The MTV Video Music Awards are one of the few awards shows that allow the fans to be heard! Winners are determined via a voting campaign that takes place across nearly every major platform that our fans interact with.
Goals:
To kick off voting, we unveiled our 2018 MTV VMA nominees socially:
IGTV (NOMINEE REVEAL)
Our fans rabidly consume content on Instagram; paired with a new feature to play with, IGTV became the natural place to make our announcement. We partnered with a team of influencers to create original videos announcing VMA categories and nominees. Our roster of influencers, which included Nyle DiMarco, Tessa Brooks, Bretman Rock, Scotty Sire and Toddy Smith, had a combined following of over 22 million!
MTV.COM (VOTING)
After nominees were revealed, users watched nominated videos and cast their ballots across all categories via a web-based voting experience on the VMA site. Additionally, we created a simple interface that let fans vote for Best New Artist directly within ad units that ran across MTV.com, tapping into the broader website audience.
Fans could vote for all categories on MTV.com, but we didn't stop there. We provided opportunities for our fans to vote and engage with the VMAs across multiple platforms, targeting three categories to extend beyond:
INSTAGRAM STORIES (SONG OF SUMMER)
We reinvented the socially-voted Song of Summer category for Instagram Stories. Eight nominees went head to head on @MTV's Instagram Stories in a bracket-style tournament throughout the week leading up to the show. Fans voted using native polling stickers and "swipe ups."
AMAZON ALEXA (ARTIST OF THE YEAR)
We let fans vote for the VMAs straight from their Alexa device! Users asked "Alexa, vote for the VMAs" and were guided through prompts to cast their vote from a list of Artist of the Year nominees. Then, after the winner was revealed in show, fans were treated to the acceptance speech via video or audio depending on their device's capabilities.
We tapped into Best New Artist, our emerging artist category, to remain open through the VMA broadcast. We looked for ways to engage with the nominees' fans in real-time in the weeks leading up to as well as during the live show.
TWITTER CHATBOT (BEST NEW ARTIST)
We incentivized users by giving them an extra vote per day for Best New Artist by Direct Messaging us on Twitter. After voting, the chatbot rewarded fans with exclusive, shareable content. Promoted DM cards helped us reach our audience straight from their own timelines. Shortly before broadcast, we retargeted all chatbot participants with a push notification, driving them to watch the show to find out which two nominees would make it to the final hashtag battle.
When the broadcast began, voting transitioned to an in-show battle to determine the ultimate winner:
TWITTER LIVE HASHTAG BATTLE (BEST NEW ARTIST)
After counting the Best New Artist votes accrued from MTV.com and the Twitter Chatbot, #voteCardiB and #voteHayleyKiyoko were revealed as the top two contenders during our live red carpet. Since Best New Artist was the only category to stay open into the show, engaging on Twitter was the only way fans could continue to vote. Standings updates throughout the broadcast updated fans until voting closed and the winner was revealed live.
