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The Search for an Upset: Could a Perfect Storm Propel Kris Allen into the Next American Idol? | ymarketing

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If you're a regular Idol Prediction Project reader you know we've been using Search and Social Media data to predict winners on Idol using: iTunes (purchase intent), Facebook (wall posts), Twitter, Digg and Google Search data... all with pretty good accuracy.

On Saturday May 9, 2009, Aubry, one of our blog contributors made this prediction in response to last week's post on who will be the ‘Challenger to Idol favorite Adam': "If Kris Allen exits this week, Adam will pick up a majority of his votes... Adam seems to be the #2 [favorite] of Kris fans and the young girls are Kradams. If however Gokey goes out, Kris will win because Gokey fans out and out dislike Adam." Could Aubry be right?

It's a lot closer than many people believe

On the May 13 results show Ryan Seacrest said, "More than 88 million votes were cast ... and only 1 million votes separated 1st and 2nd." If it's that close on a three-way race, and you assume that dedicated voters make up the majority of the "voting bloc", then it really comes down to: I) a surging Kris tightening the race; II) Danny Gokey's Swing Voters; III) Adam Lambert backlash. (And of course how the two finalists perform; let's not discount that important element!)

Perfect Storm Part I: "Heartless" from Allen tops "One" from Lambert

Kris is surging. Multiple Social Media and Search data sources confirm that fact. And his performance of Kanye West's "Heartless" Tuesday night may be a big factor. Past strong performances by Allen like his version of Falling Slowly "propelled Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's 2-year-old original into the top 30 on iTunes' download chart," proving through purchase behavior that Allen does have market appeal. If only we could see the download figures for "Heartless"... anyone?

Facebook chatter (as measured by terms like ‘kris allen' and ‘adam lambert' appearing in wall posts) show Kris Allen taking a lead over Lambert for the first time this entire year. The chart below also showcases ‘kanye west' and ‘bono' for perspective on just how popular these two finalists have truly become.

Google Search data showed Adam with a nearly insurmountable lead (3X, 5X, 8X in some cases) up until this week, when tremendous acceleration for search terms featuring ‘Kris Allen' showed that lead severely diminished:

In fact, for the first time since we began measuring "breakout searches" on Google, Kris Allen posted MORE fast rising search terms than Adam (6 vs. 5):

USA Today blogs about how "If radio stations decided the American Idol winner this week, Kris Allen would have the edge. An early look at Mediabase numbers shows that Kris' version of Kanye West's Heartless has had 17 spins on 13 stations this week, barely beating out Adam's U2 cover, One, which 16 stations played once each." But if you total the Top 6 spins/stations, Kris has 22/17 to Adam's 18/18. Here's how the Mediabase numbers look for the week:

• 1. Kris Allen, Heartless: 17 spins/13 stations
• 2. Adam Lambert, One: 16 spins/16 stations
• 3. Kris Allen, Apologize: 5 spins/4 stations
• 4. Danny Gokey, You Are So Beautiful: 5 spins/4 stations
• 5. Danny Gokey, Dance Little Sister: 3 spins/3 stations
• 6. Adam Lambert, Cryin': 2 spins/2 stations

Other Indicators show the race tightening up as well. Globally Adam still maintains a lead over Kris, but the overwhelming distance that once separated them has evaporated:

On Digg, Adam's held a 4.5 to 1 advantage in the first week of May. That lead is down to 3-to-2 as of May 15, 2009 but Adam still holds the edge. Adam maintains leads on Twitter, YouTube and in the Blogosphere as well.

Perfect Storm Part II: Gokey Swing Votes

The conventional wisdom "around town", and our blog contributor Aubry, seems to be that Danny Gokey voters are more likely to cast their votes for Kris than they are for Adam. But we attempted to substantiate that hypothesis with Search and Social Media data and found out that's a pretty tough task - especially since the relevant data is just 2-3 days old. A search through the blogosphere (Google blog search) produced a split: a roughly equal number of "Danny Gokey fan" blogs say they'll vote Kris and Adam.

This original question appeared in the USA Today Blog on April 27^th when they speculated that Kris Allen could be a "game changer". "The flamboyant Lambert engenders devotion or distaste, the polar opposite of the more conservative Gokey. Allen's base could shift allegiance to Lambert, who shares his penchant for tinkering with arrangements, or they could align with Gokey, who like Allen serves as a church worship leader. Where those votes go might well determine the outcome."

Perfect Storm Part III: Adam Backlash

USA Today reported on their blog that a backlash may be brewing against Idol's Adam Lambert and cited several factors as to why this could be: 1) Idol producers gave Adam the final performance slot three straight weeks, 2) Simon Cowell's outright prediction of an Adam win on Oprah, and 3) Simon's heavy-handed "instructions" to the Idol audience about not forgetting to vote for the "favorite", Adam. USA Today even characterized the backlash as more of an "anti-judge backlash."

Search data we uncovered seems to underscore this same sentiment. VoteForTheWorst.com has a self-described mission to "support voting for the entertaining contestants who the producers would hate to see win on American Idol"). Sounds like a good place to track negative backlash; so we looked at search engine traffic ending up at the site. Adam Lambert appears as the #2 term, responsible for 87 times more traffic than the first Kris Allen term, which comes in at #273 for that site.

Final "American Idol" finale thoughts

The data shows it's too close to call; not a landslide for Adam as many predicted a few weeks back. In betting terms, Allen is what odds makers would call "a live dog".

Just the beginning?

We searched TweetVolume for clues on the Final Two this week and knew Gokey was in trouble. Then for fun we contrasted Idol with Britain's Got Talent 2009 sensation Susan Boyle. Looking at that data, we couldn't help but wonder when are we going to see the Idol World Cup? Susan Boyle vs. Adam Lambert (or Kris Allen?). Pay-Per-View numbers would be incredible! And TXT volume would probably crash cellular networks worldwide!! Hey Simon, when you use this great idea of ours please remember to make out our royalty checks to "ymarketing, LLC", OK?