RAAK

A new music video from American indie band OK Go is always something to look forward to. After all, they’re the ones who made dancing on treadmills look easy (53m YouTube views and counting!).

And this week they released the video for ‘Last Leaf’, a stop-motion bonanza, featuring lots of toast.

Now, they didn’t get our Creative of the Week accolade just for making a nice pop video. We also commend them for thinking creatively about distributing their art and where they fit into the music industry.

Earlier this year, the band left their record company EMI over a dispute about allowing people to embed their videos on their own sites. The record company had done a deal with YouTube to block embed codes (because they don’t make money from them). Which seems surreal, given that the band had become such a hit because of the viral aspect of their videos.

They wrote a very balanced open letter about it all and decided to set up on their own.

Now, that’s easier said than done: there are financial reasons to sign up to a record company. So we were pleasantly surprised to find out that the ‘Last Leaf’ video is a collaboration between the band and Samsung, who are using the opportunity to promote their NX100 phone (the stills are shot on their phone).

We’re not sure whether the video concept was there first or whether Samsung said “if you shoot something with our phone, we’ll give you x y z”, but either way, it’s an opportunity for OK Go to keep doing what they’re doing.

And credit to Samsung for realising the band’s potential and connecting with them for what they are: creative. Positioning yourself as a patron of ‘good people’ is more and more becoming an efficient way for brands to raise product awareness and increase brand values. ‘Sponsoring’ it was called, I believe, back in the old days.