Montreal indie superstars Arcade Fire are nominated for both Grammy and Juno awards this year, and are one of the biggest rock bands in the world, so maybe it’s understandable that Microsoft would want to be associated with them. However, using a soundalike knock-off of their anthem Wake Up in a television ad probably isn’t the best way to capitalise on their popularity.
Check out the two clips, and it’s pretty obvious what they were trying to pull:
It’s a pretty dumb move on the corporation’s part, as the band isn’t completely opposed to selling their songs (they donated the profits from the use of the same song in the Super Bowl to charity). Going the sneaky route opens up the software giant to a lawsuit, which Tom Waits has repeatedly proven can be quite successful when ad campaigns use soundalike versions of his songs. Unfortunately, this is a pretty common strategy for stingy advertisers, and many smaller musicians don’t have the resources to go up against the legal team of huge companies.
In this situation though, it seems probably that Microsoft will have to cough up more money than they would have if they’d done the right thing, and they’ve also managed to piss off and alienate a lot of Arcade Fire fans.
Oops.
benjaminb@nowtoronto.com
