Marie Digby: just open the marketing Umbrella..ela..ela:

Those of us who have not come across any YouTube video of Marié-Digby until today have got to learn that Marié-Digby is a real You-tube success story, not only from an artistic point of view but also from a marketing perspective. Just take a look at the two screen shots below:



The first one features results of my search for Mandy Moore's cover of Umbrella, the summer hit song from R&B artist Rihanna, the second snapshot, features my second search, Marié-Digby's cover of Umbrella. One can easily see that Marié's most popular video has had 1,959,742 views in just 4 months whilst that of celebrity Mandy Moore got 462,526. In total Marié's videos are said to have exceeded 2.3 million views.

Now this is not a fair comparison since other respective versions of these videos should also be included in total views and Mandy's video was only added 2 months ago. Yet this is definately an indication that sometimes standing out is not the only way to promote a new product, service, brand or even artist. The comparison also hints that big brands (such as the "Mandy-Moore" brand) often fail to be as personal and as intimate as other brands are.

Marié's Umbrella did not stop at You-Tube since MTV included this cover in its popular reality show "The Hills" and Los-Angeles Star98.7 radio also included the song in the music playlist. Sometime after all this was happening The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article in which it disclosed a record-deal Marié had signed with Hollywood Records much before her videos were posted on YouTube. WSJ accused Marié of feigning an amateur status whilst not revealing her MySpace and YouTube pages her major record deal from the beginning.

From a marketing perspective though all this presents a wealth of insight:

Primarily this was a case of being in the crowd and not be any different from the rest. Marié's case, even if a strategic campaign planned out by Hollywood record as disclosed by WSJ questions the continuous need to be as distinct and original as some creative agencies attempt to be.

Secondly, all this has to be seen in the YouTube context. YouTube allows viewers to control the media channel and the audience like that. Marié is one of us, she does not want to sell anything to us! Marié-Digby as a product provided this same opportunity to the YouTube audience. Viewers could promote someone who shared their dreams and ambitions such as 'becoming famous whilst fulfilling your dream' or 'doing what you really love doing'. It's as if viewers felt the obligation to help out and share Marié's talent.

Thirdly, Marié chose to go viral. Being recommended by MTV is cool but having 2.3 million views on YouTube definately says something about the power of recommendation and how much we trust it more than any rightly branded product or service.

So...well done Marié!