BOP Consulting's Culture and Creative Industries Blog

Promoting Northern Ireland's creative industries

BOP has linked to videos promoting the creative industries in Scotland and in Bristol in the past. Here's another, this time promoting Northern Ireland's creative sector, which was made earlier this year by Morrow Communications for the NI Bureau. Among others, it features Liam Neeson, Game of Thrones and even Avatar (on the grounds that its animator, Greg Maguire, is from NI).

 

 

Does European IP policy serve Europe's interests or Hollywood's?

The Social Science Research Council (SSRC), which is based at Columbia University and was responsible for the highly praised Media Piracy in Emerging Economies report we linked to back in April, has been blogging on Europe's IP policy. In a series of three related posts the SSRC characterises the European strategy as: Send money to the US. It says:

[T]he EU acts under a basic misapprehension in regard to IP policy.  In short, it acts like an IP exporter in the audiovisual and software fields, when it in fact is an IP importer and might be better served by the IP importer’s traditional posture of low IP protection and enforcement.  In practice, this misapprehension means that European IP policy essentially pursues the interests of the US and its IP exporting  film, music, and software industries.

All three posts are well worth reading.

BOP's briefings on cultural place-making

Cultural place-making is an increasingly important strand of BOP's work, often carried out in conjunction with our friends at Futurecity. Over the last couple of years BOP has written a number of short briefings looking at various aspects of cultural place-making - the process of embedding culture in masterplanning and regeneration projects. The briefings are:

How to Create an Icon 

What next for cultural regeneration?

 Localism and cultural place-making

 

 

 

The CBI on skills in the creative industries

BOP Consulting is currently working with Skillset on a report on skills issues in the creative industries for the skills working group of the Creative Industries Council. The CBI (the Confederation of British Industry) has just published a briefing note setting out 'the steps CBI members believe are required to ensure the UK’s creative industries have the skills to retain their competitive edge', to tie in with the Creative Industries Council's work.

The brief identifies three broad areas in which work needs to be done to develop relevant skills:

• Ensuring young people leave school with a strong grasp of the basics

• Developing up-to-date knowledge and skills through university programmes

• Supporting employers to develop the abilities of the current workforce. 

Cultural organisations' use of social media

The arts and culture listings website Culture 24 has produced a useful report examining cultural organisations' use of social media. In particular, Culture 24 wanted to explore ways of measuring and defining the success of cultural websites and online services. The project involved 17 organisations, among them the British Library, the National Gallery, Birmingham's BM&AG, and National Museums Scotland, together with five agencies (including the DCMS) and a university.

The report, Let's Get Real: How to Evaluate Online Success?, notes that cultural organisations are still relatively small players in the online world. It makes a number of recommendations for improving and standardising data collection as a first step in improving this. They include:

• Adopt Google Analytics for basic reporting to government along with central government use of an ISP level alternative (such as Hitwise) for balance. Widespread adoption will allow for in-depth sector analysis and benchmarking.

• Engage with and consider ways to enhance Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) through investment of money and/or time. This is still the main source of most of your traffic.

• Define your online audience targets specifically and map them to your overall business objectives and targets. Online access for everyone is simply not good enough.

• Remember to look at the patterns, not just the numbers. Small can be beautiful. Success is not defined by scale but by fulfilling your objectives or your audience’s needs.

Culture 24 have also provided two tools (at the bottom of this page) to help: a social media metrics toolkit and a Google Analytics health checklist.    

BOP's research into international differences in design rights is published

Spending on design is significant - it has been valued at £33bn in the UK (in 2008). Despite this, the number of designs submitted for registration remains low. As we have found: 

The number of designs submitted for registration each year in the UK is only a quarter the number of patents and just 15 per cent the number of trade marks. Design registration in the UK is also relatively modest at around 5 per cent of French registration and 9 per cent of that in Germany. 

 

The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) recently commisioned a series of reports looking at various aspects of design rights. BOP Consulting was asked to compare Britain's design rights regime with those of France and Germany. That research has just been published by the IPO as chapter 4 of the combined document: a link can be found here. (The other chapters are by Imperial College's Business School and Dr James Moultrie.) Our research found that:

• Historical data shows that the UK has always had lower levels of design registration than France and Germany.

•  Differences in legal and cultural traditions help explain the differences in design registration across the UK, France and Germany.

• The cost of enforcement seems to be lower in Germany and France than in the UK, and there is a general perception that courts will be actively interested in protecting design intellectual property (IP), partly because of the greater weight given to the ‘author’s right’ in those two countries.

• Additionally, infringers face more severe sanctions in Germany than in the UK, where infringements are dealt with under civil law. This may influence design owners’ perception of the efficiency of the registration system.

• In addition to strong and relatively inexpensive legal enforcement, Germany has multiple private initiatives, such as the Messe Frankfurt and Plagiarius, to enforce design IP rights (IPR).

If you are interested in knowing more about this topic, please contact BOP's Cristina Rosemberg on 0207 307 3090 or email us at contact@bop.co.uk.

Liberal Democrats challenge Digital Economy Act

The controversies over the Digital Economy Act, passed in the dying days of the last government, continue to rumble on. The Liberal Democrats have passed a resolution at their conference this week calling, in effect, for significant parts of the bill to be scrapped. The conference voted to endorse a policy paper, Preparing the Ground: Stimulating Growth in the Digital Economy, which calls for such a move. Among the report's recommendations are:

• Repealing those parts of the Digital Economy Act which lack both democratic legitimacy and practical value.

• Encouraging growth in the creative industries and reducing illegal breach of copyright by working with rights holders, ISPs, content providers and citizens.

• Giving power back to creators and innovators by introducing a presumption in favour of rights reverting to the original artist.

• Defending the principles of net neutrality, if necessary via regulatory or legislative means.

It is, however, unclear what weight the vote will carry.

Will proposed tax changes disadvantage the creative industries?

As part of the Budget earlier this year, HM Treasury introduced reforms to the EIS and VCT venture capital regimes, raising the level of tax relief and associated investment limits. While these changes should, on the face of it, benefit the creative sector, the Treasury is now proposing to tighten the criteria for eligibility. This threatens to undo the good work of the Budget in this area. Martin Smith, of Ingenious Media, has written a short paper setting out the adverse consequences of these changes for creative content businesses in particular. He warns:

Should the prescription of “acceptable” business models, or the proscription of “unacceptable” business models, fail to take account of the significant differences between custom and risk management practice in the creative sector as distinct from practices in most of the rest of the economy, the effect on creative businesses is likely to be disproportionate and severe. Poorly judged fiscal re-regulation in this area could have a seriously negative effect on overall levels of investment in content production.

The Treasury's consultation on this subject remains open until 28 September - details can be found here. Ingenious's response to the relevant questions can be read here.  

Arts Council's audience segmentation research updated

Arts Council England (ACE) has published a 2011 update of its audience segmentation research, first released in 2008. ACE has used the latest Taking Part and Target Group Index data, but has kept the 13 segments approach used previously.

A national strategy for Scotland's museums and galleries

In June of this year BOP Consulting was commissioned by Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) to help it develop a national strategy for Scotland's museums and galleries. After a period of intensive engagement with the sector, the project moved into its second phase on Friday with the release of a consultation document setting out the proposed guiding principles, vision, themes and objectives of the strategy. The document was launched by Fiona Hyslop, Scotland's Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs at the Collaborating to Compete conference. She said:

Getting to this stage in the process represents a major achievement by Museums Galleries Scotland and the Museums Strategy Group and I look forward to seeing the final National Strategy early next year.

Friday also marked the beginning of the public consultation period on the document, which runs until 8 November. If you would like to contribute, you can do so here. BOP will be analysing these responses as part of its work with MGS on the final strategy itself, which is due to be published in early 2012.

Creative industries in Britain: a Northern Irish perspective

The Research and Information Service of the Northern Ireland Assembly has issued a research paper summarising the current state of the creative industries. The paper, The Creative Industries: background, definitions and recent policy development, provides an overview for the UK as a whole, but its summaries of developments in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic are perhaps the most interesting sections. The report can be read here.   

How the BBC contributes to the wider creative sector

The BBC is sometimes accused of using its public subsidy to squash private sector competition. The Corporation has just produced a substantial report, Helping drive growth in the UK creative economy, which argues that, in reality, it contributes considerably to the wider creative sector in Britain. The report makes a number of points, including:

• Last year the BBC invested over £30m in training the creative sector, and supplied over 3,800 days of training to more than 2,400 non-BBC staff.

• Over £50m invested in Research & Development activity: Because the BBC is committed to open platforms and technologies, it enables other companies to create their own value on the back of them.

• BBC Worldwide does business in 200 countries and territories. It works with over 300 indies and turns the best UK content into global brands. Turnover increased 7.8% to £1,158m last year; it now accounts for nearly 10% of UK creative industry exports.

• By focusing its expertise geographically such as Natural History in Bristol and Drama in Cardiff, the BBC has created sustainable production centres, helping the UK to have a more balanced economy. Many thousands of people will directly benefit from employment, training, business or partnership opportunities from MediaCityUK in Salford.

The BBC sums up its case by saying: "The BBC can only benefit the creative industries in these ways because of its scale, international reach, stable funding and commitment to the highest levels of quality."

 

Next steps for the Arts Council and the museums and libraries sector

Arts Council England has published a report setting out the next steps in the integration of museums and libraries into its strategic framework (following its taking over of the functions of the MLA). Culture, knowledge and understanding: great museums and libraries for everyone is not intended to be a final statement, ACE says, and responses are welcome. Long-term, the Arts Council does not foresee there being separate frameworks for museums, libraries and arts. In the meantime the new framework has five goals:

At the heart of the framework are five 10-year goals, the substance of which have been adapted to reflect the needs and priorities for museums and libraries and sit alongside our existing goals for the arts:

• Goal 1: Excellence is thriving and celebrated in museums and libraries

• Goal 2: More people experience and are inspired by museums and libraries

• Goal 3: Museums and libraries are sustainable, resilient and innovative

• Goal 4: The leadership and workforce in museums and libraries are
diverse and highly skilled.

• Goal 5: Every child and young person has the opportunity to experience the richness of museums and libraries.

 

The Economist on digital publishing

Book publishing is starting to experience some of the convulsions that have shaken the music and newspaper industries. This interesting article in The Economist draws attention to the speed of the changes the rise of the e-book is causing: 

In the first five months of this year sales of consumer e-books in America overtook those from adult hardback books. Just a year earlier hardbacks had been worth more than three times as much as e-books.

As in other creative industries, a rise in piracy and arguments about pricing structures also pose challenges for the industry.

Minutes of first Creative Industries Council meeting published

Earlier this year the government announced the establishment of the Creative Industries Council, a joint industry-government forum that aims to address barriers to growth facing the sector. (For a list of its members, see here.)

The Council held its first meeting on July 13, though without Jeremy Hunt, who had his hands full with the phone-hacking saga. A note of that meeting has just been published by the DCMS. The main point of interest is the reservations expressed by some of the members about the Access to Finance paper produced in May (see this earlier blogpost). The paper was not felt to reflect industry's concerns adequately. As a result, the approach of the access to finance working group will be restructured. 

How heritage can use digital media to engage people

The Heritage Lottery Fund (a BOP client) has just published a series of 22 case studies of "participation and learning activity in the digital environment". This can take many forms, including crowdsourcing, geocaching and mobile apps. The case studies mostly come from this country, though there are a few from the United States and Australia as well. Institutions profiled range from the Natural History Museum and the National Archives to Rotherham Library and the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.

The report goes on to draw out key lessons, which it groups into eight themes:

• Audiences and their motivations
• Experiences
• Resources
• Sustainability
• Technology
• Social media
• Promotion/marketing
• Project management 

Labour launches Creative Industries Network

Ivan Lewis MP, the shadow culture secretary, last night set out the next steps in the Labour party's approach to the creative industries. A creative industries network is to be established; it will be chaired by Andrew McGuinness of the Advertising Association. Lewis also announced a review of ways to help creative industries access private investment and specialist business expertise in order to be able to scale up. This will be led by Patrick McKenna, former chief executive of the Really Useful Group and founder of Ingenious. McKenna is an interesting choice, as he is not known as a Labour supporter. (Indeed, he is a member of the government's Creative Industries Council.)

While some of the measures outlined are not particularly original - the Conservatives' Culture and Creative Industries Network has already been running for a couple of years - Lewis's talk of developing an industrial strategy for the sector may help spur fresh thinking at a time when policy development seems becalmed.   

 

Learning from a decade of outreach work in heritage

Yesterday we had a meeting with Miriam Levin, who used to lead English Heritage's outreach team. The team was disbanded in March 2011 after eight years, following the budget cuts imposed on English Heritage.

The team produced a final 'swansong' report - Outreach: Engaging new audiences with the historic environment - looking at its projects and what it had learned over its near-decade of activity. It identified six fundamental principles of outreach work: sustainability, partnership working, maximising impact, knowledge sharing, evaluation and consultation. The report can be read here.  

 

A Dutch cultural meltdown?

Jo Burns, BOP's director, is currently in the Netherlands, where she is meeting officials from the ministries of culture and economic affairs. The battles over cuts to arts spending (driven by wider economic difficulties) rage as fiercely in Holland as they do here, but one big difference is that the Dutch cultural sector has rarely tried to make an economic case for its value, relying instead on arguments about art's intrinsic worth. 

The current Dutch coalition, elected in 2010, plans to cut €200m from the national arts budget (taking it from €900m down to €700m). It has proposed that by 2013 the country's ten orchestras will be cut to seven while the seven dance companies will be reduced to four. There will be two opera companies instead of three, eight theatre companies instead of nine and three film festivals, not five.  

The cultural sector has responded with marches, speeches and emotive advertisements (see below). More details here and here.

 

Securing a place for culture in the National Planning Policy Framework

The arguments about the government's proposed new planning framework (NPPF) have continued to rage, with ministers, business groups and the National Trust in particular involved in heated disagreements. English Heritage too has now stepped into the row.

One aspect of the NPPF which has caused concern is the lack of mention of culture. (See our earlier blogpost on the subject.) The Theatres Trust has just issued a short guidance document to help people wishing to draw attention to this, identifying some of the key issues. Submissions have to be in by 17 October 2011 at the latest. The Trust says:

We believe there is a need to strengthen the guidance by making explicit reference to culture at appropriate points in the text. At present leisure, sport and heritage are explicitly recognised in the draft NPPF. Culture, the arts and theatres are not. The reduction of policy guidance, particularly in relation to PPS4 in the new NPPF has meant that there is a lack of clarity surrounding culture and the role it has to play in achieving sustainable development.

100 years of London style in 100 seconds

Westfield Stratford City, the giant shopping centre next to the Olympic Park, is due to open on September 13. Amid the flood of promotional material is this unexpectedly charming video showing 100 years of London style in 100 seconds.

 

Is 1980s architecture worth preserving?

Kieran Long, the architecture critic of the London Evening Standard, has written an interesting piece on 1980s architecture. A number of the most high-profile office developments of the period are apparently already reaching the end of their functional life, but as they are less than thirty years old they are not eligible for listing. As a result, demolition is looming for at least one of them, Marco Polo House in Battersea (see below). Long explores the pros and cons of preserving the decade's post-modern icons.