Technically Lynn, your life isn't worth insuring.

The Arts Council have had their funding cut by a third. Post budget, there will be fewer plays, poorer prospects for new talent, an absence of funding for exhibitions. Research for books and community arts projects will struggle to find supporters. The UK Film Council is dead.

Is it then possible that the saviours of the UK arts scene could be advertisers? I am not referring to heavily branded scripts with enough product placement to sink a submarine and I don't really mean work like BMW films, using glossy directors and their ex-wives.

I am talking about using brands as platforms for newer work, for producing and creating content that in the tactile manner of social media, reaches out and touches consumers with a collective appreciation of something cultural and entertaining. Brands can provide us with the material we put our thumbs up to, and they no longer need a broadcaster to manage it. There is a lot of talk of 'curating content' but what is stopping brands for producing it?

The following example is a pertinent but flawed one. Foster's have commissioned (or at least distributed) the latest series of Alan Partridge (12 x 11 minute episodes) which is to be broadcast exclusively via Fostersfunny.co.uk. The problem as it relates to my point about the arts is that the show is a tried and tested success story with a large and loyal fanbase. Alan Partridge has not just finished his first summer in Edinburgh and is not looking for a grant to take his show to some crappy theatre in Winchester. But the site itself does help to serve my argument. Foster's Funny is an online broadcaster of new comedy, and if successful will see Foster's as synonymous with good comedy taste, as a hub for new entertainment. Something that could have a hugely positive impact on their brand image.



Clawing back towards brevity, trying times could see some symbiosis between advertising and the arts. The next Alan Partridge could come to you via your favourite brew instead of Auntie.