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Funny thing about me and TV program sponsorships. I only seem to notice them when they are not on TV.

Like the outdoor super-site currently festooning the junction between Old Street, Shoreditch High Street and Hackney Road heralding the forthcoming second series of the excellent Channel 4 program Skins.

Sponsored by BSM.

BSM??? The British School of Motoring. Part of the RAC. Trustworthy instructors with economical cars that have those funny little signs magnetically stuck to the roof. “Learn Your Way to Freedom” cries their web site. How does this fit with Skins?

Skins!!!!

A genius program reflecting the lives of dysfunctional 16 to 18 year olds in Bristol. With massive reference to debauched partying, heavy drinking and sustained drug abuse. Way cool. But more BDSM than BSM.

So why BSM and Skins? From a media targeting point of view it’s bang on. Late teens with a desire for freedom will, no doubt, be gagging to get behind the wheel of their first car.

Does the apparent mismatch in tone, style and content then really matter?

From a conceptual point of view it probably does. In my experience the best TV idents usually make some reference to either the program or the essence of the program they sponsor in order to “top and tail” the broadcast in a relevant way. This helps them to extend their resonance beyond their 5 second slot and almost become a “frame” for the program. By no means the main “art” but a useful and relevant part of it none the less. Cadbury did this brilliantly with Corrie. 118 118, in a more obtuse way, delivered it with Lost.

I’m buggered if I can think of how BSM are going to do it with Skins.

Which is not to say that their agency won’t achieve it. At the time of writing I have yet to see any of the executions. They might just pull it off.

Maybe they could take some inspiration from a lovely little Skins cultural influence taken from a posting in Wikipedia:

During the holiday a girl in County Durham threw a house party; it was advertised on her MySpace as an unofficial Skins, referring to the party in the first episode with the subtitle “Let’s trash the average family-sized house disco party”. 200 people turned up, causing over £20,000 worth of damage.”

Wouldn’t it be great that if the very next day, she passed her driving test.

Targeted marketing. Precision consumer profiling. Maximum customer satisfaction with maximum ROI. Striving for a utopia of perfect communications where we only try and sell to people who want our products (even if they don’t know it yet), we can give them a perfect pitch every time and our customers go away feeling happy, even grateful, about having got exactly what they wanted. Sounds great; but firstly, can we ever really get there? And secondly, what might be the negative consequences of trying?

Two clear problems are obvious; exactly how are you going to ‘profile’ us and who is going to control the information? There is a lot of money riding on what you get exposed to and even the most optimistic of us can’t deny that, in the main, buying power ends up winning. Unavoidably, when large sums of money are brought into the question, so is impartiality.

And the problem deepens when you consider the progressive overlap of the digital and off-line worlds. In the US, Gilbarco Veeder-Root’s new Applause media system brings the power of Google to service station customers through a live internet connection. Users view maps on the pump’s screen, search Google’s local business listings by category (restaurant, hospital, gift shop, etc.), and print easy-to-read driving directions right on the pump’s receipt printer as well as serving vouchers for those businesses. Anyone who’s seen an iPhone or iTouch can just imagine how easy and user friendly it will be to log-on, search, find the store or service you’re looking for and from there it’s a simple step to get directions and even a discount that will encourage you (‘drive’ you) directly into that specific place.

But where’s the random? Where’s the getting lost or wandering the streets (or internet highways) and finding something you never expected? I know of course that everyone can still do that… but en masse we’re naturally lazy! We’re set-up to get used to services that work and to get into the habits and routines of trusting them. Especially if they offer us a ‘satisfactory’ experience and ‘the best deal’ that economies of scale can deliver. Everything just as we might expect it to be.

I was talking to our digital department about Search Engine Optimisation the other day, and forgive my exaggeration, but I couldn’t help imagining all these monitor bound intellects sitting at their desks, fighting it out with battalions of code, fleets of servers and acres of broadband at their disposal; crack units of mercenaries enlisted to attack and defend the algorithms. Fooling the ‘engines’ into serving their employers URL higher and more often. Quite frankly it’s disturbing.

Of course proper targeting has it’s clear advantages, mostly down to time saving, but I for one would like to make sure that we keep a good hold of the random. It’s just too easy to manipulate data. It’s about upholding the integrity of ideas and tools like ‘web 2.0’ – making sure that the development, control and creation of the web and it’s targeting and recommendation systems remain in the hands of people and not brands. Staving off the oppressions of those people with the big wallets. Simple things like Amazon showing you the products other people have bought – not fool proof – but at least the recommendations haven’t come from a purchased list of assumptive profiling, they come from actual sales to real people who put their money where their mouth is. Or websites like stumbledupon.com whose specific aim is profiling; to show you new things you might like, based on what you do like… but also, every now and then, it will give you something random, and who knows, you might just discover something completely new that you like even better.

The days of the £12.99 CD are over.

Who is responsible – well apart from the tax free island of Jersey, Berners-Lee, Napster, Stephen Jobs, limewire, the Romans…

No. It’s the customer.

They want more choice, convenience, greater value and above all – they still want experience. Let’s face it the people who used to file vinyl in alphabetical order are now the same people who create playlist upon playlist – the difference being that apple just made the filing easier.

So in no particular order here they are:

Oasis one-play taster of ‘Heathen Chemistry’ – thank god

A CD free with The Guardian that had unique one-play technology magically painted over its shiny surface.

All in all a smart way to ‘try before you buy’. Maybe Oasis were hoping that if you bought the album it would grow on you. It never did.

In Rainbows (not the one with Bungal)

Radiohead cut-out the middlemen by flogging their album based on whatever the public wanted to pay for it. Apparently the average was £4, so odds are that they made well over the norm. So both Radiohead and the customer came up trumps. Even smarter was (in the great tradition of George Lucas) releasing a special edition for £40 and a CD format at £8.99. Yes, this approach has polarised the music industry, and I still feel guilty for paying £2 – but it worked and Radiohead delivered their best album since OK Computer.

Smart cookies indeed.

Prince sells his sign to the Daily Mail

Prince – as smart at business as he is with the guitar, shocked the industry by distributing his album ‘Planet Earth’ free with The Mail on Sunday. He was reportedly paid £500k, which is more than he stood to make from selling through the usual channels. Didn’t do his tour sales any harm either for his month long stint at the O2. My mate went and was shocked when the black symbol embossed tambourine he bought for his son set him back £70. Ironic that one of the few areas artists have control over is an extortionate percussion instrument.

Win an iTune with Coca-Cola

Choice. It’s all about choice. That’s what apple acted upon –selecting individual songs as opposed to albums and using iTunes as a legit alternative to illegal downloads. Yes, Napster were first, but apple made it easy, cool and ubiquitous.

Winning a song for the cynic is winning 79 pence, but the emotion behind what that song could make you feel like is far greater. The fact that redemption is easy, secure and cost effective to deliver makes this a Michael Winner.

Party Mix Your ‘Flux’

With Bloc Party’s release of Flux, NME cover-mounted four unique mixes of the song, along with software that enabled you to mix your own bespoke version. Co-creative and outstanding value.

Arctic Monkeys ‘still take you home’

A lot has been written about the Monkeys and in recent interviews they were keen to correct the press on the popular misconception that their success came from the myspace generation. Yes, a demo album called ‘Beneath the Boardwalk’ was available for now’t but their success came from a rigorous touring schedule and simply giving away the album free on CD’s. There’s nothing like getting something in your hands at the end of the day is there?

myspace

Apparently Lilly Allen has more friends than any other individual on myspace. A trend continued by one hit wonder Sandy Thom… and Mike Skinner before? Not sure about that one.

Anyway – for every Lilly there’s five thousand myspace bands who aren’t seen or heard.

Jamiroqia in the sky

Sony Ericsson managed to get Jay Kay out of his Ferrari and onto a Boeing 747 to perform a great gig in the sky to 200 passengers, before landing and then performing to 700 lucky punters. Proves puns work and that anything is possible.

T-Mobile street gigs

Exclusive content fused with flash mobbing = street gigs. One off gigs with the likes of the Zutons and The Magic Numbers where only T-Mobile customers knew where they were. The content was so original that is spurned a Friday night music programme sponsored by T-Mobile called ‘Transmission’.