CoverGirl has announced a new face for its campaign in 16-year-old Becky G, a singer/songwriter/rapper with a street-leaning style. Appearing in her first national TV and print advertising for the brand this summer, Becky G will use the national arena to keep building her already sizable personal fan base, whom she dubs “beasters.” Creating original content to feature on the beauty brand’s social media outlets, specifically YouTube, Becky G will “give a glimpse into her life as a CoverGirl and rise to stardom.” Hitmaker/producer Dr. Luke signed Becky to his Kemosabe label via RCA Records after seeing her rap in one of her YouTube clips, but she was initially discovered by production team the Jam. To date, her video “Becky From the Block” has amassed more than 4 million views.
Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are following suit with the White House’s plan to combat advertising on pirate sites, along with Condé Nast and AOL. All are voluntarily agreeing to incorporate internal procedures to ensure that third-party websites deemed bad actors on the piracy front don’t benefit from ad revenue. Google will lead the efforts, investigating informal complaints rights-holders make against flagged websites. The multicompany effort to combat pirate sites is similar to the industry cooperation that fostered the adoption of the Copyright Alert System by Internet service providers. The Obama administration “strongly supports voluntary efforts by the private sector to reduce infringement, and we welcome the initiative brought forward by the companies,” said a post on WhiteHouse.gov.
Uvinyl, the London-based home of Universal Music vinyl, recently launched a re-pressing initiative called the Vinyl Project so Universal Music Group can capitalize on the continuing upward trend of vinyl sales by relying on a crowd-funded model. The crowd-funding portion of the Vinyl Project amounts to a conditional pre-order, which is similar in practice to crowd-funding but far from its spirit of patronage for struggling artists who can’t afford to bring their art to market. If a slab garners enough interest, then the orders will be filled and people will be charged. After filling out a sign-up form on the project’s home page and confirming participation, respondents are directed to a survey about the forthcoming service, the completion of which will earn them a 20% discount on a specially selected vinyl. ?