivery but its content closer to what Kris does well.

There is no problem on this one for Adam. He has done that in all of his performances at the Idol stage. He is the consummate artist and has the best in artistry among all the contestants this season. Not only has he delivered on this consistently across all his performances, he has exceeded it on many performances.

This has not been done on the Idol stage, but I won't be surprised if Adam will change his hair and clothes on each of his performance just to get the effect he wants.

Who will win Season 8? We think Adam will win it.

From a target audience/market perspective, Adam's voters cannot be swayed, we think they are extremely loyal to him. Whatever Kris does will not matter to Adam's supporters. Kris' fans, however we believe, can be swayed by Adam to vote for him. Kris' resurgence came only at the very end which means his support base may not be so strong and could be fleeting.

Kris' only chance to gain voters is not to get switchers from Adam's fan base to vote for him, but to get as many new viewers or those uncommitted to anyone of them to vote for him. That is very tough to do and they might not be enough in numbers to give him the win.

At this late stage of the contest, we have gone beyond voice quality now. Everybody knows both have excellent vocals. The question now is how much brighter is one finalist's star quality over the other. People will vote for artistry now and to that Adam has a lot of while Kris is yet to get his at full power.

We think American voters are voting for artistry and star quality and on that Adam wins over Kris by a mile.

From a marketing perspective, we think Adam Lambert will win American Idol 8.

how kris allen or adam lambert can win american idol 8

we have talked about how the two finalists in this week's american idol season 8 finale can be so different from each other. their uniqueness is so clear that we can call them Brand Kris and Brand Adam. in marketing terms, both have very clearly defined brand equities.

in marketing terms, these are the things kris and adam can do to win on thursday, in no particular order:

• song choice of course is most key. we all know both sing very well and both has his own brand of singing. song choice affects differentiation in a significant way. bad or wrong song choice has also been the biggest failure of most of the contestants.
• song choice we will define as one that will showcase their singing prowess, one that allows them to get their voice and singing style in full display for everyone to appreciate. i hope they will not choose a song that they just " like", or a "favorite" or "i enjoy singing". american idol is a singing competition for crying out loud. the song is the medium or stage by which your singing voice is shown, use it in that way.
• is moving for "even clearer differentiation" the thing to do? that we think is something both kris and adam need to decide on. they ought to know one is very different from the other. you can argue that it is this clear differentiation that has led them to the finals.
• will "more of the same" or "do something different" the thing to do. this is related to the point, above. is staying the course on the "defined" differentiation the thing to do or is some change needed? staying the course means applying the same thing that has worked. is that the way to go?
• is "beating the other on his own game" the thing to do?
• should adam sing one song that dials up the cute factor? kris is more like the matinee idol type, the romantic singer and has good looks. we know that adam can be extremely effective even in songs that kris sing. should adam sing a song that captures the strengths and things that kris has.
• should kris do the same? adam is the rocker and one very good at it. should kris sing a song that can appeal to adam's rocker fans or those who voted for adam because they like his rocker style? can kris effectively deliver here? or will he lose his identity?
• in marketing a clearly defined brand equity works very well. but there is also the fact that because of the clear differentiation between these two singers, we can assume each one has his own loyal or core fans who vote for them week to week. for one to win, one needs to get get switchers from the opponent's core fans.
• we think kris needs the above strategy more strongly than adam does. kris has failed in some weeks during the whole season. that can only mean kris has supporters who at times tend to not vote for him. he needs to gain more voters and the way to do that is to sing a song that will appeal to adam's traditional supporters.
• adam on the other hand can exploit the weakness of kris' core users who tend to switch away from kris from time to time. for adam, singing a song that appeals to kris' fans may get him a lot of switchers from kris' supporters.
• this thing called "star quality" is sometimes ignored. that is very important specially in this kind of contest. contestants with "star quality" can get voes despite having a voice that is not so perfect. we have seen this time and again in american idol where some contestants stay on mostly on the basis of appeal or star quality and those with great voices get booted out because they lack appeal or star quality.

these are tough questions. while to the contestants they may see them simply as doing their thing, looking at them more deeply will reveal these are actually marketing and brand issues that they need to tackle.

Brand Adam Vs. Brand Kris : the American Idol Marketing 101

this is probably one of the best articles written about the two finalists for next week's American Idol finale. not only does it give a good analysis on the two contestants and how they differ, it's a good read on what Brand Equity or Brand Image means in very practical ways.

during talks to students in universities, we would talk about marketing principles in terms of practical and real life experiences of the students. we use stories, analogies and examples from their daily lives to explain what the marketing terms mean. we do it that way as it engages the audience and more importantly, it's very easy to grasp.

this is the kind of brand differentiation that marketers need to achieve for their brands to succeed in the market. it needs to be well-defined, clear, holistic and executionally different as well. while this demonstrates the clarity and power of the Brand Equity, not here is the target audience.

food for thought - are both brand equities running after the same target audience? the differences are very clear between the two that it's easy to conclude they can be going against very different target audience.

can the american idol audience be divided into two group distinct groups. is there a common denominator?

we could not agree more on this analysis. read the article both in terms of the contestants themselves and at the same what Brand Equity or Brand Image means.

kudos to the author!

Does ‘American Idol’ want an artist, or a star?
Adam Lambert pulled out
all the stops, while Kris Allen stayed low-key

By Craig Berman
msnbc.com contributor
updated 10:43 p.m. ET May 14,
2009

Adam Lambert and Kris Allen could not be more different. Their musical styles and strengths don’t mesh and their personalities are opposites. But they share a skill that explains why they’re the two singers competing in the “American Idol” finale.

They listen.

The judges made it very clear what they were looking for in season eight; performers who could take a song and make it their own. While other singers took that advice from time to time, no singers took the message to heart more than Adam and Kris.

As the other finalists fell victim to unfortunate song selections and karaoke performances, it was the originality of Adam and Kris that kept them on the good side of the four judges. No finalist in history has been more memorable week after week than Adam Lambert.

Sometimes the impact of an Adam performance may be felt more for its strangeness than its skill — his version of “Ring of Fire” caused guest mentor Randy Travis to spend the whole night wearing a “what is this guy doing?” expression — but most of the time, he hits the mark. His “Mad World” was missed by DVRs everywhere the week the show ran long, and it was good enough that the omission inspired outrage and not relief.

Adam's big weakness would seem to be that he's the most theatrical contestant in the history of the show, but he's turned that into a strength by embracing it. By going all-in and showcasing the lighting, effects, and costumes, he's turned his comfort with stagecraft and his Broadway-sized voice into his biggest assets. Nobody loves the spotlight more, and no other contestant has looked as comfortable standing in it.

Instead, his weakness is that he's the most polarizing "Idol" figure in recent memory. He has fans who will defend him with passion, and detractors who would do anything to bring him down.

It's possible that the anti-Adam contingent will watch the finale for the sole purpose of voting against him. But Adam isn’t going to give anyone else much ammunition to hate him. Although when he’s singing he plays the part of the diva, he’s been nothing but respectful as soon as the music ends and always has kind words to say about his fellow contestants.

To win, Adam needs to keep on doing what he’s been doing; take chances, make songs his own, and perform like he’s going for broke. He enters the week with a slight edge, but Kris has been steadily improving and will seize any chance he's given.

Kris is Adam's oppositeWhile Adam is a natural under the bright lights, Kris looks to be the male version of Carrie Underwood, a small-town singer who uses "Idol" to jump into musical stardom. Even after months in Hollywood, Kris still has a country-mouse-in-the-big-city look that has helped endear him to millions of “Idol” voters.

That wouldn’t be enough, however, if he wasn’t also talented. Kris has made every song his own, but in the exact opposite manner of Adam.

Instead of blowing things up to show-business size via lights, smoke, mirrors and costumes, he uses a stool and a guitar or piano to strip down the arrangement and engage with the audience. That makes him less of a spectacle than Adam but easier to listen to, and it has allowed him a number of memorable moments performing less familiar songs. It's always a risk to pick something like "Falling Slowly," which didn't receive a ton of airtime apart from the Oscars, but he was able to make turn that into a compelling performance.

Kris' biggest strength is that it's very easy to see the kind of album he would create and the audience who would buy it. Is there anyone out there who can’t picture him with a hit record that sounds an awful lot like, say, Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours?” It’s easier to give him a sellable label than it is Adam.

Like Adam, Kris has a weakness that can double as a strength. He doesn't come across with that star quality aura, and seems pleased and surprised to have made it this far. That humility is what makes him so likable, but most seasons that factor is less important in the season’s final days. In last year's finals the more likable David Archuleta fell victim to an edgier David Cook.

source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30754468/

american idol season 8 top 36 changed to respect the american psyche

there is a palpable change in the way they are doing season 8 auditions of american idol. and we think this change was done to be more in-synch with american sentiments. american idol, down the top 36 is more upbeat with a significantly higher number of good and positive sequences than negative ones. we are sure there have been as many sad and unhappy scenes like before but the show has chosen to be more on the happy side this season.

we think they did that to be more respectful of american sentiments where there are simply too many bad news all around them with all the job losses and the bad economic news that appear on american tv and press almost on a daily basis.

this is one time when america can use more good news than bad and american idol is being on that side of the page. it's an excellent decision. very well done for american idol.

the importance of understanding the target audience

tv shows like the american idol is very much like products that advertise - they are going after an audience. both need to understand the demographics and psychographics of their intended target audience. the need for an audience demands a need for understanding them.

the difference lie in the flexibility one enjoys or its limits on what it can do to it's product. in a sense, tv shows have a little more flexibility in altering their product than consumer brands. they can reformat, from minor to major like change stars or hosts, change story plots, etc. consumer products do not have that luxury of change flexibility.

tv shows can be very unforgiving too. the tv ratings immediately tell you if you are doing something right or something wrong. consumer companies may not have the same kind of speed in getting feedback.

for reality shows like the american idol, the smart contestant is the one who takes audience demographics and psychoigraphics to heart although in the real world that might be too sophisticated or too complicated for most of the contestants. that function in some ways is being performed by the judges who more often than not not just give comments on the performance itself but also on what the audience think.

david cook's american idol win - a study on demographics and psychographics

david cook won the american idol in a landslide win and an upset given the heaps of praises archileta got from the judges during the previous night. cowell said it - archileta wins the night. but that's not how it happened. and it wasn't just that final night, archileta more often than not got good praises from the judges almost the whole season while cook a few times got bad reviews from the judges.

personally, i think cook won american idol because he was a much more entertaining singer than archileta. while archileta had an excellent voice and was extremely consistent throughout the season, cook had a much more significant entertainment value. archileta i thought was on the verge of being a boring performer. archileta is almost like watching a cd played while cook was a performer who was alive. i also think the voice quality of cook had more character - raspy at some points, powerful in some and endearing and tender when needed. archileta was one-dimensional compared to cook who was more multi-dimensional.

that aside, the article below i think is a great study on what a marketer or advertiser can get out of studying demographics and psychographics of a target market. this was of course unintentional on the part of cook, he was not specifically targeting them, but the available data mentioned in the article is a very compelling study in target marketing consumers with the use of demographics and psychographics. it showed how two very different and unique sets of viewers can swing towards one of two choices.

cook, the brand in this article had a wide appeal but what eventually got him the votes were the older set and archileta lost on the absence of the younger set in the american idol audience. the preferences and needs are very different, including signals that connected the audience and the product.

it's an excellent study of the consumer psyche.

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'Cougars 4 Cook' sign was our first clue
By ERIN CARLSON – 1 hour ago
NEW YORK (AP) — "Cougars 4 Cook."

There it was, on a poster in the "American Idol" audience last week, after David Cook belted Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" in the Key of Emo. And that slogan — not to mention the woman who hoisted it — speaks to the 25-year-old singer's popularity with, ahem, women of a certain age.

Maybe it's his edgy-yet-mainstream appeal, sly grin, sparkling hazel eyes, facial scruff, love for crossword puzzles, love for his mom and brothers. Or perhaps it's the way he broke down in tears after his final performance, a rock-anthem arrangement of "The World I Know," which he rebelliously defended from Simon Cowell's criticism.

Somewhere down the line, the Midwest-raised former bartender became a sex symbol for scores of women who are practically old enough to be his mom. And clearly, they voted.
Linda Sharp, smitten as a schoolgirl, voted 473 times for Cook after Tuesday's final performance show. The 42-year-old married mom used her land-line and cell phone — as well as her three daughters' cell phones — to show support for the singer.

"The biggest thing: He's legal, and that goes a long way," said Sharp, who's from Austin, Texas. "He's 25. That's old enough that we can openly ogle him, and we can drool over him, and it doesn't make us feel like we could be his mother."

The same couldn't be said for 17-going-on-13 David Archuleta, the kid from Murray, Utah, whose booming, mature voice belies a youthful innocence and humility that, at times, bordered on painful to watch. Cook, by stark contrast, was increasingly self-assured as the year wore on.
Sharp writes "Idol" recaps on her blog "Don't Get Me Started," which attracts the soccer-mom set, who've praised the various talents of Cook. After she posted the "Risky Business"-inspired "Guitar Hero" commercial starring Cook, one commenter said: "Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. Need I say more?" Another wrote: "Have I died? Is this heaven? I'll take it!"

Apparently these women weren't just smitten with a younger man, they were motivated, too: In a landslide victory, Cook, from Blue Springs, Mo., beat Archuleta by a margin of 12 million votes out of the record 97.5 million cast by viewers.

"American Idol" had slipped in the overall ratings this season, but Wednesday's finale was seen by 31.7 million people — about a million more than the year before, according to Nielsen data — suggesting the show swiftly gathered momentum after it boiled down to man vs. boy.
And the biggest viewer erosion in season seven was right in Archuleta's voting bloc. Ratings fell 18 percent among women aged 18-34; and 12 percent among teenagers 12-17. Also apparently in Cook's favor: Viewership has risen among people aged 50 and over, and the median age of an "Idol" viewer, once in the mid-30s, is now up to 42.

"I'm exposed to the Jonas Brothers and the `High School Musical' crowd and all of that, but as cute as I might think they are, they do make me feel maternal — not hot," Sharp said. "So watching David Cook, I think that's been a huge appeal for thirty/forty/fiftysomethings that 'We're not dead.' We might drive the soccer minivan, (but) we're just picky about what perks us up."

Apparently, they can be picky about hair, too. Michael Slezak, a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly magazine, said Cook became "almost unstoppable" after getting rid of that unfortunate comb-forward haircut in the middle of the seventh season.

"If someone had told me 14 weeks ago that David Cook would turn out to be this season's sex symbol, I wouldn't have believed it," Slezak said. "He had this hideous mop of hair and he looked a little schlubby and, you know, he was just a very average kind of guy with bad hair ... . Getting that side-part during Dolly Parton week was possibly his best strategic move of the season, even more so than his rearrangement of 'Always Be My Baby.'"

With Cook's makeover came growing confidence on stage — and tears. The grainy-voiced rocker recently wept during a show while his older brother, Adam, who is battling advanced brain cancer, sat in the audience. He cried during his hometown visit and the two-part finale.
"Another reason women really dig him is he's an emotional guy and he's not afraid to show it," Slezak said. "It's hard to resist the appeal of a grown man crying tears of joy and not trying to hide it."

Anne Ward, 50, of New York City, said she impressed by Cook's "brotherly relationship" with Archuleta and the humility he showed when he didn't react to Cowell's acid-tongued commentary. Also: his frontman mystique.

"Here's this guy who sings so great, he crosses genres, and he's vulnerable, but yet, we didn't know a lot about him. And he's sort of soulful when he sings," said Ward, who has downloaded almost all of Cook's "Idol" songs.

Ward, a longtime fan of the show, said Cook "looks like a man, and he acts like a man," and knows how to milk the camera — but not in an overt, smarmy way (think Constantine Maroulis in season four). She was initially wowed by his musical skills, but didn't "feel the sex appeal factor" until his emotional performance of "Music of the Night" during Andrew Lloyd Webber week.

"It's almost like a courtship," Sharp said of gradual allegiance from other contestants to Cook. "It's been like this slow burn, and all of a sudden our internal 16-year-olds got ignited."
The icing on the cake, Sharp said, was Cook's finale duet with ZZ Top — and the "Guitar Hero" commercial aired during the finale, an homage to Tom Cruise's pants-less lip sync to Bob Seger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" in "Risky Business."

"We're the ones that salivated so heavily over Tom Cruise in `Risky Business' that he really slid to superstardom on a trail of our spittle," she said. "So to see David Cook — who we're firmly in love with — put into those two things ... I mean, it was just a gift. It was a present."
Archuleta did the exact same spot with similar choreography that aired later in the telecast, but it lacked the feral energy and intuition that Cook brought to the role. Cook looked like he knew what he was doing — but the would the angelic Archuleta really rock out in his skivvies if his parents left him home alone?

"They're both very talented, but it really boils down to what does it for you: A sexy hot man or Webkinz come to life?" she asked. "Is your cell phone studded with glitter, or do you just have a regular cell phone like I do?"

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iwlT6ScPejtf0sICQ69bAFWmz0AgD90QVNSG1