American Idol Daily: King Cook
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The first day of ‘Idol’ champion David Cook‘s post-show career began with a very positive sign: His album debuted in the top position on the iTunes top albums chart — sweeping aside not just his Season 7 opponent David Archuleta but also the formidable marketplace powers of Taylor Swift, the ‘Twilight’ soundtrack, Beyonce, Britney and Nickelback. Idol Nation anxiously awaits the arrival of hard numbers on both Davids’ sales with upcoming charts, but in the meantime this bodes well for a singer who less than a year ago, in the opening days of the top 24, was given less a chance of winning than the guy who worked the backstage coat room. He was the singer whom judge Cowell dismissed out of hand, saying he had zero charisma.
But coming out of nowhere during Season 7, Cook owned the Idoldome as no one has since Season 4’s Carrie Underwood. Often called the smartest of contestants, Cook showed the rare ability to learn as he went along, to shape himself for the competition and to consistently turn in the show-stopping, history-making performances that bond ‘Idol’ audiences with their performers forever, building a fan base that stretched from a hard-core cougar following to a tween movement that at times rivaled that of the Chosen One himself, David Archuleta. And now, he belongs to the world.
Best of luck to the boy from Tulsa. The rest of the day’s ‘Idol’ news is after the jump.
While David Cook uncorks the bubbly, there must be some long faces tonight around the executive suites of the Ford Motor Co. — and not just because of the looming shadow of bankruptcy hanging over the car maker. No, far more consequential to Idol Nation are the results of a study by Martin Lindstrom just published in AdAge. A practitioner of neuro-marketing, the scientific study of how brain waves that react to advertising, Lindstrom used ‘Idol’ as the platform on which to stage a test of his theory that in the modern media world, where consumers are bombarded with marketing messages, the brain finds ways to shut out many television sponsorships to defend itself from being overwhelmed and having no room left for individual thought.
In the study, 2,000 people were shown a sequence of ‘Idol’ clips, and then brain scans were used to see how well each recalled the involvement of ‘Idol’s’ three major sponsors: Coke, Cingular (now AT&T) and Ford. ‘Idol’ was selected because of the high level of integration of the products into the fabric of the show. For Coke and Cingular, Lindstrom found, the level of recall was fairly high, with red-Coke branded elements of the show nestling deep in the minds of the test subjects. For Ford, however, the news was not quite so good:
Unlike Coca-Cola and Cingular, the brand decreased its equity. In fact, the brand equity Ford had before the study fell consistently throughout the show and ended up negative after the show. In layman’s terms, the brand was deleted from the brain. We were all stunned to discover that. Was it really true that a brand could erase itself if placed in the wrong context? Whereas Coca-Cola and Cingular had created reasons for their existence, Ford had struggled to find a solid and justifiable role. What we learned was that if a brand is part of a story line, our brains will accept the role of the brand and remember its presence. However, if a brand and its role don’t support the story line, the opposite will happen: Our brains will simply erase it. That’s the way we survive and keep from ending up like zombies, considering the average of 2,000 brand messages we are exposed to every day.
I can’t be the only who gets chills remembering the glories of the ‘Tainted Love’ video, can I?
-- Some good news to lighten the recent tragic days of Jennifer Hudson. Her debut album was certified gold after just five weeks on the charts.
-- ‘Idol’ Overlord Simon Fuller and departed Ringmaster Nigel Lythgoe have announced their latest prime-time effort. Taking their ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ partnership to the next level, the pair announced:
NBC will broadcast ‘Superstar Dancers of the World’ (working title), a breathtaking international dance competition led by executive producers Nigel Lythgoe and Simon Fuller, two of the masterminds behind ‘American Idol’ and ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ and hosted by Michael Flatley (‘Lord of the Dance’). For broadcast in early 2009, the unique series will pit the masters of various dance genres from eight countries against each other. Equal parts sporting event, rock concert and artistic exhibition, ‘Superstar Dancers of the World’ is poised to become one the greatest spectacles of dance performance ever seen on television.
The citizens of the Idoldome miss Nigel already but are looking forward to his latest spectacular.
-- The Philippines seem the place to be right now for the children of the Season 7 diaspora. The Duende from Down Under, Michael Johns, filed an entry to his MySpace blog after playing a show in the land of Mulabay. Apparently, the legend of ‘American Idol’ burns strong in the Philippines. Johns reports his delighted surprise to find himself greeted by his image staring down from billboards and at having large, enthusiastic crowds at his show.
He also reports on his latest activities, and he seems to be wasting no time moving forward with his post-’Idol’ career. He writes:
I want to say thank you for all the early buzz you have shown me about Another Christmas. It is a song i never intended releasing. It was written for my family a couple of years ago as a presant. However when i showed it to a few people recently they flipped out and said people have to hear this. I then went to my friend Nancy O’Dell and told her i wanted to donate all proceeds to charity. I asked her if i could make her main charity’s ALS and the Red Cross the recipients. It will be available Dec 9th on Itunes everywhere. My David Foster and Friends is out on DVD as Nov 11th. It is such a great concert and a great Christmas presant too haha. The Documentary i help score Dont Look Down about Shaun White is out on ESPN Jan 2nd with the DVD coming out a week later.
There has been no official announcement of the album, but rumor has it that it will be a Johns-guided project along the lines of how Elliott Yamin brought his own work to market (and made a fortune when it took off).
-- Season 3 champion Ruben Studdard (backed by Frenchie Davis and Trenyce Cobbins) is making his stage debut in Atlanta, starring in a 30th anniversary revival of the Fats Waller tribute musical ‘Ain’t Misbehaving.’ Studdard told the Atlanta Journal Constitution about recording the production’s cast album: “I haven’t had to work that hard since I was in college... It was a challenge.”
57 days to Season 8!
-- Richard Rushfield