ALBANY, NY. (Top40 Charts/ AAO Music/ Reality) - Connie Talbot, the 7-year-old singing marvel who has taken the U.K. by storm during the past year, is now poised to make her grand entrance into the American marketplace. Coinciding with the U.S. release on October 14th of her debut album, Over the
Rainbow (AAO Music/Reality), the charismatic, impossibly adorable Talbot will be introduced to the States via a multi-pronged campaign targeting retail, media and even the world of gaming.
Talbot's meteoric rise began when - still only 6 and flashing a gap-toothed smile that instantly won over Great Britain - she impressed even the notoriously impossible-to-please Simon Cowell last year on the other program he co-hosts, the enormously popular Britain's Got Talent. Since then the Connie Talbot phenomenon has ballooned not only in the U.K., where Over the Rainbow went gold in three weeks, but in other European and Asian countries as well. Recently the Guinness Book of World Records certified Talbot as the new reigning champion in the categories of youngest artist ever to reach the charts and the youngest to receive a gold record.
Now Connie is set to take on America in style. Talbot will make her American television debut on October 3rd as a guest performer on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she will perform live and be interviewed by Ellen.
In addition, Nintendo has announced that Connie will be the subject of a karaoke Wii game. The game, being designed by the British firm Data Design Interactive and due out next year, will allow fans to sing along with the songs on the Over the Rainbow album.
On the retail level, Target, one of America's biggest retailers, will join the Talbot campaign with price and positioning in all of its retail stores beginning on the album's street date. In addition, Connie will be featured on Target.com and in the October 12th Target circular flyer, which reaches some 55 million consumers.
Also, F.Y.E., the nation's largest specialty music retailer, has confirmed that Connie Talbot's Over the Rainbow will receive prominent profile placement in the chain's mall store windows. Some 20 million people will view Connie Talbot posters and banners while entering F.Y.E. stores during the designated period; the outward window banners will be seen by as many as 250 million.
Connie will also be a Barnes and Noble "Discover New Artist" feature during October and November, and technology and entertainment giant SanDisk's online store, Shopsansa.com, will promote the release of Connie in the U.S.A.
Documenting this whirlwind of activity will be ITV, Britain's leading independent television network, which will follow Connie around the States with cameras in hand in order to make a documentary for British TV.
Connie Talbot remains a YouTube phenomenon as well, where more than 46 million people to date have viewed her already legendary performances on British television.
Over the Rainbow, produced and mixed by Simon Hill and Rob May, was recorded last fall in an aunt's spare bedroom so that Connie, who lives in the town of Streetly in West Midlands, England, would not lose valuable school time. The album is filled with Connie's stirring interpretations of such classics as "I Will Always Love You," "Imagine," "Ben," "My Favorite Things" and "What a Wonderful World," and even a cover of Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds."
