A year is a long time to be away from the work world and many people have asked me upon my return to the daily grind what I did while I was on maternity leave. The easy answer is, "successfully kept a small child alive for the last 12 months, thank you very much"; but the real answer is a little less predictable.

I played Rock Band. A lot of it. When my daughter went to sleep at night? Rock Band. When any of my childless friends were brave enough to visit? Yes, Rock Band.

Aside from upping my geek ante and exposing how sorely my social life has dwindled post-child, my new amusement has made me more aware of the growing frenzy around the game. Most astounding was an article from gamer megasite IGN.com that came out following the E3 conference in mid-July hyping the fall release of Rock Band 2.

Not only did it officially outline all the new bells and whistles, but it had the game's full 84-song track list. Along with that was the announcement that all of the songs from the Rock Band 1 disc, as well as downloadable content, would be exportable with the new game.

"So what?" you say. "You're not making any sense!" Consider this: the first version of Rock Band comes with 58 songs, but at my home you can play over 200. How? Downloadable content (or DLC to the real losers). At anywhere from $.99 to $1.99 a pop, the makers of the game release an average of three songs per week. Do the math. We've spent $250 on new songs for the game, in addition to the initial purchase. Along with all the new Rock Band 2 songs and planned DLC, IGN.com reports that by year's end Rock Band fans will have access to more than 500 songs. It is now officially a channel.

More interesting tidbits to chew on: Guns n' Roses, who have famously been working on their new album, Chinese Democracy, for oh, about a decade, are set to release their new single on Rock Band in the fall. And they're not the first. Hair rockers Mötley Crüe emerged from the pyrotechnics to release their latest single via the game this summer. According to a July New York Times article it sold 14,000 copies on iTunes and 48,000 on Rock Band through Microsoft's Xbox Live network alone.

I read all of this information on the same day that I saw a disturbing article on Brand Republic about marketing budgets in the UK. The IPA Bellwether Report, which has been tracking marketing spends since 2000, reported the largest cuts to marketing budgets since 9/11. TV, press, outdoor, radio and cinema were worst hit while PR, events and research were predicted to have the worst outlook over the next five years. Online spending managed to avoid the downward spiral but experienced its smallest upward trend in five years.

The report's author, Chris Williamson, speculated that "marketing spend could fall this year for the first time since the survey began". Meanwhile, IPA chief and European chairman of M&C Saatchi, Moray MacLennan, advised that "agencies cannot affect the short term economic outlook, but they can do at least two things; firstly, focus even more closely on cost control and secondly, strive for even more original and innovative solutions so they can buck the trend."

And there it is. Rock Band may not be the music industry's savior, but after all the years of the apocalyptic dirge, bands are finding a pretty successful (and fun) way of reaching fans and appealing to new audiences. Artists have re-thought the distribution paradigm and are flocking to the medium faster than the programming geeks can make song charts.

In just under a year, a silly music game became a significant player in the music biz. So what's the ad industry's equivalent? Sounds like it's time to start looking for your very own Rock Band. In the meantime, I'm putting the computer down and picking up the plastic axe.

Rock on.

Rae Ann Fera

Editor