We Can Learn a Lot from Lena

31 May 2010 by Paul Rutherford

Lena Meyer-Landrut is this year’s Eurovision Song Contest winner.

It may not be a Nobel Prize or an Academy Award, but winning is winning, and this was a job well done. Whatever the field, there are always lessons to be learned from people who excel.

We have a love-hate relationship with the contest in the UK – gathering in houses across the land to bask in its cheesiness, but ever-complaining about the voting system that we believe is stacked against us.

Latvia will always vote for Lithuania and Estonia; Estonia will always vote for Lithuania and Latvia; Lithuania will always vote for Estonia and Latvia; and Cyprus will always, always, always vote for Greece.

Indeed, we have convinced ourselves that it is only possible to win by changing our name to Bosnia-Herzegovina.

On Saturday, Germany disproved that theory, and outflanked the ‘bloc voters’. Indeed, it played the rules to its advantage.

LESSON 1: GET THE BEST TALENT

If you spend too long thinking about the idea of the nation state, it’s possible to end up in an existential conundrum that questions the very nature of ‘belonging’  to anything.

What makes the German entry to Eurovision ‘German’?

Lena sung in English; no surprise there – it is the lingua-franca of pop music.

What’s more interesting is that the song was written by Julie Frost (American) and John Gordon (Danish). Obviously, birthplace is not a factor defining the National characteristic of Eurovision entry.

This isn’t sour grapes (really!). The lesson here is that the German broadcaster responsible for the country’s participation spread the net as wide as possible and selected the best talent for the job.

LESSON 2: A QUALITY PRODUCT

Satellite was the best song of the evening, with a contemporary beat and a memorable hook.

Appropriately, the Germans have a great description of this: they call it ‘an earworm‘.

(Unlike many of the other entries which redefined ‘instantly forgettable’, and in a couple of cases proved that it’s possible to forget a song while you’re actually listening to it.)

Contrary to popular perception, plinky-plonky, binky-bonky songs haven’t succeeded in Eurovision for a long time.

The great European public is actually quite discerning.

The track also avoided the Me-Too trap.

Norway won last year with a manic pixie and his electric violin. This year – surprise, surprise – there were more violins on display than you can see at the Last Night of the Proms.

Me-Too is a relevant strategy if you want to take share from the market leader, but it’s doomed to failure in a first-past-the-post competition.

LESSON 3: MAKE THE RULES WORK FOR YOU

While ‘bloc voting’ can appear to stack the odds against certain nations, there is another aspect of Eurovision qualification which is often overlooked.

The ‘big four’ – France, Germany, Spain and the UK – do not have to go through qualification. The size of their TV audiences means an automatic place in the final.

This year, Germany took full advantage of this, selecting its song over two months ago, and then releasing it almost immediately into various markets well ahead of the competition.

(By comparison the UK entry, chosen on the same night as the Germans, wasn’t released until 24 April).

Satellite got to number one in several territories, including Switzerland and Sweden, which both gave it the famous douze points on the night. In releasing early, and promoting heavily, Germany considerably increased its chances.

From a straw poll of five under-19s Brits in my house on Saturday, four had already heard Satellite. None of them knew any other entry.

People buy what they know.