Marketing the way the internet works - or why I hate OT
During the 30 Day Challenge, Ed Dale was fond of comparing internet marketing to American Idol. The theory is simply that the aim of American Idol is to sell the audience the record that they want to buy and to do that the audience votes each week to knock one contestant out.
This whole idea originated - I believe - in Spain with Operacion Triunfo some 6 years ago or so, and at least one singer from that first series went on to great things. Although he didn’t win, David Bisbal won at least one Grammy a few years ago.
However, it is interesting to watch both American Idol on UK television and Operacion on Spanish TV at the moment. While American Idol is nice and slick and lasts a maximum of 90 minutes, Operacion Triunfo is a bloated monster. To continue the internet marketing analogy, if American Idol is marketing the way Ed Dale tells us in the 30 Day Challenge, Operacion Triunfo is one of the spammiest sites going, with poor content and popups all over the place.
While it started on TVE, it moved to Telecinco for maybe its third season, but Telecinco is such a poor TV station that I’m not even going to link to its website. NO!
In fact Operacion Triunfo is so bad I can barely force myself to stay up and watch it with liquid relaxant in hand. Here is why I hate Operacion Triunfo:
1. Everything on Telecinco runs late and that drives me mental. I’m not talking a few minutes, I’m talking 20 minutes minimum, often more, and no explanation, no apology and no update on their EPG.
2. There are so many adverts it just isn’t true. Between the last program starting and OT starting there are 20 minutes of ads. Then it starts with the intro for 2 or 3 minutes. And then we have… 20 minutes of ads. At this point the will to continue living starts to escape.
3. All the singers do their bit, with numerous ad breaks in between. And at the end we hear the judges… but by this time I can’t even remember who sang what - and neither do I care. American Idol has it right, sing, criticism, next…
4. I’ve long advocated that OT should theme the songs, so you can compare the different contestants better. On American Idol I was pleased to find they do that. On OT you can have an English language rock song against some crappy fusion flamenco - how do you compare that?
5. On OT the judges and the contestants all have a say in who gets knocked out, as well as the audience. That isn’t marketing like Ed Dale says, let the audience decide what they want.
6. The main program is 3 hours, which is just too long! After that it continues with the contestants being interviewed, answering text messages, etc.
OT needs to adapt, it has remained pretty much the same since that first series, which was massively popular in Spain. However, audiences have declined each year, the contestants get worse and worse and the adverts seem to go on longer and longer.
You think I want to watch it? A definite thumbs down.
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