Wise & Young: The nuances of Gen-Y marketing, branding, advertising, trends, & more

Since 2004, Arcade Fire has demonstrated the power and dynamics of the web. It helps that they have a great product and superb brand (band) execution on all fronts, furthemore, you have to commend them for continually coming out with innovations left and right.

Their latest innovation is the future of the music video; an interactive website featuring their single “Neon Bible.” You can view that here: b eoNline B. This is the only song from the album that was turned in to a “music video” and it’s an exciting approach and something that should have been established a while ago. As most know, MTV and VH1 have almost completely stopped playing music videos, leaving musical artists paying millions of dollars in hope their video gets a good amount of YouTube hits.

With Arcade Fire’s model, fans can interact with the video and create an emotional connection to the music. In essence, the music video has become a viral website! I wouldn’t be surprised if many others soon followed and dropped the video format altogether. However, I feel others will make their videos easier to share, post, embed, and otherwise viralize.

Hail to the thief! The music industry is changing!