On Negative Campaigns & Subverting Pop Culture Norms

Amazon against the machine
Photo owned by renaissancechambara (cc)

It’s interesting to note that yesterday, the BBC Radio 1 website had it’s busiest day ever because of The X-Factor vs Rage Against The Machine death-match.

It doesn’t matter where you sit in the battle to the UK number one, the fact that a download-only single beat the traditional X Factor winner’s single to the top of the charts is important. It’s the first time that a download-only single has made number one in the UK charts, I believe. (Fact checkers, am I correct?)

Ironic that a campaign from the Internet from non-traditional buyers of singles was a boon to the BBC, one of the grandest old dames of media and to Sony, the X-Factor and RATM record company big daddy.

And now for the push – with the populations of Facebook and Twitter becoming older than the average single-buying/gross-out-movie-going teen – how many other negatively charged mini-campaigns could fuck with the traditional pop-cultural strongholds of movies, music and television? Like the last rebellions before the mid-life paunch drops and we get a little less ILFy…

In Ireland, the Wispa campaign on Bebo rekindled childhood bubbly memories and managed to jump the divide to revive the bar – a positively positioned campaign without doubt. Negative, ever the more appealing motivation for a nation of begrudgers, is a more tantilising prospect.

Perhaps this should be studied next to Obamamania; the opposition could weedle out a few tips. Whatever is next?

December 21st, 2009 at 8:13 pm • Filed in Business, Culture



Comments

3 Comments to “On Negative Campaigns & Subverting Pop Culture Norms”

  1. Charles Says:
    December 21st, 2009 at 9:02 pm

    It was a spiteful campaign, really not a fan of it.
    Loved that Wispa campaign though, the people involved deserved medals for citizenship.



  2. Paul Says:
    December 21st, 2009 at 9:48 pm

    “It’s the first time that a download-only single has made number one in the UK charts, I believe.”

    I’ve heard this mentioned in a few reports over the last day or so, and was convinced that I’d heard of the first “download-only number 1″ at some point before this!
    According to the BBC, Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy did it in 2006.
    It’s surprising that it hasn’t happened more since then though – I know very few people under 30 who still get their music on physical media.



  3. markvader Says:
    December 22nd, 2009 at 10:41 am

    From listening to the chart show for the first time in years, I think they said it was the first download only christmas number 1.



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