For a start, you wouldn’t see Lakin in front of a TV camera. The 45-year-old entrepreneur and head of Enrich Social Productions (ESP) is very much an operator behind the scenes, especially computer screens. And even though many of us oldies have yet to hear of 1Click2Fame, hundreds of thousands of youngsters have. Its format, although groundbreaking, filters into something they’ve been doing for some time, uploading music, dance and variety videos of themselves to the internet in the hope of becoming famous. Under this umbrella, fan bases grow and interact with the winners chosen purely by their peers.
“Since we launched last April, we’ve reached such a wide and different range of people, with amazing talent coming out of that. Our first winner, Lucie Evans was taken out of her bedroom (where she performed and uploaded her act), won a £100,000 prize and is now well known. She's been getting singles and albums together with producers in LA, traveling the world and basically creating herself into something that will become a star. It won’t be very long before this country sees its first 'from the bedroom into the charts', number 1 single.”
Another unique selling point of 1Click2Fame is the platform that’s been established, with all sorts of brands engaging within and with each other through their various distribution channels. Tesco Digital is a hugely significant media partner, there’s mobile and iPhone, specially erected performance pods, social networking presence and interaction with AWAL (Artists Without a Label). Expansion to the US, Spain and Poland is all imminent work in progress.
‘Platform’ seems to be the operative word that Lakin frequently uses to sum up ESP’s raison d’etre.
"We view the world from a platform perspective. If, for example, you came to us and asked if we were interested in a film, we’d say it’s actually not about a film. What you need to do is build an entire platform that allows you to have those conversations - that includes online, on film and on TV.
“Then we work out how you build that conversation in a social space and enable it to happen with meaningful content. What you're doing is taking content that's socially engaging or socially charged and enabling conversations to happen across any form of media.”
The over-fishing factual feature, End of the Line is another shining example of this method. It became one of Britain’s most successful documentaries ever as a result of its innovative multi-media marketing. It gained momentum worldwide, and celebrity kudos with some simple phrases and images tagged with ‘imagine a world without fish’.
A search on Lakin does not bring up the traditional media routes, so where exactly did he come from?
"I'm someone who's been an entrepreneur all my life and did it by the seat of my pants until 2002."
He then decided to get serious after being part of a project involving the top 30 business schools around the world. Inspired he decided to embark on a Global Executive MBA at Barcelona's prestigious IESE Business School.
"I came out with a more formal view of the world and business. That got me thinking about what was important in terms of investing your money in an industry that was going somewhere or had opportunities, because you can be a poor player in a booming market or a great player in a very depressed market. So the question was: can you get on to a rising tide? I got into new media as a consequence of all that."
His thinking has seen a serious change in both his fortunes and his vocation. Now his sights are very firmly set on being at the forefront when the full merge finally happens between TV and the internet.
"I'd been thinking about the space of online media format, realising that ultimately we were in a funnel of convergence. That meant a screen is a screen and ultimately TVs will be connected to the web so it won't matter where you're watching the content. What will matter much more is the mode you're in.”
Even though this merging sounds like a natural marriage, Lakin says it is actually a lot more complex than it appears. When it finally becomes the norm, predicted between 2013-15, ESP will already be in the race whilst some of the big bods will only just be arriving at the starting line.
“It’s a much more difficult challenge than you would ever imagine because TV is all about telling stories and the web is stateless. I think we've been learning these past two years and went in with lots of ideas. Now I have a good sense of what does work and in our third iteration we have the platform to deliver that. We kept a pretty low profile up until this stage and purposely so because until you’re ready to rock you don't want to lay your eggs out in a row.”
It seems we’ve only seen a fraction of what Lakin and ESP are setting out to achieve.
