Case study: Viacom 18 – Sony Ericsson MTV Roadies Battleground

India Social Case Challenge – Edition 1

Category: Long-term Initiatives

Title : Viacom 18 – Use of Social media: Sony Ericsson MTV Roadies Battleground

Share a little about your organisation

Viacom 18 Media Pvt. Ltd. is a 50/50 joint venture operation in India between Viacom Inc. NYSE: VIA, VIA.B, world’s leading entertainment content company, and the Network18 Group, one of India’s leading full play media conglomerates with interests in television, internet, filmed entertainment, mobile content & allied businesses. Viacom 18 Media Pvt. Ltd. includes the vibrant youth brand – MTV.

Executive Summary

Roadies Battleground is in the format of a Digital Show. It is a comprehensive and extended adaptation of the popular cult series MTV Roadies from an on-air TV show to an entirely online version in the digital ecosystem. Roadies Battleground is showcased through virtual medium and serves to be an exact replica of the original format. Participants have to clear various levels based on adventurous tasks to survive in the digital show. Online voting is used to retain or vote-out a contestant. It was conceived as the only way to use the growing popularity of social networking in India.

Background

The on-air version of the show only allows 13 consumers to participate, by extending to the online platform they had the opportunity to take this show live and open participation to 50 million internet youth in the country. Season 1 of Battleground was an astounding success with 1,70,000 members joining the community online and approximately 2,80,000 people downloaded the gadget.

Approach/ Strategy

Project: Association with Google & Orkut
Strategy: Shift the Roadies challenge to the computer screens

Marketing Approach

• Use of Television, Online Media, Social media, Mobile Media & Offline platforms for 360 degrees activation for Digital Roadies
• Use traditional platforms like on-ground, television and marketing to drive engagement online
• The participants inherently become User Generated Content Producers for TV

Duration: 3months

Marketing spread:

1. Google Content network: 57 Million impressions
2. Google impressions (Search): 2 million
3. Viacom 18 Online Network:15 Million impressions
4. Web 18 Online Network: 25 Million impressions

Total budget allocated: Rs. 1 crore approximately

Stakeholders

Primary stakeholders were the online users between the age group of 18-25

Effectively engaged online consumer’s sphere of influence through the following:

• Call for registration phase
• Shortlisting phase – 100 Candidates
• Shortlist tasks and select 14 Roadies
• Execute Roadies Task and Community Tasks
• Trigger Roadies Vote Out
• Activate Community Vote in
• The ‘app’ allowed users to compete to win an online ‘Roadies challenge’ & this application was designed to use the power of Orkut, a Roadies Orkut application and the sheer viral networks of community members.

About the initiative

1. Campaign used a mix of TV, online and in-channel promotions & offline initiatives to popularize the initiative & urged interested fans to sign up, become members of the MTV community on Orkut, and add a specially-developed application to their pageshttp://www.indiasocial.in/wp-admin/page.php?action=edit&post=190
2. Online Media & Social Media were the primary platforms and were used to drive engagement with the Digital Show
3. Marketing – Besides a cross media marketing plan (TV, print, online, social media, mobile, outdoor & on-ground)
4. Allowed consumers to adapt a Roadies Batteleground skin for the first time on Orkut

Impact – Outcome

1. 40,000 community members – Grew to 1,70,000 during this period
2. 2,80,000 users added the Sony Ericsson branded Roadies Battleground app to their profile
3. 70% of users who added the application actually filled the additional forms to participate to become a ‘Roadies’.
   (Source: Orkut data)

Learnings

1. Key concern was to guarantee a smooth & user-friendly user interface and the ability to keep the target audience busy as well as compel them to become part of an on-going online conversation without interrupting it.
2. Also we ensured that the consumers share opinions with each other via review sites, social networks, blogs, and on chat pages to create a buzz & a powerful word-of-mouth, dynamic enough to support an efficiency powerhouse.
3. However, the core challenge was to ensure stickiness into this property.

What Next

To announce the launch of RBG, every year in the Roadies Finale episode and commence the registration procedure. Mtv launched RBG2 on the online platform based on the learnings from season 1 & now RBG3 is all set to be bigger & better with looping in mobile platform also.

Reasoning

1. First of its kind to use the online platform
2. Associated with one of the most popular youth based reality show
3. As an organization, we created a platform on which consumers can engage, interact & network.
4. Through this platform, we are building the foundation on which brand evangelists can base, nurture their products & cultivate user preferences. The phenomenon of Roadies can now reach multiple more cities in India, gives consumers to audition and participate on their own time. It also acts as an important tool for casting new Roadies on-Air

Examples

i. Roop Bhinder from RBG 1 – Part of Roadies 6
ii. Mohit Malik and Eric part of RBG 2 – Part of Roadies 7

Credits Strategy

Self Auciti Technologies who built the app
Google who gave constructive feedback at every stage of the way

Credits Execution

Google, Auciti Technologies http://www.auciti.com Sony Ericsson as a brand and partner MEC as the Digital Agency for Sony Ericsson

Testimonials

http://digital.afaqs.com/perl/digital/news/story.html?sid=21374

Factsheet

Name of the company: Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd.
Number of Employees: 5000+
Category: Media house
Case submitted by: Sharda Mandal
Website: www.viacom18.com

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