MTV gave its audience a head rush!
Mumbai: Vodafone ?MTV Rush?, directed by acclaimed bollywood director Bejoy Nambiar of ?Shaitan? fame, revolves around 12 characters and the one common string - a 48 hour college festival. It is fast paced storytelling with unexpected twists and turns in every episode. The intrigue and surprises packs the punch in the show. At MTV headquarters, the team decided to do something different while communicating the key peg of the show. They decided to let the audience feel the ?Rush? in its truest sense. MTV created a surge of Rush to surprise the audience, and while doing that, communicated the theme of the show through a unique on-ground experience.
On a Sunday afternoon, a prominent suburban mall in Mumbai city was chosen as a venue. A surprise was planned as a 2 minute Rush-ed drama that caught the oblivious youth hanging out with friends in the mall and multiplex. A high energy drama was conceived to showcase multiplicity of protagonists and curious mix of talent in one power-packed performance. The act started with a floor-cleaner who carries on the mundane cleaning job in the atrium. As the clock ticks, the audience is startled with the screaming voice of a damsel in distress being chased by a biker down the stairs. The act brings together nanchak experts, bmx bikers, soccer free-stylists, b-boys, parkow stunter; and all this spectacle ends with a revelation about the show. The mode of promotion was chosen to reflect the energy, edginess and unpredictability of the show. MTV roped in experts to carry out the stunts and repeated this act every hour on the hour to drive the impact.
Aditya Swamy, EVP and Business head, MTV said ?We were looking to bring alive the emotions associated with the word RUSH... something that was interactive and engaging... And the disruption we managed to create had a multiplier effect once we brought the web to the mix. Add this to the other promotional elements for the show and you have what we call a ?surround sound? marketing campaign.?
To build the curiosity and rush, MTV started promoting the hash-tag #givesmerush on twitter, giving the twitteratis a slice of the thrill and exhilaration. The hash-tag trended for more than 12 hours. The uploaded video that captured the on-ground drama ?Sunday shopping that guaranteed a RUSH!? video has fetched more than 70 thousand views on YouTube.