Our key objective was to create a Snapchat Discover presence that reflects and represents our young audience (Snapchat's demographic aligns with our own target audience, of between 14-34), producing daily diverse, intelligent, and entertaining content that informs and educates. The channel head set the target of achieving over 4 billion total views for the year across two editions.
The MTV International team produces two editions every day of the week – one in English for an International (i.e., ex-US & France) audience, and one French edition (for France), which includes localised, translated content throughout.
Our Snapchat Discover hits multiple pop culture touchpoints throughout the week – from the biggest celeb beefs to interviews with A-Lister movie stars – but we strive to produce more diverse, socially-responsible content. This led to the production of more themed editions and was consciously framed around lifestyle topics to engage and reflect our audience.
These deeper dives into singular, focused topics resulted in creatively and editorially progressive video shorts, written and animated content that drove millions of views, shares, screenshots and crucially drove conversations around topics that are often considered taboo, helping to normalise them.
We started conversations on the platform that extended far beyond it, with editions framed around Consent, Periods, Female Pleasure, International Women's Day, Black History Month, Mental Health Awareness, World AIDS Day, Pride, and LGBTQ+ sex education.
Each takeover edition revolved around content created by the community it was talking about, with video interviews and informative editorial that gave a voice and audience to those who needed it most.
The 'Do You Know What Sexual Consent Is?' edition featured an informed, smart and dryly amusing flowchart that broke down the definition of sexual consent, as well as the often sexist counter-arguments to each eye-rolling question.
The 'Best Feminist Clapbacks of all Times' edition featured Hollywood star Jennifer Lawrence talking about #metoo.
The 'Period' edition dove into period poverty and how you can help charities/organisations supporting the cause via donations/spreading the word etc, endometriosis, and an informed piece on everything you ever wanted to know about period sex.
The 'female pleasure' edition chatted to an award-winning porn director to discuss how feminism fits within porn, and investigated the science behind orgasms.
An edition on 'female body hair' investigates unintentional sexism and body positivity.
The 'Black History Month' edition featured high-profile actors such as Idris Elba, Zendaya and more talking about the importance of racial identity.
Our 'Mental Health Awareness' edition had celebrities like Olly Murs talking about depression, as well as a breakdown of everything you need to know about anti-depressants.
The 'Pride' edition was framed around sex education for LGBTQ+ people, with features written by the community, and videos with people talking openly about polyamory, being trans, queer porn, and the importance of non-heterosexual sex education.
For World AIDs Day, we had a 'Safe Sex Education' edition, with content framed around celebrities who've talked openly about STIs, myth-busting features on HIV and a focus on the MTV Staying Alive Foundation.
We used the platform to test-drive new IPs for the brand, such as MTV Fit, which debuted on the platform on 1st January, scoring an impressive 14 million views, and leading to the creation of its own presence on other social media platforms.
We also worked closely with our sales team to produce content that aligned editorially with commercial campaigns, partnering with brands such as HostelWorld and Lynx to create content that engaged a young audience.
We received huge support for a number of our editions across other social platforms, including the Consent edition, which provoked a hugely positive reaction across Twitter.
We achieved 4.8 billion views across our editions throughout the year – a huge achievement and the traffic pinnacle of all our platforms. It was also 800k views over our original target. We achieved all of this organically and without the aid of ad acquisition spends.
We broke our record for French Snapchat Discover twice throughout the year, achieving 16 million total views for the edition in January 2018, and over 1.6 million unique users in August 2018.
A campaign with Lynx impressed the client so much that they immediately signed up to another three takeover editions. Our edition on 'Men Who Are Switching Up Male Stereotypes' featured interviews with talent like Michael Dapaah, Not3s and Dele Alli picking their fave music playlists, and features on what it means to be a man in 2018.
"MTV's digital presence goes from strength-to-strength every year, and continues to evolve to meet the demands of our audience. Whether it's embracing diversity on Snapchat Discover or re-inventing the ways we engage fans on social around our key events, we're proud to have a team that's as versatile, creative and as engaged as our audience."
Kerry Taylor - EVP, MTV International / Chief Marketing Officer VIMN
