Charice....A Case Study for Alizee.

[Jake04]

We've had several discussions here about how to best promote Alizee here in America. Perhaps, we could use this girl's rise to the US - mainly through Youtube videos uploaded by her fans - as a case study.

An excerpt from Wikepedia:

"Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco (born May 10, 1992), better known as Charice, is a Filipina singer and actress who rose to popularity through YouTube. Dubbed by Oprah Winfrey as the Most Talented Girl in the World, she is the first Asian artist in history to land in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart. She is also now part of the hit TV series Glee where she plays an exchange student named Sunshine Corazon.

In 2005, Pempengco joined Little Big Star, a talent show in the Philippines loosely patterned after American Idol. Eliminated after her first performance, she was later called back as a wildcard contender and eventually became a finalist. Although she was a consistent top scorer in the final rounds, she only finished in third place based on text voting.

Pempengco made minor appearances on local television shows and commercials, but essentially had fallen off the radar after her stint at Little Big Star. It was not until 2007 that she gained worldwide recognition after an avid supporter started posting a series of her performance videos on YouTube under the username FalseVoice. These videos received millions of hits making Pempengco an internet phenomenon."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charice_Pempengco

She is by no means sexy nor beautiful. She looks average at best. However, blessed with a great voice, a little luck and with her fans' persistence, they managed to get her noticed by the American public, particularly Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey. Her fans, (My friend included - who tried to convert me to Charice, while I tried to convert her to Alizee ), worked tirelessly promoting her by uploading videos after videos of her on Youtube.
They raced among each other who could upload her latest video the earliest. They even tried to outdo one another by uploading videos of her with better audio and video qualities. Now, just like the fans of Alizee in Mexico, their efforts paid off.

My friend told me that they were extremely happy and satisfied with their efforts. And while I'm happy for them as well, I also envied them. Because, now, not only can they can listen to their beloved artist, they can also watch her perform on TV.

I know we have some smarty pants here who would say that America is complicated, that we're not receptive to foreign singers, that Alizee does not care, blah, blah, blah! Well, let's not forget Shakira (Columbia), Selena (Mexico - RIP), Bob Marley (Jamaica -RIP) and countless others from Europe who were embraced by us. I'm sure it's safe to say that America would be receptive to anybody with TALENTS! And we know that our Alizee has talents!

I guess the lessons here are:

- Have faith in what you do. (Charice at first didn't work with her fans because she herself had no idea that it would work)
- Be enthusiastic (It only took one fan at the beginning to start all of this)
- Be optimistic (Her fans could have easily given up on her when she fell off the radar)
- Be persistent (Forget about the smarty pants!)

Most important of all:

- Be patient (It took them years to accomplish this)

We don't have to promote Alizee as a young Lolita or through her JEAM era songs (although it wouldn't hurt ) I think it'll be better if we promote her using her new songs in English so Americans would be more receptive to her. Let them discover themselves the "old" Alizee. Like I said, Charice is neither "hot" nor "cute." She made it because of her singing abilities.

At the end, whether we can duplicate their success or not, for me, it's worth the effort. I guess it's just my way of THANKING HER for all the happiness that she gave us through her music.

Other singers discovered through Youtube:

Arnel Pineda, also from the Philippines whose voice is very similar to Steve Perry, is now the lead singer of the band Journey. He was an established singer in Asia and had his own band before he joined Journey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnel_Pineda

And, perhaps the most famous of them all (at least for now) - Justin Bieber who was also discovered through Youtube.

Keep in mind. There are a lot of people trolling the internet whose main job is to "discover" artist from around the world.