VH1 AND MTV BEATS LONG LIVE MUSIC

TitleVH1 AND MTV BEATS LONG LIVE MUSIC
BrandVH1 AND MTV BEATS
Product / ServiceVH1 AND MTV BEATS CHANNELS
CategoryA02. Use of Social / Digital Platform
EntrantVIACOM 18 MEDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Idea Creation VIACOM 18 MEDIA Mumbai, INDIA
PR VIACOM 18 MEDIA Mumbai, INDIA
Production DAYZERO COMMUNICATIONS Bengaluru, INDIA
Production 2 FACEBOOK Mumbai, INDIA
Production 3 ONBOARD IDEAS Mumbai, INDIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Bharat Sahai Dayzero Director

Why is this work relevant for for Music?

This was a first-of-its-kind 24-hour music festival on Facebook Live, the idea was to entertain our audience through high quality music from more than 40 top artists from various genres in India. As a World Music Day initiative that catered to different music tastes, the event had to have a sound production and visual quality that was better than an actual concert. But in order to reach our audiences across the country we had to do it through a digital medium where they were most present - Facebook.

Background

Situation: Most of our audience are firing up apps for their music needs, as TV channels for music we needed to create relevance in the digital space. Brief: To create relevance on digital as Music TV channel brands. Objectives: 1. To reach our audience and build brand relevance on digital. 2. Ensure more than 10 million reach for the Live and 200k+ engagements (since this was a first-of-its-kind initiative we could benchmark only basis previous, short format Facebook Lives and extrapolating from there).

Describe the creative idea

The idea was a first ever 24-hour music festival on Facebook Live to celebrate each minute of World Music Day, unlike any other music brand. Being music channel brands we leveraged our relationship with the industry and got more than 40 top artists from different genres to perform Live on our Facebook pages for the entire country to tune into at any given time during the World Music Day. And all these artist came on board, free of cost, simply for the love of music and to further the brand's objective of relevance on digital.

Describe the strategy

Audience is Gen Z primarily, and young millenials, for Vh1 and MTV Beats. People who love to listen to music - Bollywood lovers as well as consumers of English music. People who are digital natives and fast switching to apps for music and travel and everything else. We know our audience is super active on Facebook and Instagram, so we had to reach them through those platforms. Hence Facebook Live became the perfect platform for that. And to get them interested we needed to get their favorite artists on board. Which is why we had the top artists in the music scene in India as a part of this mammoth 24 -hour music festival. And that too free of cost. We positioned it as the first 24-hour music festival in the country without queues, heat or porta-potties! Just pure sound and pure enjoyment from wherever one was at the time.

Describe the execution

We wanted to create a unique announcement for the Live, so we got our artists to tweet about World Music Day and wonder about what they should do for it, while tagging the next artist on the same tweet. Thus starting a tag chain on Twitter, which got all their fans asking what was in the works. This ended with both brands stepping in and announcing the initiative of 'Long LIVE Music' on Facebook Live. We also took the promos on-air, pushed word out on digital and through trade mailers. The actual event took place from 12 am of 21st June to 12 am of 22nd June 2019 on Vh1 and MTV Beats' Facebook pages. Logistically, the challenge lay in the switch from one artist to the next during the Live. But we ensured a smooth, quick transition. Even switching to a backstage feed for fun interviews with the artists.

Describe the outcome

Since this was a first-of-its-kind initiative, we had a benchmark of a 10 million reach overall and 200k+ engagements - basis extrapolation from a few Facebook Lives done earlier and as per the audience response to those lives. The actual reach number was 6 times more than what we'd expected: 60 MN+ Reach 25 MN+ Impressions 10 MN+ Views 5 MN+ Engagements But more than anything else, 10 million people tuned into the Live itself on one single day, which is far more than the 5 lakh music festival goers in India during the entire year combined.

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