Well, this will be my last blog of the year, as I run off for the holidays to eat too much, drink too much, and have FAR too much fun (and I wish the same for all of you!).
And as I’m in a festive mood, I’ll be turning my attention to something which this year is very dear to my heart.
I’m talking about Christmas number one.
Over the past few years, the Christmas number one has been won by the victor of the X Factor in a glorious feat of marketing, which gears the entire show up to (virtually) guarantee the winner a top spot in the charts for Christmas.
But maybe not this year.
This year, a grassroots campaign has been started on Facebook to get Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name’ to number one instead, breaking the deadlock that the X Factor has on Christmas number one.
All reports indicate that the race is very close, which makes it very interesting from a marketing point of view.
The X Factor has a huge marketing campaign and budget. The show itself promotes the artists right up to the finals, and by releasing the winner’s single on the Sunday before Christmas number one is announced, they ensure that all sales go towards that goal. The show’s marketing leads right into the marketing of the single.
By comparison, Killing in the Name was released in 1992, and has been promoted mostly by word of mouth and online networking like Facebook and Twitter. Neither the band nor their record label started the campaign, and have only become involved since the song began to sell.
A victory for Rage Against the Machine will be a victory for free marketing over the X Factor’s highly commercialised campaign.
And the real winners in the whole exercise? Sony, the label that represents both artists.
(By the way, I’m rooting for RATM. It’s an awesome song, and it’s about time there was some actual competition for Christmas number one!)


