iTunes, Not Facebook, Made Rage Number One

I’ll admit to a certain sense of glee that ‘Killing In The Name Of’ made it to Christmas number 1 in the UK. Forget about the fact that the campaign meant Sony had both the number 1 and number 2 records under contract, it’s not about who made the money. It’s just great to see another saccharine by-the-numbers piece of pop trash knocked off the top spot. Coverage of the chart battle has focused on the power of social networking…but I think it’s the method of content delivery that’s the deciding factor, not the power of a Facebook campaign.

This Kind Of Campaign Isn’t New

Grassroots campaign to skew the results of the music charts, sports shows and the like are nothing original. Going back as far as 1996, there was a powerful email and phone-in campaign to have gay soccer player Justin Fashanu named as BBC’s Sports Personality Of The Year. The campaign had such an impact that the BBC was forced to disqualify any Fashanu votes, and took a lot of criticism for it.

Husband and wife team Jon and Tracy Morter failed to displace the X-Factor winner from number 1 in the charts last year, but their campaign succeeded this time around. The organizational advantages offered by Facebook certainly played a part, but so did the increasing ease of access to music and other content via digital delivery.

It Couldn’t Have Happened Five Years Ago

…or even three years ago. It wasn’t until 2007 that digitally downloaded music was eligible for the charts, without needing a physical release as well. If the current campaign had been tried for Christmas 2006 it would have needed people to go out and buy a copy of ‘Killing In The Name Of’, except that they wouldn’t have been able to find one because it wasn’t on release. You can pretty much guarantee that the impact would have been far less if that had been the case!

So far all the talk about Facebook, there’s only been a couple of years during which a campaign of this type would even have been possible.

The Delivery Is The Deciding Factor

Campaigns of the type that saw Rage Against The Machine hit number one rely on an instant reaction. If someone sees the campaign and can respond immediately, then it has the potential for success. If it relies on someone seeing the campaign and responding later then most people are just going to let it slide.

iTunes was a bigger factor in the success of the campaign for Killing In The Name Of than Facebook. Without the success of iTunes and subsequent digital download alternatives, the Facebook campaign would have had a limited impact at best. But as soon as people can see the campaign and act on the campaign in the space of a few minutes, then the game changes.

‘Killing In The Name Of’ is the Christmas number one in the UK because it’s easy to buy any music track in a couple of minutes. It’s why there were 27 Michael Jackson tracks in the UK charts Top 75 in the immediate aftermath of his death! Digital delivery means immediate response, it means people don’t have to make an effort, and without that option then this kind of campaign wouldn’t have got off the ground.