Boards
Christmas chart campaign – an idea
I think what really makes me pause around this Buckley campaign is they’re doing the press’ job for them – if Cowell thinks it’s good enough to give to the X Factor winner, people taking part in a campaign to buy the same song are implicitly agreeing with him and so we’re all on Syco’s side even when affecting to be pitching ourselves against him. The kind of Christmas number one campaign I like is the sort of thing that happened with Malcolm Middleton last year, where it’s someone who under normal circumstances wouldn’t stand a chance of chart action, but a half-serious campaign that started at ground level ended up getting in the papers, being quoted quite short odds for the top spot and on daytime radio.
It’s obviously too late for 2009 but what we should do is, next October or so, choose a fairly inappropriate (but still clean, if you see what I mean) song by someone who’d never get mainstream attention but is digestible enough to play on daytime Radio 1. Then we start a Facebook-led campaign to get people to buy it in Christmas chart week with all the usual “let’s wipe the smirk off Simon Cowell’s face and his high trousers lol” folderol as explanation. Even if we’re tilting at windmills, if we’re going to at least make a nod towards overturning the X Factor applecart let’s do it in a mutually beneficial way that forces our will upon a greater number of people, which is after all the core point.