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.