Engaging In The Digital Wilderness

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.