A new approach

Working with the PSP

Traditionally, the development of a well-established brand in the media ecology has been a slow and expensive process - particularly where direct to consumer propositions are concerned. However, more recently, brands such as Google and eBay have developed not simply as a result of external marketing and branding exercises but as a result of the way in which they have offered services which have effectively harnessed and resonated with the essential participatory nature of the interactive, networked media. Only now as they approach mass market status are many of the most successful online players reinforcing their brands with more traditional advertising and branding techniques.

The current notion of the PSP sits in a similar place relative to the existing PSB landscape. It might be helpful to think of the PSP as a "facilitation brand" rather than a consumer brand. This is one aspect, for instance, of the highly-successful "Intel Inside" marketing programme carried out by the silicon chip-maker. By positioning the chip as a source of quality and Intel as a quality supplier, Intel has been proven to have some success in differentiating itself from other places in the market and in turning the chip into a "decision-element" for some consumers when they buy new hardware.

A similar approach could be applied to the PSP. By working in partnership with distributors and syndicating content widely, the information that the project had received support from the PSP could be developed to become a mark of quality in the public service media landscape. There would be risks to this approach - as there are with all participatory media projects - namely that it would be possible for content to be subverted for purposes for which it was not intended which could reflect badly on the PSP. There are, of course, legal remedies in the event that such activity were to go too far and infringe criminal, libel or privacy law, for instance, which would protect in the most difficult cases. Beyond that, it will be important to keep the issues in proportion. It is a natural risk of basic funding in science, for instance, that some of the commercial products which may spin-off from them may not have been intended or envisaged at the commissioning of the research. We do not, as a society, allow this possibility to obviate the need to fund the initial research. We need a similarly nuanced and mature view of the balance between risk and reward which the PSP would also bring up.

A further key role for the PSP would be in ensuring that search mechanisms for its content - and conceivably for all public service media content - become as efficient as possible. This would never extend to the development of a search engine, but it would involve working with search engine specialists and the major global and local players in search to establish tagging and discovery mechanisms to facilitate this. The PSP's "facilitation brand" could be a valuable way of finding and bench-marking this kind of content in future; a role which is already in dire need of filling.

It is not the role of this paper to discuss commissioning processes or funding in detail. That is the job of others elsewhere and in future. However, it is worth drawing out some of the key concepts on which the PSP might be based and considering how they might apply to its own operation.

Firstly, the notions of partnership and participation are central to the PSP. Therefore, it makes sense to ensure that the widest possible range of participants can get involved. Therefore, when it comes to considering the physical location of the PSP, it is essential that it has a presence of some kind in every nation and region of the UK - including London. There is, however, no compelling argument favouring any one location over any other when it comes to consideration of an HQ - which might more aptly be termed a "hub" - for the PSP. OFCOM's initial proposals suggested that the PSP should be headquartered outside London and this seems to make sense as a way to decide where the hub should be located.

Similarly, it is extremely unlikely that one commissioning model will be able to service the range of possibilities across online, computer games, mobile or any other platform which might come before the PSP. Added to that, the range of organisations seeking support should extend far beyond the traditional professional content sectors - although it should absolutely include them. Local groups, communities of interest, public bodies, artists, in fact almost any group could conceivably approach the PSP. In this, the organisation might share some roots with the more successful Lottery awarding bodies, hub and spokes organisations such as the Screen Network or UK Film Council as well as with traditional television commissioning. Some support might come after design competitions, some might be voted on by public vote, some would still need to be led by a team of expert commissioners. There is no real reason why a combination of these modes would not be most appropriate to the PSP. Sometimes funding would be as a grant, at others it might follow the model of a service level agreement or, alternatively, just look like a plain old commission. The precise model will need time to develop and will need to be reiterated as the PSP itself finds its feet.

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