WSJ: Download This: YouTube Phenom Has a Big Secret:
Marié Digby's homemade YouTube music videos, in which she covers popular songs and sings her own compositions, helped launch her career. But the 24-year-old singer and guitarist had help from a record label.
Tom Barlow writes Marie Digby: YouTube celeb pimped by Disney:
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.