Peter Ruppert's Blog

Britney Spears had hit rock bottom, so she told her fans in an open letter in May 2007. Whilst possibly true from her perspective worse was to come. As PopScores shows, her actual PopScore fell from 13 in September 06 through 10 in May 07 to 3 this month.

The problem is clearly evident in the significant increase in her Dislikes which have increased from 38% in May to 48% in October. Teenage males in particular have reacted adversely to recent events resulting in a negative PopScore with that market. Whilst never popular with them almost three quarters of male teens currently dislike Britney.

Whilst these numbers may look scary, it's important to recognize two factors which may change the way you think about Britney's prospects.

Firstly, she still commands a strong emotion connection with her core target market of13-19 year old females. Her 12% Love score with this demographic is 2 points above average and has barely changed since last year

Secondly, Britney is attracting considerable publicity which gives her the edge over other "rock bottom" stars for whom media indifference is a far greater career threat. Not only did her behavior make a star of Chris Crocker...

...but her MTV VMA performance, seen by many as catastrophic, put the award show back on the map and her with it.

Following the flurry of media attention she has attracted, her new single is now playlisted on UK radio, her video is playing on all the top video channels and has generated nearly 2 million views on YouTube since it was added last week.

In our opinion it's only a question of time therefore before she bounces back strongly. Future PopScores will be our judge!