If you are not one of the 16.6 million viewers who tuned in to watch the X Factor last night, here’s a quick round up of events…
The X Factor’s terrible twins, John and Edward, who have been slated since their first audition by Simon Cowell, ended up in the bottom two with Welsh teenager Lucie Jones after the public vote. “Result”, one would have thought. Finally, John and Edward are set to leave the competition and the real singers can be left to do battle.
The judges all followed expected suit – with Danni and Louis both voting to keep their acts, and Cheryl voting for the far superior singer Lucie to stay in the competition, leaving the casting vote to Simon Cowell. A devious look spread across the multi-millionaire’s face, as he voted to keep John and Edward in the competition, forcing a ‘Deadlock’ situation – resulting in the talented Lucie Jones being sent home from the competition.
Being the cynic I am, I couldn’t help but feel that Mr. Cowell’s decision was somewhat calculated, to say the least. Not only does the exit of Lucie Jones from the competition reduce the competition to face his own acts in the competition, but more importantly, has sparked a massive furore in the press, blogs and social media websites.
Xtra Factor presenter @Hollywills tweeted "I'm happy for jedward, at the same time so sad for Lucy, she was a talent!" last night and even our own maestro, Tim Roberts, is talking about last night’s X factor: "unbelievable simon cowell has lost the plot I thought he said x factor was a singing competition!"
Logging on to Facebook – similar status updates a plenty – with more that half of those shown on the live news feed being about last night’s X Factor.
Furthermore, as I write this post, Jedward (the crudely coined media abbreviation for the horror of an act that is John and Edward) is number two in Twitter’s trending topics list.
The marketer in me can’t help but be impressed. One small decision has sparked thousands of pounds worth of PR coverage and got everybody, or nearly everybody, talking about the show.
Why should Simon Cowell spend any money advertising and promoting the X Factor when the media and public are doing a great job for him? Whether the outcome of such an amount of public debate and discussion will be more votes for the better singers remaining in the competition (your favourite needs your vote) or more votes for John and Edward (to annoy Simon Cowell and maybe even make them win the thing) one thing is certain – Cowell will be laughing all the way to the bank.
Love him, hate him or just want him to be less supercilious, one cannot but admire the genius of the man: The press are talking about it, the viewers are tweeting about it, all there is left for Mr Cowell to do is sit back and count the money rolling in…
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