The MTV VMA awards are on again. But as I’m now the wrong side of 30 I find I have more in common musically with the oldies than the kidz. As an example, we went to see The Police in concert (with Spam the Monkey) and they were amazing and the last time they played live in the UK was in 1983. But they had Maximo Park as a support act who apparently are kool wid da kidz. I found it a cacophony of noise from a bunch of chaps with a lead singer in a bowler hat. So I am truly getting old and I now see myself in that parent role tutting and being utterly bemused when Top of the Pops came on. Anyway, I digress.

MTV have tried a few things in the wonderful, crazy mixed up mashed up world of digital of late which you have to give them credit for even though their video user generated content site was a bit, well, empty. And now they’re giving Twitter a go. While the updates from the show clearly don’t turn me on as I’m not core demographic, it’s interesting to see a relatively big brand trying out these new formats.

But how do people find out about this? I discovered it from two sources: 1) the seemingly omnipresent Armano on Twitter (who keeps trying to get Twitter-oke going with limited success) and 2) from the irregular update email from Twitter themselves (which I’m sure David read before me as my email backlog has grown exponentially with pitch work dominating me & then sent a tweet/twat into the ether to inform his groupies that maybe the MTV VMA thingy might make Twitter more credible for brands). If these didn’t exist, would I ever know? And would the event be over before people found out about it?

So, I click through from the Twitter site to the MTV site. And there’s a link to see Britney’s first live performance since the hair/rehab thing. Clearly I want to see if she a) has hair and b) well, that’s it really. But I’m barred!

I can’t access the video on the US site because of “copyright”. Hello MTV! It’s a global world out there. And if you get me from a global site like Twitter, don’t deny me access to the rich content because I’m not from the US! But my appetite for the hair question is unsated so I go to MTV UK site and there it is.

She has hair but it looks fake. And she lip synched. And looked bored. And she kind of wiggled rather than danced. And the people in the crowd who are presumably the stars of today looked utterly bemused by it. But importantly, my guess is it’s the same damn video as on the US site so I am very confused by copyright getting in the way of a good brand experience. Duh?

The point being, if you start the conversation with people, make sure you can finish it, wherever they are in the world.