MTV / Creative Campaign / 3 weeks
Stage a cultural comeback by embracing what MTV does best: trainwreck reality television.
Nuts & Bolts
We Imagined MTV Asking Us…
To return their brand to cultural relevancy.
To gain some street cred with Gen-Z, a generation that does not realize just how much MTV paved the way for today’s meme-centric culture.
We Got to Work…
Understanding MTV’s current business situation and the conversation surrounding its decline,
Watching old-school MTV footage (a 1980s MTV News segment on lingo, a 1990s MTV News segment on Kurt Cobain fans, and plenty of MTV Cribs).
Lurking in active reddit forums dedicated to reality shows like Teen Mom and Jersey Shore.
Studying the psychology of “the trainwreck,” (i.e. why we love to watch other people’s lives implode).
In the End…
We saw an opportunity for MTV to own their reputation for trashy, guilty-pleasure reality TV.
We created a campaign that encourage viewers to downplay the guilty and embrace the pleasure.
The Brief
Business Situation
Since its inception in the 1980s, MTV was the place for teens to make a statement and be heard. However, teens today have a seemingly endless supply of entertainment options and vehicles for self-expression (many of them free). As a result, MTV has struggled to remain relevant.
Search results reveal top hits as “dead,” “dying,” “trash,” and “garbage.”
Human Truth
Humans love to watch other people’s lives implode. This impulse is rooted in our evolutionary desire to belong to society and to distinguish ourselves from those who do not fit in. Simply put, watching other people ruin their lives is a guilty pleasure that makes us feel better about our own. If it is human nature, why should viewers be embarrassed?
Strategy
Pull up a seat to the trainwreck.
Concept
Painfully pleasant to watch
The Creative
Out of Home
Public transit stations are an ideal place for this campaign to live. Not only are they high-traffic, if you’ve ever watched a fistfight on a platform or seen a group of fans stumble home from the arena, you know they are perfect for people watching.
Social Media
Before there was social media voyeurism, there was reality television. On Instagram, most people pick and choose the best parts of their life to show. We wanted to draw a contrast between the self-comparisons that make us feel worse (“How does Hailey Baldwin’s skin look so good all the time?!”) and those that make us feel better (“Well at least I’m more together than those girls on Teen Mom OG!”)
Tiktok
Enter TikTok. As a platform that allows users to take famous soundbites and make them their own, moments like Kanye’s VMA interruption or an epic fight between Sammi and Ronnie can live on forever. As new shows air, new viral soundbites are born.
Many accounts are already using soundbites that originated from MTV, so why not get the brand in on the conversation? MTV can sponsor a contest, rewarding accounts who get the most views with tickets to the VMAs and posting the winners on their owned TikTok account. Additionally, because Tiktok’s user base skews younger (37% are under 19 in the US), this helps bring in audiences who may have been too young to remember the moments when they first aired — the very same teens MTV has been struggling to engage.
Extensions
If you’re going to embrace the trainwreck, you’re going to need snacks.
Boxed Wine
Ice Cream
AD: Matteo Meola
CW: Tarik Atallah