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Kills And Moon Nail the 'Social Media as PR' Game

By Jenny Rudd

Raising your profile by any means fair or foul isn't a modern concept. This week Natalia Kills and her husband Willy Moon got acres of airtime across all forms of media following Kills' response to X Factor contestant Joe Irvine's performance.

It wasn't really his performance which bothered Kills, rather his attire of a suit and slicked back hair, saying 'I'm disgusted at how much you have copied my husband.' She claimed to feel sick at his lack of creative originality and integrity. Her husband chipped in too, likening Irvine to a creepy Norman Bates style character.

Predictably, this picked at the ever indignant and itchy scab over social media and anger spewed from the self righteous hundreds of thousands on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Kills and Moon were fired and have now jetted off to LA. X Factor ratings doubled overnight, Kills and Moon have received a massive amount of publicity and every man and his dog has looked hurt and shocked at the bullying tirade. MOSH's Head of Media, Camilla Hanson, was interviewed by News Talk ZB, Lorde sent Irvine cupcakes and Ed Sheeran sent him support on Twitter.

.@edsheeran backs #xfactornz contestant Joe Irvine after two judges are sacked for tirade at him. pic.twitter.com/Le6l99SHfr

— BBC Newsbeat (@BBCNewsbeat) March 16, 2015

There have been plenty of accusations of a pre-planned outburst with X Factor judge Melanie Blatt and producers laughing it off, proclaiming the absurdity of such allegations.

Let us not forget this is a television show whose very success depends on drama, outrage, lack of justice, generally good old human tale of overcoming odds and dashed hopes.

It is unlikely that Kills truly believes someone wearing a suit is copying the last person she saw wearing a suit. The whole outburst sounded ungainly and awkward, without much substance and unrealistic. Whether X Factor were in on the planning or not, it is likely Kills and Moon were happy to promote their personal brand at the cost of their contract.

In the true spirit of latching onto any opportunity to self promote, Irish X Factor judge and long time chum of Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh, claims during an interview with Irish radio station RTE2FM he hasn't even heard of the pair and says 'These people, whoever they are, they're nobodies.'

That doesn't sound quite right either - Willy Moon was riding high in the UK, where Walsh is based in 2013 performing at the Reading festival and appearing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Probably not a great claim for someone whose job is managing huge pop groups. All in all another successful self promotion job thanks to the massive PR job of indignant social media followers.

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Jenny Rudd spent 6 years as a trader in London before returning to New Zealand in 2007 making the transition from numbers to letters by heading up the content team at MOSH, New Zealand's leading social media agency.

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