Have you caught any sightings of the ominous #get808 across Melbourne and Sydney in the past two weeks?
The guerrilla marketing campaign came to a head last night with the big reveal – at a Sydney show with performances from Peking Duk and Allday – that the campaign had been devised by MTV to promote the move of its dedicated music channel on Foxtel.
#get808, was co-created with The Royals to generate awareness around the fact that MTV Music, channel 808 on Foxtel, is now available to all Foxtel subscribers, not just those who subscribe to the music or entertainment packages.
The campaign created a mysterious, alternative media brand designed to intrigue and provoke interaction from young Australian audiences, offering them an opportunity to engage via Twitter and Instagram.
The public were instructed to #get808 via sky writing over Bondi Beach and Federation Square in Melbourne; there was street promotion and appearances by models wearing tight costumes embossed with #get808 on the ARIAs red carpet, while people were encouraged to post a picture via Twitter or Instagram any 808 activity that they spotted and await contact until they received an invitation to last night’s 808 event.
The stunt gained the attention of a number of media outlets, including news.com.au.
“The challenge was to come up with alternative ways to pique curiosity, achieve large-scale reach and create fun and innovative ways to get Australians creatively involved”, said MTV Australia & New Zealand marketing manager Michelle Lucia. “Working with The Royals on guerrilla tactics like sky writing, street teams and the 808 body painted models on the ARIA red carpet hit the nail on the head and achieved some awesome social results for what we feel is one of our most creative campaigns.”
Across the two weeks of the campaign, MTV drove 10,000 visitors to get808.com and built a community of 1700 on Instagram and Twitter. Engaged users generated more than 700 #get808 sightings across the two platforms.
Foxtel unveiled new pricing and packaging options in November and MTV Music (channel 808) and MTV Dance (channel 810) were among the 40 channels included in the new ‘Entertainment Pack’ available in all subscriber homes. The shift increased distribution of MTV’s two Australian-produced and programmed music channels by more than one million homes.
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