Imperial Records Chooses Votigo For Fat Joe Video Contest

Votigo powers fan-based video contest to coincide with the release of Fat Joe's new album, "The Elephant in the Room".

Emeryville, CA (PRWEB) February 13, 2008 -- Votigo, Inc., the leading online social media platform for user-generated video and photo promotions, today announced that it has been selected by Imperial Records to create a fan-based video contest that will coincide with the release of Fat Joe's new album, "The Elephant in the Room," in stores March 11, 2008. The Fat Joe Video Contest, designed to generate excitement for the album, enables and encourages fans to create and submit music videos for the latest Fat Joe single, "300 Brolic." The winning video will be posted on Fat Joe's official MySpace page in lieu of a commercially produced video.

"For this album, we wanted to do something different that would allow fans to get involved on a whole new level," said Steven Whitaker, manager of Online Marketing at Imperial Records. "Through Votigo, we can leverage the outstanding video content created by fans of Fat Joe. There is no need to produce a commercial video for this song when fans can develop something more authentic and viral. It's an opportunity to give them a voice."

Fans can create videos for "300 Brolic" by lip-syncing, dancing, directing, or covering the song, provided that they use the song track in their videos. Videos are uploaded through Votigo (http://votigo.com/fatjoe/), where Votigo's social media platform offers user profile pages, fraud-free voting, commenting, and viral sharing tools including widgets and email. In the Fat Joe contest, the video that receives the most votes wins, placing the decision in the hands of Fat Joe fans. In addition to posting the video on Fat Joe's MySpace page, the winner will have his or her choice of a meet-and-greet with Fat Joe or backstage passes to an upcoming show. The winner will also receive signed copies of "The Elephant in the Room" and "Me, Myself, and I." Four runner-ups will win copies of "The Elephant in the Room."

"Fat Joe is embarking on new territory by letting fans have a say in the marketing of his new album," said Mike La Rotonda, co-founder and chief executive officer of Votigo. "We have long believed that user-generated content has the capacity to change the promotional landscape, and we commend Imperial Records and Fat Joe for taking this step forward. Votigo is incredibly excited to power this contest."

Fans can enter the contest, vote for entries, and share with friends by going to: http://votigo.com/fatjoe. Voting ends March 24, 2008.

About Votigo, Inc.:
Votigo, Inc. is the leading social media technology and service provider enabling businesses to better engage and communicate with their customers through the use of user-generated content, branded social networks, contests and promotions. Votigo helps Fortune 500 companies, advertising agencies, PR firms, publishers, media companies and brands, including ConocoPhillips, Gardenburger, Pandora, and The Motley Fool, navigate the social web to exceed their marketing goals through its suite of standard and custom social media advertising and promotions solutions. For more information, please visit www.votigo.com.

About Imperial:
Imperial Records is EMI's independent, urban label division that was originally established in 1948 on the West Coast. The small label grew to become one of the giants of rock n' roll and R&B music with groundbreaking artist such as, Slim Whitman, Fats Domino and Ricky Nelson. The label continued to make an impact on both genres of music with release by iconic artist, Cher and the legendary Temptations.

Imperial was re-launched in 2006 when entrepreneur and music industry veteran, Neil Levine joined Imperial to establish a unit focused on the independent, urban music market. Imperial is a full service, label group specializing in artist, brand development, releasing critically acclaimed albums from Fat Joe, Evidence (of Dilated Peoples), Jin, and Anthony Hamilton (previously unreleased tracks).

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