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!

As most of you know by now, Radiohead today blew the doors off the recording industry, by announcing their new album will be out in 10 days (label free). The price for their new digital album is whatever the consumer/listener would like to pay.

The decision stunned and astonished critics, who felt it was revolutionary. Gen-Y'ers are as happy as can be, and ready to shell out their hard earned money (even if it's a buck or two). This is the future, no kidding, the artists are in control of their destinies now and no dirty middle men to stop their creativity (or paycheck).

However, a few weeks ago, Rick Rubin in the NY Times Magazine had a different idea on the future of music:

Rubin has a bigger idea. To combat the devastating impact of file sharing, he, like others in the music business (Doug Morris and Jimmy Iovine at Universal, for instance), says that the future of the industry is a subscription model, much like paid cable on a television set.

It's not going to work Rick; Radiohead is going to lead the way! Even though most musical artists don't have the money to imagine highly produced albums; home recording and word-of-mouth are going to save music (think Feist). Gen-Y'ers do not want subscriptions, locks, barriers, bills; they want their free Mp3s! They want the music whenever the artists wants to release it, they want their music on any device, and they want to support their favorite artists' creative talents for the rest of their life.

How is that for trusting your brand and fan base!