Earlier this month, the Arcade Fire released the video for their new single ‘We Used To Walk’. But they completley blew the roof off the concept of a ‘traditional’ music video. In a collaboration with Google, they’ve created a video experiment using HTML-5 to take users on a digital ‘walk’ through their childhood neighborhood.
It’s brilliant – intended to both challenge the ‘quo and, most importantly, engage users. And not just users as in ‘fans of the band’ but users of the web. It’s become a viral hit, making it’s rounds in inboxes and social feeds across the web, meaning the band is reaching an entirely new and globally further-reaching audience than they ever could had they released a ‘standard’ video single. Certainly, there is room to grow from the video and their are a few bugs in the delivery (ie: you can only run it on a Chrome browser) but it’s a good start.
Really, it’s a great example of getting creative with customer engagement which is what good digital should do. If you haven’t already, you can give it a go for yourself at www.thewildnernessdowntown.com.
