Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about marketing

courtesy of…

the facts.

Nine series

Every winner has achieved a number 1

29 number-one singles

200,000 auditionees

Peak audience of 19.7 million UK viewers (a 63.2% audience share)

15 million votes cast in series 7

the return.

A phenomenal amount of this…

£100m advertising income per series

£250,000 for a 30 sec spot

90 ads across a weekend

Talk Talk sponsorship of £500,000

£1.5million from phone lines

X-Factor live generated £15million

Simon Cowell is worth £200million

So how does it generate such success for:

Participants?

Stakeholders?

Owners?

the lessons.

A experience you can buy.X-Factor creates a complete brand experience to buy into, but importantly it creates many ways to buy that experience.

X-factor removes money from people through voting, through downloading tunes, through live performances, follow on tours, apps, memorabilia…

All of these things enable fans to indulge their excitement as much as they want in increasing both frequency and weight of purchase.

#1

...Contrast this with Red Bull. Fantastic idea to buy into & great experience, but little to actually buy.

Totally interactive relationship.

#2

It enables its fans to have a continuous and on-going dialogue with the brand.

Whether it is celebrity tweeting, weekly gossip in the press, the show, the follow-up show and the follow-up follow-up show….

In this way the ‘ACT’ scores of brand desire are constantly supported.

And it works both ways,

The producers use instant feedback through social media to make choices about the show. Weekly feedback through asking and listening is used to fine tune the acts.

Live on-going product research testing with real time feedback!

It’s human.

#3

The show is brilliant at leveraging emotion to create desire.

From the strong use of the contestants back story, to the the ‘real’ emotional’ reaction of the judges…

…everything is designed to evoke a feeling.

Contrast that with The Voice., where after the initial buzz of blind auditions, the lack of connection beyond the singing lacked engagement for audiences.

At its simplest, a brand is a product with a personality, true for entertainment through to toilet roll.

A bit of something for everyone.X- factor uses segmentation to create a great portfolio.

Enables you to find your favourites within the range. There is always an SKU for…

ScousersScottish #4Watch the vote split when they are ‘over-represented’ in an area… Melanie Masson: one too many big female voices?Kye Sones: one to many cool blokes?District 3 & Union J bottom two in alternate weeks...

This is also true for all good portfolios whether deos, clothing, shower gels. A great range covers as much of the market as it can without duplication...Simple & commercial.

Great brands offer an idea to buy into and a product to actually buy.

Mums Teenage girlsIrish

Larger ladies The Welsh

Strong product at the heart.Like any brand it needs strong delivery at the heart. For X-factor this is the singers

Just look at what happened last year when the quality dropped.

This year teams of scouts were employed in order to invite great people to apply.

Over a third of boot camp were invited.

#5

Success Sells Itself.X-factor uses its privileged position to sell itself at every point. It leverages its unique status as the only mainstream music showcase on TV to attract some of the biggest bands in the World. They then use the platform to showcase their own range of ‘world class talent’.

This reinforces perceptions of X-factor successes as being on par with world class acts.

After all, brands are judged by the company they keep…

They also use every touch point to link you in with the next one available in the x-factor experience…

“Turn over to ITV2 now for X-tra factor”

#6

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