| Title | MTV MATCH MACHINE |
| Brand | MTV |
| Product/Service | MTV |
| Category |
C02. USE OF SOCIAL IN A PR CAMPAIGN |
|
PR Agency
|
WENDERFALCK Stockholm, SWEDEN
|
|
Entrant Company
|
WENDERFALCK Stockholm, SWEDEN
|
Credits
| Peter Simonsson |
Wenderfalck |
Developer |
| Jens Johnsson |
Wenderfalck |
Designer |
| Philip Johannessen |
MTV |
Social Media Manager |
The Campaign
The challenge: To create massive awareness for the new TV show “Are you the one?” among a tricky target audience – teenagers.
The objectives: To create great engagement among the target audience, and at the same time reach them with the USPs for the show.
The strategy: To play on teenagers’ curiosity and to challenge them to find out which of their friends they are most likely to be a perfect match with.
The execution: To create a unique Facebook application – an experience where people are paired with the one friend they fit together the best. The result – the Facebook app “Match Machine” was tailored so that the incitement for sharing is as high as possible, facilitating a viral effect.
The outcome: Massive. The app went viral and spread like a wildfire. As for today, Match Machine has created over 830 million impression on Facebook. Almost 84 million people have found out who their perfect match is, this leading to over 7 million shares. The tv-show ratings exceeded all expectations, which resulted in a second season for the show.
The Brief
To make sure the TV-show received good ratings among a challenging target audience – teenagers. A lot of time was invested in researching how to actually reach them and which platforms to use. Since this was a global campaign, one key issue was to bridge the cultural barriers among the target audience, and to identify the common denominators that generate true engagement.
Results
MTV Match Machine generated massive attention worldwide. 83 956 245 tests have been completed, generating 834 008 744 impressions on Facebook. This is MTV’s most successful social media campaign ever. The success of Match Machine generated a huge buzz about the show prior to the pilot episode, which made the ratings go up. The show was a success, with a global audience, which resulted in a second season of the show! International media acknowledged Match Machine where Huffington Post said it best “MTV's 'Match Machine' Is Weirdly Accurate At Finding Your One True Love”.
Execution
MTV first launched the Match Machine on nine markets, so they could monitor and tweak the execution in real time, before launching world wide. Through monitoring, we instantly knew when the app reached a critical mass of people, meaning that the numbers of shares increased incrementally. When the number of people taking the test increased, so did the load on the servers. The massive interest for Match Machine forced us to scale up the numbers of servers drastically, to avoid the app from crashing due to server overload. After weeks of tweaking, the app peaked and spread to the rest of the world, which really highlights the power of truly viral content.
The Situation
MTV was about to launch one of their most important dating shows in years. Facing a staggering market, with decreasing ratings and viewers, MTV was in a challenging position, where they needed the show to succeed. They simply couldn’t afford one more failure.
The Strategy
The key to reaching the target audience was to get them to react – this time for real. By playing with teenagers’ curiosity and challenging them to find out which of their friends they are most likely to be a perfect match with, we maximized the chance for real engagement. Key features of the show were tailored into the Facebook experience, so that people would be familiar with the show right from the first episode. The strategy was to maximize people’s incentive to share their perfect match, in order to generate a viral effect on Facebook.