The MTV EMA is one of the biggest global music events of the year, celebrating the hottest artists from around the world. Broadcasted live in 180 countries, the 2019 show took place in Seville, Spain.
For our social 2019 EMA gameplan, we aimed to engage our international audience on their native social habitats through the use of talent-heavy, platform-specific and exclusive content- all localized in multiple languages--in the lead up, during and post broadcast. The goals of this year’s show were simple: drive as many video views as possible, create international awareness around the show, and launch on new platforms to engage with fans in an exciting way.
Leading up to the event, we engaged our international audience and drove awareness around the show:
- Created hundreds of localized pieces of content in 32 different languages to reach our global audience in an authentic way on multiple MTV local accounts (e.g. MTV UK, MTV Spain, etc.)
- Teased this year’s nominees & poured fans a “taste of Seville” with beautiful coffee art reveals; as a play on the traditional Spanish cortado, the nominees for "Best Artist,” “Best Video” and “Biggest Fans” were revealed via artistic foam cream visuals. The videos premiered across MTV’s global digital platforms and a coalition of media partners.
- Created a new @MTVEMA TikTok account & partnered with them to launch the #MTVEMAVideo Challenge where fans re-created one of the five videos nominated for the MTV EMA Best Video award
- Ignited fan engagement via a multi-platform approach to EMA voting, including MTVEMA.com, and for the first time ever, Instagram Stories, where users tapped polls and swiped up to vote
- Strategically partnered with major global influencers (Hugo Gloss, Xavier Serrano, Justina Valentine & more)--who had cultural resonance, on-camera experience & a global reach--as a part of our Social Insiders program to creative exclusive content (in English and local languages) leading up to and during the show
- Captured exclusive talent interviews & content during backstage rehearsals to connect fans directly with the artist and build buzz around the performances
During the show we kept fans engaged through real time exclusive coverage:
- Backstage cameras provided an all-access & real time look at talent, allowing fans to experience and direct the action backstage through a live stream
- Captured exclusive Red Carpet shout outs from performing talent to connect directly with fans and get them excited about the show
- Live streamed with our Social Insiders on the Red Carpet as they interviewed talent
- We partnered with Snapchat to produce Our Stories around the 2019 EMAs Red Carpet and backstage
- And of course, real-time, live coverage of the show across all social platforms!
Post show, we continued our coverage to give our eager fans all the content they’d been waiting for:
- All full performances of the night were made available immediately after the performances concluded- to YouTube, Facebook,& IGTV—which our fans eagerly consumed, driving major numbers across all platforms
- Short-from videos were also published across social platforms to help fans get a quick, digestible version of the night
- The 2019 MTV EMA broke records by driving the most views across digital ever for the show--up 120% YOY
- The MTV EMA TikTok account grew over 1289% during the EMA timeframe & the #MTVEMAVideo challenge itself drove 50.2M+ views
- Facebook: 49.8% increase
- IG: 150.23% increase
- Twitter: 136% increase
- YouTube: 59.9% increase
- Our Social Insiders drove over 67M views, 283M impressions, 7.7M engagements, 650+ posts on social & generated a 143% YoY increase in social mentions
- In the US, the EMAs were the #1 most social program on broadcast and cable, securing the most domestic video views ever for the EMAs.
- MTV EMA was a worldwide trend on Twitter on the night of the show, as well as in the US and in Spain!
