Claire Beale on Advertising

If there was ever any doubt that we are entering an age of media democracy, news that Nick Jr has launched a user-generated site for toddlers is surely final proof.

Regular readers of this column will know that user-generated content (the whole YouTube phenomenon) is kicking up some dust in the ad industry. Home-made programmes are drawing audiences away from the old mass media and consumers are using the UGC opportunity to make films (ads, even) that interact with brands in new, dangerous and exciting ways.

Now even our babies are getting in on the programme-making fad. Log on to NickJr.co.uk this musical March to see kids' videos of themselves doing what kids do best: showing off and making a lot of noise. OK, so there's probably a proud parent toting the webcam, but you get the principle: we're breeding a generation of media junkies as comfortable making programmes as watching them.

Of course, by the time Nick Jr's budding UGC-ers become rampant consumers themselves (which, if you believe the scaremongering about advertising to children, is not far off) making and sharing our own content will be all rather pedestrian. But for now it's the Big Thing.

Big enough to have two of the world's biggest media owners scrapping over the territory. Viacom last week launched a $1bn legal battle against Google over copyright on Google's YouTube.

Viacom is rapping YouTube for breach of copyright. There's loads of Viacom programming available on YouTube, stuff like the best of South Park and Beavis and Butt-head, all uploaded by punters and without Viacom's say so: less user-generated, more user-regenerated. Uploaders are required to tick a box saying they own the copyright on anything they submit, but like so much on the web it doesn't exactly seem as important as it would in the offline world.

So what's all this got to do with advertising? Well, as a compromise on this whole copyright issue, Viacom fancied a share of the ad revenue these programme clips attract to YouTube, but Google is keeping its purse snapped shut.

As well as claiming more than $1bn in compensation, Viacom is giving Google the two fingers by joining forces with Joost, a new web-based TV service, to launch a YouTube rival. So Viacom is licensing some of its programming to Joost in return for a slug of the ad revenue it generates. Is it merely coincidence that Viacom also owns Nick Jr or is it grooming the UGC audience early?

Either way, regular viewers of YouTube might reckon Viacom has a point. Yes, one of the joys of the site is its maverick, democratic unpredictability. But let's be honest, an awful lot of the stuff on there seems to be made by teenage boys with a dangerously puerile sense of humour. Most of the really good stuff on YouTube or any other UGC site is actually made by (semi) professionals: broadcasters, directors, ad agencies, film students. Viacom's content (160,000 clips, give or take) has been uploaded on to YouTube because people love it, because it's really very good. The most viewed clip on YouTube, ever, is by CBS: David Letterman and Oprah Winfrey Hoovering up popcorn on the sofa in front of the Super Bowl: 102,854,969 viewings. And, surprise, surprise, this is also the sort of content that holds most appeal to advertisers running online ad campaigns. So Viacom might have a point.

At this month's ISBA conference, when advertisers did their annual navel-gazing routine, the global boss of the Euro RSCG advertising agency, David Jones, brilliantly knifed the UGC bubble. Most of it, he said, is quite simply rubbish. And all the hype about advertisers asking their customers to make ads (a phenomenon in this year's Super Bowl ad breaks in the US) just buys you cheap and embarrassingly bad commercials. (Naturally you can see the results on YouTube - where else?)

On the other hand, Jones said ad agencies are "the gods of short-form content". This is adland's big opportunity; the best ads are content - well made, entertaining. So the UGC fad opens up new territories for screening ads, for screening films about the making of ads, films about the making of the making of ads. And, unlike Viacom, copyright isn't a problem: the more people nick and upload agency content, the better for advertisers.

Mind you, for an industry running short on talent, agencies could do worse than scan those Nick Jr videos for tomorrow's advertising creatives.

* TALKING OF Google, the search engine giant is said to be eyeing the TV advertising market to deliver advertisers a new holy grail: harnessing the mighty power of the web and its interactive, direct channels of communication to specifically target offline ads to purchase-primed consumers.

The search engine giant is preparing to trial a new ad opportunity to cable homes in California, taking information from individual households' Google search activity to feed them tailored ads on TV.

So if you've been searching online for dating agencies or haemorrhoid cream you could find yourself being slipped TV ads on the same subjects next time you're couch-potatoing in front of the telly. Which depending on your domestic arrangements could prove somewhat embarrassing.

The initiative inevitably raises some interesting questions about privacy. Is Google the Big Brother of the digital age? It's an issue Google itself is acutely aware of. Last week it announced that it would be erasing huge swathes of personal information on all our searches in an attempt to reassure the public that privacy is paramount. Mind you, Google will still hold on to data on billions of searches for up to two years, a legal requirement since the data can be used by police investigating crime.

If Google can find a palatable way to unleash this information for commercial use (with the agreement of consumers, of course), it could take the advertising applications of the internet into a new dimension, integrating old and new media in a potent commercial package.

FROM 1 SEPTEMBER all sorts of gaming companies will be able to advertise their wares on mainstream television. Students of adland's fortunes will taste the irony of these new advertising freedoms. At a time when advertising is under siege for its corrupting influence (junk food ads, drink ads, ads targeting children), our forked-tongue government is sanctioning a gambling advertising bonanza.

The ad industry must tread very carefully. New self-regulatory guidelines released last week make every effort to show how the industry intends to act responsibly, emphasising the importance of social responsibility and striving to protect more vulnerable consumers. But already church leaders and MPs are voicing concerns.

On the one hand adland is looking forward to new ad revenues of between £100m and £350m a year, depending whose guesstimates you believe. On the other this could be a case of short-term gain, long-term pain if gambling advertising gives the pressure groups yet more ammunition in their war against the ad business. The stage looks set for another pitch battle against the evils of advertising.

BEALE'S BEST IN SHOW: TESCO (THE RED BRICK ROAD)

Last week Asda signed up the services of comedian Victoria Wood to help to restore its advertising mojo. Asda's new agency, Fallon, is preparing to unleash a new celebrity-centric ad strategy, despite the fact that just a few weeks ago Asda's marketing chief Rick Bendel slammed the use of celebrity endorsement by retailers.

Celebrity endorsement has never done Tesco's marketing much harm over the years. And the latest crop of star-studded ads, discouraging the use of plastic bags, is as charming as you could wish. The commercials, by The Red Brick Road, feature celebs such as Noel Edmonds and John McEnroe using the tricks of their trade (red boxes, tennis ball cartons) to carry their groceries rather than carrier bags. This is exactly the sort of advertising as entertaining content that you might watch on YouTube and is why celebrities still do the business for advertisers.

Apparently Asda will have Victoria Wood doing a stint in a bakery. Fallon will do well to come up with something as engaging as Tesco's work. I'll let you know if it passes the YouTube test.