Assisted by Adnan Meher
Leading Swedish apparel brand H&M has yet again been caught up in social media controversy following an advertisement posted to the brand's Instagram channel. It was just last month that the brand was forced to deal with their first 'face-palm' moment of 2018, when the online listing of one of their children's hoodies was criticised by many for being racially insensitive - leading to H&M's brand ambassador, The Weeknd, severing all ties with the company.
Now, in the recent turn of events, the brand faces accusations of 'stealing' a song produced by Melbourne artist Harvey Sutherland, subsequently using it in one of their social media adverts without permission - in contrary to Australian intellectual property laws.
On Monday, H&M posted their new advert via Instagram and within a short period, comments started flowing in questioning exactly which synth-funk song had been used in the second slide of the advert. Swiftly making matters worse from the get-go, H&M jumped in claiming that it was actually an original work, commissioned by the company - and that the song had no name.
However, ardent synth-wave fans identified the song as Harvey Sutherland's much appreciated track " Bamboo", which had come out four years prior to the H&M video. The song's producer was also quick to spot the faux-pas, commenting on the post itself calling the brand out on the fact that they had credited neither him, nor his song.
What had happened?
Brands typically look to reach out to their audience on social media through entertaining and aesthetically pleasing images and videos; clearly what H&M's mishandled Instagram post was aiming at.
However, the effort seemed to have been a major stuff-up, owing to a mix up of epic proportion. It is presumable that a brand of H&M's magnitude must have hired composers to create a distinctive tune for the social media advert, so it is indeed very possible that it was actually the commissioned artist/composer who had made the 'mistake' (albeit a seemingly difficult 'mistake' to make). The fact that H&M had purportedly commissioned a new musical piece for the advert was made evident from their comments on the post claiming that the song was an 'original work'.
Tips for your business
For commercial brands, the whole idea behind posting on social media is generally to both effectively engage with fans in real-time, and extend a positive image of the company to as many people as possible. Obviously, we can't blame H&M for posting an advert - as realistically, the fault lies in the way that this particular advert was initially produced. Lifting a song and claiming it to be an 'original work' on social media can be significantly detrimental, as companies may incur severe penalties for infringing on the rights of artists/music composers under Australian Law.
On top of the legal ramifications that the company could potentially face, the fact that this is the second highly-publicised social media fiasco that they've been forced to deal with in the past two months would likely have H&M's legal and PR teams' hearts racing.
H&M has yet to come clean regarding the controversy surrounding the use of Harvey Sutherland's song in their advert. Coleman Greig believes that such incidents truly do send out the wrong message to an entire industry, not to mention consumers. Multi-national brands like H&M must be extremely careful with regard to circumstances surrounding intellectual property and artists' rights, as instances like this can considerably tarnish the reputation of a brand, often in just a matter of hours. This is an important lesson for businesses of all sizes to take heed of - not only with regard to the way in which you engage with artistic works, but the way that content is posted on social media.
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