susan boyle; viral marketing; internet
Susan Boyle; beautiful voice and marketing phenomenon?
Ok so I’m a bit slow on the uptake; I’ve had my head in a project for the last few weeks and am, it seems, the only person to not know who Susan Boyle is. Well now I do and today I became one of the many millions to watch her famous performance on Britain’s Got Talent on You Tube.
Firstly, I want to extend warmest congratulations to her. Her truly beautiful rendition of ‘I dreamed the dream’ moved me to the very core (yes, I cried!). I’m glad she has proved that you don’t have to be visually stunning to be utterly beautiful.
But it did also make me wonder whether I would have been moved quite so deeply had she not been such an ordinary woman. Is it the juxtaposition between her visual ordinariness and her vocal beauty that has catapulted her from an unknown village lass to a worldwide phenomenon? She reported to be possibly the greatest viral video star of all time, with more hits already that Barack Obama’s inaugral speech and Les Miserables are using her name to promote the show - advertising as ‘the show that inspired Susan Boyle’.
It certainly shows the power of the internet for generating attention and the power of the public in determining what is worthy of viewing and passing on. It also shows the power of the public’s emotion, which many brands ignore at their peril, for it is an emotional tidalwave that is carrying Susan Boyle to stardom.
I’ll bet there are brand teams the world over pondering the ‘Susan Boyle Effect’ and wondering how on earth they could tap into it.