Here's how marketing can make you millions in a year - if you have the right ingredients.
You'd have to be locked in a padded cell to not be aware of this week's visit by One Direction. If you have teenage daughters you have probably been driving screaming kids around town. One Direction is the youthful quintet that has taken the pop world by storm - and is as artificial as a plastic chook.
Boy bands have been stirring hormones since the Osmonds and Jackson 5, but the geography-hysteria-time equation of this group marks a new communication record.
It starts with the marketing genius. Simon Cowell is known as the nasty judge, in Britain and America, on X Factor, American Idol, Britain's Got Talent and other contests. He sits at the pinnacle where he can watch all the new talent and, like some god, pick the ones he likes.
So he scrutinised the countless contestants going through the talent mill, ticking off five boys for voice, energy, and cuteness. In reverse order, come to think of it. He then contracted them to Syco, the record label he partners with Sony. He brought in big-time songwriters like American Idol 2002 winner Kelly Clarkson and Savan Kotecha - who works as A&R for Syco. Beginning to see the pattern?
Having created the product, the next job was starting the fire. They hired London ad agency Archibald Ingall Stretton, who used social sites to create a "transmedia adventure" that would excite fans.
They invented a super-dedicated fan called 1DCyberpunk who stole the band's laptop and would only give it back if fans proved they were as fanatical supporters as she was. In two months, the web site attracted 200,000 followers and ran 20 challenges; started 12 Twitter trends and played more than 2.5 million YouTube views.
The challenges included dressing up as 1DCyberpunk, copying her hairstyle, creating dolls of the One Direction boys, answering quizzes and riddles. Challenge winners got invited to an online album-listening party.
Agency creative director Richard Coggin said, "Syco had a lot of great content -- videos, merchandise, singles, signed photos, radio and TV appearances - and our brief was to glue it all together and engage the fans on a daily basis."
His team worked around the clock to reach their global audience. It paid off, when the debut single What Makes You Beautiful was released on September 11, 2011 - just seven months ago! - and went straight to the top of the UK singles chart. Two and a half months later their debut album Up All Night shot up the charts not just in the UK but also Australia, Canada, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand and Sweden, reaching the top ten in twenty countries.
The band has been involved in the marketing process - they are closer to their fans' demographics than anyone. During the quest, each dedicated three to five hours a week to creating videos, thanking fans for joining them. Their Twitter tag has three million followers.
The girls of America were by now salivating for their social media heroes. What Makes You Beautiful was released on February 14 (Valentine's Day - subtle, eh?) and went straight to No 1. Which makes them the first UK group to debut at number one with their first album.
Just two months later they are in Australia with a seething mass of teens following their every move. Mind you there's not much their mums can click their tongues at, remembering The Beatles hysteria - or even the screams that used to follow our now-respectable Minister for Education.
ray@ebeatty.com
Blog: themarketeer-raybeatty.blogspot.com
