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1. Google have a problem. The company owns YouTube and one of YT's primary audiences is users seeking music videos. As with radio, the broadcaster must pay a royalty to the record company for providing that content and the PRS (the organisation responsible for collecting those payments) is demanding rates so punitive Google has backed away and suggested they may remove music clips from YT, as each video viewed would lose them money.

   To me, this demonstrates how poorly the music industry has grasped the internet revolution. Oh sure, they would claim to be fully web savvy - their bands have websites and they sell music via i-Tunes and its cousins, so what are they missing? Well, while I would never advocate or use peer-to-peer networks myself, the fact remains that almost all the music content available for sale online is also available for free via these services. And, as you would imagine, they are VERY popular. Now, the music biz has spent vast fortunes and enormous effort attempting to delete these networks, but to no avail. Win in court, have the website legally quashed and within 24 hours a strikingly similar service emerges on a new server. In fact, these websites carry no copyrighted data themselves, they merely provide a platform for users to exchange files (hence, peer-to-peer), so the legal arguments soon become protracted. The fact is, this is not something which will go away and therefore, the money, effort and lawyers are a fantastic waste.

   It didn't and doesn't have to be like this. It will be very painful for the industry to face, but before long, they will have to begin treating the internet as a magazine cover on which to place free music. So how on earth can the labels hope to profit from free music? It's certainly nothing radical to suggest free stuff is part of marketing. Most manufacturers and retailers have given away product to lure the consumer for decades, if not centuries. The free material delivers an audience and the business - in this case, the music business - can then capitalise on the attention. Concert tickets, t-shirts, artwork, button badges, books, magazines, subscriber areas of the website, exclusive podcasts - all products the consumer will happily part with cash to obtain. After all, one can hardly download a t-shirt or gig.

   And all this is true of YouTube, too. Probably more so. By forcing Google to remove music video content by demanding unrealistic fees, the labels are cutting off their nose and hastening their decline. They are, in fact, moving to delete the biggest free advert they could ever hope to have available to them. Indeed, Google/YT would even have continued to pay the business to show their advertising, as long as it was affordable. I am convinced the music industry has miscalculated their business model by some distance. And the price will be a heavy one.

   (Posted on 2009-03-22 21:32:00 by mks:creative)

2. Fowl play?

   Advertising. It's a tricky old game and very often it's all about context. Where one's message appears can be as important as the message itself. Take a well known supermarket's sponsorship of ITV premiers. As part one of crime drama Whitechapel drew to a close, we were 'treated' to a close-up of a very brutal and gory murder. This was immediately followed by a similar close-up of a chicken drumstick being sliced into. Not a very tasty juxtaposition, we're sure you'll agree.

   But it didn't stop there. The culinary snippet was concluded with the very unfortunate voice-over stating 'Make the most of your leftovers'. And suddenly nobody really fancied their tea.

   (Posted on 2009-02-02 23:59:00 by mks:creative)

3. Nice,I liked it very much.

   (Posted on 2008-11-25 04:06:00 by Estetik)

4. It's Friday afternoon in an advertising agency. The light outside is fading rapidly and over the road, the barman is busily polishing pint pots with a tea towel, awaiting the arrival of the creative team.

   "Okay" quoth a copywriter, "I've got it!". "A cross-eyed man in a wood says 'Come and see your new car'. Lots of people enter a warehouse, where hovering people in leotards put a bonnet on a car. Then there's some sparks and stuff and the car stops hovering. There's probably a whimsical song about love playing and ... and ... er ... that's it."

   It's Monday morning in the same agency. The man client is in. "Is that all you've got? That's utter flippin' garbage" he exclaims.

   Except he doesn't. He hugs everybody and hands over a big crispy wad of big crispy money. Because he's from Volvo.

   (Posted on 2008-11-12 21:19:00 by mks:creative)

5. The screenwriter William Goldman once said 'In Hollywood, nobody knows anything'. He wasn't passing comment on a higher level of ignorance in L.A. (although he wasn't denying the possibility), he was more driving at the notion that expertise is not the same as clairvoyance. One can make the movie one wanted to make, market it according to the most concise research and play to the very latest trends and popularity polls - and it can and quite probably will, bomb.

   There's a profound truth here and it goes way beyond the movie business. Every day, pundits in the media make bold predictions on everything from sports results to the day's political intrigue. We are expected to take particularly note of their ruminations as they purport to have the experience, insight, sources and knowledge of their subject. With alarming regularity they get it spectacularly wrong. A well known sports writer suggested our Olympic boxing hopefuls should come home before the games began as it would save them intolerable embarrassment. They went on to win three medals.

   (Posted on 2008-09-21 22:03:00 by mks:creative)

6. It's hard to imagine a more remarkable human than Tim Berners-Lee. You may or may not have heard of Mr. Berners-Lee, but for the uninitiated, this fine gentlemen was a lead scientist on the particle collider project built in Switzerland to replicate the Big Bang.

   Naturally, a project on this scale generated a vast amount of data, on which many and various people depended for their work. So Berners-Lee imagined and proposed a method for sharing electronic data between computers. Having submitted his plan, his boss responded with the message 'Vague but exciting'. This was an understatement of titanic proportions.

   Once the project was up and running it needed a name, so Tim chose (and you may have guessed what's coming here) the 'World Wide Web'. This unassuming man had, to all intents and purposes, invented the internet.

   But that is only part of the story. What makes this man so extraordinary is this. Having created something so useful, revolutionary and planet-changing, there was no amount of money that Berners Lee couldn't have reaped from his astonishing tool. Instead, seeing its vast potential, he gifted the Web to humankind for all time.

   In an age where the cash trough is barely large enough to accomodate the insatiable corporate hogs gorging themselves at its edge, we might all do well to remember the inestimable generosity of this scientist.

   (Posted on 2008-06-28 22:57:00 by mks:creative)

7. There's much to be said about The Apprentice. We would certainly assert that, alongside Dragon's Den, it has levitated to position way above the other reality dross we've had foisted upon us over the last half decade.

   That said, there are some issues that have us scratching our heads.

   1. Sir Alan 'Sir Alan' Sugar tells us in the opening sequence that the prize is 'to work with me'. Leaving aside the rather puzzling notion that to graft for Amstrad is some kind of beatitude of which mere mortals can only dream, it seems obvious that the winner gets to do nothing of the kind. I think former 'apprentice' Michelle Dewsberry was put in charge of recycling PCs. Is this an arena of his operation where Sir Alan 'Sir Alan' Sugar puts in many long hours. We're not so sure.

   2. Many of the contestants are really very stupid. Only tonight did we see three grown, educated adults confess to having no idea what kosher food was (in one case suggesting it was blessed in a mosque).

   3. The 'team leaders' almost always fail miserably to grasp even the basics of people management. In most cases this appears to involve dumping any notion of planning, discussing, listening, deputising and executing in favour of generalised whooping, the repetition of utterly empty phrases like 'That's what I'm talking about', 'Get in!' and 'Let's nail it'. If the next generation of industry captains are going to take all their cues from American business manuals and 1980's city-boy guff, then we're in trouble.

   Still, Sir Alan 'Sir Alan' Sugar, loving the show, loving the show.

   (Posted on 2008-05-07 22:14:00 by mks:creative)

8. We're not sure it will make us buy a car. In fact, it's probably not that great in pure advertising terms, but we're very much enjoying watching it. We give you the new Polo advertisement:

   http://www.visit4info.com/advert/Volkswagen-Polo-Confidence-Volkswagen-Polo/56952

   (Posted on 2008-03-14 23:25:00 by mks:creative)

9. In the late 80s Lenny Henry released a feature film of his stand-up routine called 'Lenny Live and Unleashed'. It was in the cinemas and everything. It was also very funny and stood up to repeated viewings.

   So now, twenty years later, Lenny has a new, late night BBC show which involves him showing clips off the internet. He then makes comments on them to a guest. It is embarrassingly poor. The gags are so extraordinarily unfunny as to be quite compelling. The guests are substandard (Patrick Keilty for one) and seem to be faxing their bits in. What's more, the clips are lifted straight from You Tube and are of the 'You've Been Framed' variety.

   This is a shame. Henry used to be much-loved and, more importantly, a genuinely talented comic. To be shoved into this post Newsnight graveyard and given this 'thought-up-in-a-coffee-break' format to front is both humiliating and presumably unnecessary. We vaguely remember Lenny being a rather able straight actor - so why not pursue that? Or retire? Or anything other than this garbage?

   (Posted on 2008-02-23 17:51:00 by mks:creative)

10. Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed the mks:creative site over on www.linkreferral.com. All the comments have been very helpful and full of praise and we very much appreciate your time and trouble. Do call again.

    (Posted on 2008-02-19 22:56:00 by mks:creative)

11. We notice Hollywood is on the verge of spewing out a new CGI version of The Chipmunks. Dear Lord, has it come to this? The Chipmunks wasn't even a good show as a cartoon. They might at least have spared a thought for the Hair Bear Bunch or Wacky Races.

    Of course this is just the latest in a long line of vintage TV show translations and not a single one has been inspiring. Think of Hollywood in the 70s: Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Jaws, Saturday Night Fever ... astonishing, original, thrilling motion pictures. Now look at the endless dribble of sequels, Playstation adaptations, CGI no-brainers and very poor star vehicles. Even the Will Smith release 'I Am Legend' is a remake of The Omega Man. In fact, Tinseltown is such a creative vacuum it would do well to replace the famous sign with something along the lines of 'Original Ideas? Sorry We Don't Have A Single One. Popcorn?'

    (Posted on 2008-01-18 22:15:00 by mks:creative)

12. Having just purchased a swanky new i-pod, I have set about the task of uploading my CD collection to the device. Now i-tunes also picks the CD artwork up off the internet while one is doing this. And to my astonishment, the Apple database has no record for (amongst others) David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World and Led Zeppellin 4.

    Bet they have all the Westlife albums though.

    (Posted on 2007-12-31 22:19:00 by mks:creative)

13. If the Post Office think using a hackneyed old strapline like 'The People's Post Office' will disguise the fact that they are in the process of killing off the very local service they feature in their ad campaign, they are incredibly misguided.

    (Posted on 2007-12-12 22:06:00 by mks:creative)

14. This morning's papers are full of reports that mobile phone service providers are increasingly dishonest and misleading in their advertising, particularly on cash-back deals. This doesn't surprise us, but it is astonishing just how short-sighted supposedly professional marketeers can be. If the brand is king, then surely reputation is queen - and by over promising and under delivering a company's reputation is eroded with every broken offering. Before long, customers are leaving or avoiding in droves and the marketing is working in reverse. And the future aint quite so bright.

    (Posted on 2007-11-21 10:13:00 by mks:creative)

15. There has been much debate at mks towers about the Cadbury's gorilla ad. On balance we think it's pretty good. We particularly like the fact that it has been designed to be very viral. That is to say, people can use the YouTube version to send it to each other. Whether the choccy giant can keep the momentum going remains to be seen.

    (Posted on 2007-11-03 14:08:00 by mks:creative)
16. Welcome to the mks:creative blog. We're going to do our utmost to keep it fresh and regularly updated. And we're going stick to advertising, media and webby stuff. You can join in too. All you need do is click below and tell us what's on your mind.

    (Posted on 2007-10-20 21:31:00 by mks:creative)