The Greatness about Operación Triunfo

I am sure that you all know what I am talking about when I say Operación Triunfo. I am a great fan of this talent show. Not only because I love singing and music in general, but also because it is a very "human program" from my point of view. Maybe some of you don´t follow the program. However, I can assure you that almost everyone in this country knows about the existence of this singing contest.

My intention with this post is to explain how well has the Operación Triunfo creators done the STP (Segmentation, Target and Positioning) marketing process to achieve so much recognition. Even though there are much more talent shows in the counry but any with the same impact in watchers.

---

What is Operación Triunfo?

Operación Triunfo (OT) is a talent show in reality format, created in Spain by Toni Cruz and the brothers Josep María Mainat and Joan Manuel Mainat under his production company Gestmusic, which is part of Endemol. It was broadcasted in more than 50 countries under different names. The space aims to train singers in a musical academy with comprehensive training in singing, dancing, performing skills and body expression; Week after week the contestants demonstrate their abilities as artists in live galas. And every week one of the contestants is expelled until the final, where the winner and the singers who reach the most relevance would get a record contract. The expulsions take place after the nomination of the contestants. In the following gala, the public must vote, and these votes are those who decide who is in the academy.

Spain was the first country where Operación Triunfo was issued. In October of the year 2001, the first program of Operación Triunfo 2001 was broadcast on the Spanish public broadcaster of TVE. After 15 years without Operación Triunfo, TVE and Gestmusic returned to bet on this format. Operation Triunfo 2017 had a spectacular success, very similar to OT 2001. After the success of the last edition, the chain decided to renew and do another edition. Operation Triunfo 2018 began on September 19. After expanding to several countries, only TVE maintains the format. In Spain, there have been important musical tours with the participants at the end of each edition.

---

Reasons for the success of OT

Identification of the target audience

The first great success of this talent show has been to identify its target audience perfectly. The program has turned to the digital terrain to find its most youthful and active audience. The result has been extraordinary. A consistent and faithful audience on the network, who had no qualms about moving to the television when he played gala on 1. However, without renouncing the more traditional audience (broadcasting the Wendnesday galas on television).

The reflection of an authentic youth

We live in the era of immediacy, young people today follow a multitude of youtubers or instagramers who create content of their day to day. The new generations do not differ from the previous ones in the continued need to look for references in which to feel reflected and in this type of content creators can find something that lately did not appear on television: authenticity. And that authenticity is precisely what characterizes to perfection the casting of participants of this edition of Operación Triunfo. A group of young people with whom the rest of young people can identify themselves, to be reflected not only in their virtues but also in their defects, with talent, fears, worries, and even rarities. A group of young people who could perfectly be their classmates, their summer friends, or those boys and girls with whom they lived in a camp and with whom they can identify without any type of effort. And naturally, all have experienced a first love, the frustration and pressure of exams, the support of your classmates and the feeling of living a friendship forever.

Weight in social networks

Precisely to connect with that audience, the seduction space has been social networks. That's where Operación Triunfo has managed to generate that tremendous community of users, creating the perfect engagement with its audience. A connection that has made the user protagonist of the day to day of the academy, with constant interactions in the networks, questions, comments ... Absolute success!

Channel 24-hours on YouTube

To nurture its digital followers, the bet of the program has been to broadcast, from the video platform par excellence, its direct newspaper with everything that happened in the academy (moments, rehearsals, meals, visits ...). An asset that has served so that from the chat of the platform itself, as from other social networks, the debate remains alive and the impact of the program was growing at the social level. The visual contents are still in full swing.

It is as important to feel something as being able to share it

Thanks to the free and 24-hour coverage on a platform as accessible as YouTube, these sensations are easily shared on social networks whether in the form of meme, GIF or short video. And here is the magic of the immediacy that this generation needs and finds in OT, which has made it possible to be Trending Topic as important as making a good number of shares, arriving to convert moments of -a priori- little audience (like Saturdays after lunch or Tuesdays at noon), in a new type - and until now unknown - of Prime Time.

Daily Trending Topic on Twitter

Although Twitter may not cross its best moment as a platform, the truth is that Operación Triunfo has woken up its entire audience in this medium, getting the moment of the program to stay alive with the daily hashtag #OTdirect and propitiating that the effect fan self-generate and spread freely. In fact, that good work has kept trending topic, even when the program had ended, and this community keeps growing.

Chat with Shootr

Shootr is the Spanish chat app that has used Operación Triunfo to give voice to its audience during the galas and chats, conduct their official surveys, or move the questions of their audience to the contestants. That is to say, a channel that has provided more instruments to all that social machinery to further consolidate its audience. It all adds up.

And that without leaving aside other social networks.

Offline contestants

Incommunicate the contestants of everything that happened abroad was not new. But letting them from within could publish content on Instagram if it was. This has been the only way for the contestant to transmit his messages to fans, friends, family, etc. A strategy that served to generate more content, more interactions and, with it, more food for the debate outside. Smart idea with a fantastic result. In short, that we have swallowed the whole edition of Operación triunfo is not something casual. And a good part of that success has undoubtedly had social networks. A channel that we should not forget if we want to succeed with our business.

No, OT has not only triumphed by its reality side

There is no denying that the 24-hour follow-up of a group of participants is essential in the formula for success, but the strength of the music in this equation cannot be ignored, as well as the academic format in which the viewer can see their favorite contestants improve week by week, day by day and -and depending on the level of "hook" of each of the fans of the program-until minute by minute. And again in this the casting performed again, a group of people with musical concerns, who make their own versions of successful themes (or not). Right, and as we mentioned before, what many young people follow in their YouTube channels or favorite Instagram accounts. In this edition of OT there is room for everyone, from the most current pop fans to the most indie, everyone can find who to identify with.

Passion

And so much guilt of this contagious passion is of the students as of the teachers' cadre, with a passion that is noticeable and contagious. It is enough to see how every Tuesday thousands of people make the performances of the previous day the most watched on YouTube, how the musical culture classes convey a total absence of prejudices against music or how the micro-passes bring together tens of thousands of people. people every Thursday and Saturday.

Results 2017

OT may not have become a TOTAL success on television (although it has not stopped growing in traditional audience), but it is clear that the constant presence in the Treding topic of Twitter, performances with more than 2 million views on YouTube, and a live show with peaks of more than 100,000 spectators show that it is not necessary to reach everyone to make your product a success. That reaching a group and hitting it with force is, perhaps, more interesting. The passion of this group of fans will move mountains and make the echo necessary for the conversation to be maintained.

And in addition, all this is reflected in sales: platinum records, songs on lists of the most listened to Spain or the most sold on ITunes or sold out concert tickets.