A nice rags to riches story, heh? Except it isn't. The Wall Street Journal stripped the everywoman cover off of Digby by revealing that she'd signed with the record company back in '05. Her YouTube-based PR campaign was carefully constructed by Hollywood Records to launch her in a way that would gain the cache of authenticity viewers grant to user-developed content.
Last year's controversial "LonelyGirl15" campaign demonstrated that some of the smartest people in America work in marketing. Noting the over-the-top success of that program, the ad industry is now awash with companies promising to launch viral campaigns of this nature, inspiring person-to-person emails for their product (you gotta see this!), and playing on the sense of ownership we have when we think we've discovered something authentic that others haven't.
The question here, I think, is one of transparency. Obviously, in light of the way the internet has evolved, we plebeians are willing to trade some of our time viewing advertising in return for otherwise free content. I'm not convinced, however, that we are willing to embrace stealth marketing, where the message is disguised such that we may not identify it as advertising.
The ruse of Digby's launch is minuscule in scope, but nonetheless causes me to trust what I see and read just a little less. And suspicion is an anathema to marketing.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-07-2007 @ 9:54AM
dc said...
It's disturbing that the article that appeared in the WSJ
is assumed to be accurate by yourself (you're trusting that article ?)and others (?) just because it appeared in PRINT. As someone who knows Marie*, don't believe what you read, it's inaccurate and a very unfair depiction of a young person trying to share her music with others.
9-09-2007 @ 12:23AM
wwhizbee said...
The WSJ got this story wrong. I am one the fans who Marié Digby supposedly tricked, and I can tell you there was NO BIG SECRET. Marié’s signing with Hollywood Records was well known among a lot of her fans on YouTube and MySpace. Information about her signing could be found in the comments to her videos. In addition, she had listed Hollywood Records on her MySpace page in the past. If her fans bought her version of Umbrella on iTunes, they would have seen Hollywood Records as the releasing label. In addition a simple Google search would also have turned up information.
Marié also did a radio interview on STAR 98.7 in Los Angeles on August 2 in which she tells the 12 million or so people in the greater Los Angeles area that she is signed with Hollywood Records. She even told her MySpace friends to listen in ahead of time! If she was running a ruse, she wasn’t doing it very well!
If you are curious, here's how you can listen to the interview.
1) Go to Google. Google the following: star 98.7 fm valentine lisa foxx
2) Click on the link "STAR 98.7 FM - Valentine and Lisa Foxx in the Morning." (It should be the first one.)
3) Click on the "On Demand" menu and select "STAR Interviews and More."
4) Scroll down to "Marie Digby Part 2" (about a quarter of the way down)
5) Click on the "Listen" icon.
Metaphorically speaking, Marié’s only crime was that she put her association with Hollywood Records on the inside jacket of her book rather than the cover. The information was there for anyone who looked. There is a story to tell about Marié Digby, the Internet, and the recording industry, but the WSJ missed it.
9-09-2007 @ 6:09PM
Satina said...
Hmmm...
I's hard to know who's telling the truth but if everything was Kosher, then why did her story make news?
However, I was like give me a FB when I read the article in the WSJ. I thought, yet again the greedy's come up with another scheme to try and promote their pitiful artists. And of course, they can never be honest with it either. -But hey, you have to give em credit. It's a legal step up from just outright buying their artists records right?
Satina
9-26-2007 @ 6:42AM
A friend said...
Rather funny how some people automatically dismiss the fact that during her radio interview, she said she was signed AND there were articles out before WSJ saying she was signed. Funny how people overlook that. It's obvious that people like to believe controversy over the truth because that's what probably makes their day or some crap. It also shows that some people will believe anything they read. Rather naive.
11-09-2007 @ 2:53AM
golnop said...
marie digby hot video here:
http://vot.cc/video/marie_digby
9 minutes explicit video.