what if...some thoughts on the music industry

So there is a lot of music talent out there. Youtube has produced some stars (?). Everybody is a virtual platform that can act like a label and produce and distribute music, jadajadajada..

But on the other side we have the record label. They ain't going nowhere soon.

And the guys hurting the most are the A&R reps. The artist and repetoire peeps.

So here is the thing.

If you get famous on youtube or whatever, you can get signed by a label. But this way of doing business decreases the value of the A&R. He did not find the talent, millions of viewers kinda did.

Now...what if you had platform that was a a step ahead of the current distribution king, Youtube?

Say..if you have platform where you can tell the musicians/performers/actors that on the other side of the mirror you have the world A&R reps/casting agents sitting and sifting throught the acts, would this be interesting to a budding musician?

You make the money of the A&R reps by providing him with the acces to musicians sorted by genre and you give him the opportunity sign someone right before they mega explode. All at a monthly flat fee. So no ad revenues, just a check every month and a back end from 360 degrees artist income. That means shows, tours, sponsored deals, albums, dvd's etc..

On the other hand you get the content, because you have an audience that the musicians/content providers (still, no matter what everybody says,) want to connect with.

I like Youtube. But for the pro am who wants to get a something going, Youtube lacks the ability to connect me with people who want to pay me so that I can be a full time musician.

Labels do pay you, but don't want to sign you via a bidding war after 30.000.000 people have seen you. You have already lost money by free exposure.

Would this kinda solve those problems?? Would this be a proposition the A&R's of the world would pay for?

what if...you could be champion of the world

Just a quick post on an even quicker idea.

What with all the user generated content, 2.0, participation of the peoples going on in the world I have an idea:

What if we create the WCEF: World Championship of Everything (u like) Federation.

U got an activity, hybrid of old stuff or something u do with friends: sign up to the website, pick a date for regional preliminaries etc and (most importantly) declare yourself world champeen and allow people to challenge you.

Who does not want to be able to say he is world champion at something, anything??

the Role of the WCEF is the following:

1. to give you tools to plan your own world championship;
2. to look for sponsors (local to international) to help you out with any and all costs;
3. help you quickly determine whether the current format is ok, or needs some adjustment to make it spread;
4. fighting indifference and cynisme by promoting the cause of doing something/anything to world champion standard, instead of doing nothing;
5. buying every world champion a cold beer;
6. to make sure that the broadcasting rights are fairly distributed amongst all the championships;
7. to facilitate the breakaway of succesfull championships on their own (as with everything; money changes stuff, so why not make the split amicable)

just an idea (or a widget; or tv show; or nothing)

What...did I hear anybody say Innocent ;)

n to the h presents: lazy person's guide to briefing volume I

Basically all briefs can be boiled down into achieving two goals:

business goal and comms goal.

On the business goal side it's about one of three ( or a mix of the three):

1. get new customers
2. retain current customers
3. get more out of current customers

On the comms goal side it's about one of two:

1. create a "I knew there was a reason I liked his product/company/etc" reaction
2. create a "I never thought of it that way, that's interesting"reaction

Of course multiple business goals are mixed with the two comms goals. Like getting more out of current customers could need a "I never tought of it like that"reaction, etc..

The supporting evidence to help your agency along is:

1. new feature
2. new product
3. old product
4. old feature
5. mental position in relation to current culture

So there you have it.. the lazy person's guide to briefing.

what if...loaded words + ambiguity = interesting t.v.?

A little concept (kinda candid camera meets talk show meets gonzo porn) I have been playing with and can't quite make work yet..

Here it is:

You get a host and you make him put on a t-shirt. On it he has a word. Just one word. Say, Halliburton or Tibet or Abortion. that's it. And he walks the city. Waiting for someone to approach him and ask what he means by wearing the shirt. Better yet u get some one coming up and taking a stand pro or against the word.

The host than takes the opposite view and tries to start a semi spontanious debate with passers by.

What I like:
the thought of ambiguity. A word in itself is just that. a word. But the implicit connatations attached to it are your's. So by not being overtly pro or against we can play with the implicit connatations.

the fact that it's legal and democratic with a twitst. It's legal to wear a shirt with the word abortion on it right dead center in Vatican City. Would have to check the facts, but a shirt with the just the word Jihad is not illegal to wear in Down town New York or at Capitol Hill.

the p to p effect. I kinda see it as a possible thing for everybody to contribute to. Whatever you feel you wanna debate, do it by putting just one word on a shirt, check if it's legal and start a debate, film it and send it in.

What I don't like:

The businessmodel. Can't see how I am to make money of it. It's basically a creative comms format.

That's it...so if anybody wan't to shoot some holes in it, please do..