ONLY HAVING A SHOW CONVERSATION DOES NOT BUILD A BRAND: NAVIN SHENOY
As MTV expands its narrative as a youth platform, it makes use of its insights on young people, multiple touch-points, and customisability of offerings for brands that want to reach younger audiences, says Navin Shenoy, Head Marketing, Youth, Music and English Entertainment, Viacom18. On MTV’s evolution over the years: Twenty years back, when TV channels were the primary source of content, MTV possibly didn’t see any reason to be anything beyond that. The filter through which we view MTV now is that it’s a huge platform and not just a TV channel. At the heart, the engine is a content creation brand, powered by an understanding of young people. The better you understand them, the more likely you are to create relevant content for them. On being a multiform youth platform: Apart from TV, and the video on-demand piece, we are also a content studio, where we create specific content solutions for clients. For instance, for LinkedIn, we created ‘LinkedIn-MTV Get A Job’, which is a platform for young college-goers to make the transition between college life and corporate life. It’s a customized solution for brands to engage with consumers. We also have an in-house creative and production team, which gives us the ability to create a Nescafé Labs, a customised music platform for Nestle. Then there are offline touch-points like campus ambassadors, product franchises, Club Roadies and Cafe Roadies. The whole mix helps us bring about a differentiator of being the only youth platform in the country. On communication beyond shows: Purely having a show conversation will not build a brand. The more your conversation is not just related to, ‘Hey, come and watch my show,’ the more likely you are to build brand affinity and love. We have a show calendar, and we maintain a separate brand calendar through the year; creating brand conversations are a constant reminder to young people that the brand really understands them, examples
being our ‘Trash Talk’ and ‘Justice for Biryani’ campaigns.