Endless hunt for eyeballs

The past six weeks have been frenzied at MTV India. And lots of fun. It's not over yet; all the activities come together on 4 July, a big day for the music channel, when it announces the winners of its VJ Hunt, the second such exercise in three years in India.

The VJ Hunt means more to MTV India than just another programme. It takes pride in having developed the blueprint for an event that has been picked up by MTV in other countries. MTV in the US has done it twice already; MTV Taiwan has picked it up; and the UK is now under consideration.

Connecting with youth
But more important is the rationale behind the event, which cues strongly into MTV's aim: to connect with the youth. And with its channel philosophy to provide windows of opportunity to the youth, naturally to connect with them better. Natasha Malhotra, executive producer at MTV India, says, "If MTV does not connect with the youth everyday, it has no business."

The VJ Hunt, the channel firmly believes by now, is an excellent way to connect, since it takes the endeavour beyond the TV screen out on to the streets. Starting out with announcing the contest and inviting applications, this year, the channel went VJ spotting in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Calcutta and Chandigarh, right at the youth hangout joints, besides the MTV studios. "Two years ago," says Malhotra, "we did not do warm-up gigs in the four metros we covered. This year, we added that on."

Also for the first time, MTV invited applications through Rediff-on-the-Net. ``We got 6,000 applications totally, of which 409 came online,' says Niren Hiro, director, marketing, licensing & merchandising.

Part of the Net interactivity also included a superstakes contest where you could vote for anyone, even if you did not want to participate yourself. "There were a thousand entries here. And the average time youngsters spent with us on the Net on the VJ Hunt was two minutes and 38 seconds, which we feel was fairly remarkable." Also fairly remarkable were the 'hits' on the banner -- some 2.6 million. 'Clicks' on the banner numbered 33,200.

(You get a 'hit' when a visitor opens the page on which your banner is placed. He is likely to have seen it, and even got your message, just as in a newspaper or print magazine. A 'click' happens when the visitor takes the cursor over your banner and clicks the mouse over it to visit your site or special pages on the host site where further details of your message are displayed -- which the print medium or TV do not allow people to do. - Editor)

MTV's goal
What does the VJ Hunt do for MTV? From the target audience point of view -- "we want to become the first-choice TV station with the 15-to-35-year age group" -- it adds scope for expanding the Indian iconic base. "Our research findings indicate that Indian youth find their icons mostly in Hindi films, TV and cricket," says Hiro.

"A key research insight is youth interest in TV stardom," he says. "Here, we're trying to encourage the creation of new TV icons. Of the four VJs who won our last contest, three are still on. From being comparative unknowns, Nikhil Chinappa, Maria Goretti…now enter everyone's living rooms, everyday. As the channel scores more on the iconic scale, the prospect of becoming a VJ should be far more attractive."

- From the channel's perspective, selecting the right VJs takes the channel forward, since they are part of the channel's personality. "We have to keep adding new blood, new life into the channel, keep reinventing our scope of appeal. The VJs are an important part of this process," says Malhotra. "We encourage them to do their own thing, try out new things -- all of which adds to the MTV appeal."

- From a pure business perspective, an event such as the VJ Hunt provides advertising opportunity. "Over the last two-three years, it has been critical for us to partner with our clients. Events such as the VJ Hunt provide such windows of advertising opportunity. This year, we've had Colgate Gel, Spinz and Live-In jeans as the co-sponsors. We've taken our last campaign to several multiples this time round. This will go up again as youth participation goes up. As we get more eyeballs to the channel, more advertisers on the programme, we make clients think of making a bigger noise with MTV," says Hiro. He adds that the VJ Hunt's aggregate value to building MTV's brand equity, combined with other programmes like Video Gaga, MTV Blast, et cetera, is tremendous.

To be held every other year, the VJ Hunt is seen by the channel as something that can grow and grow each time. "As a concept, VJ Hunt is endless," concludes Malhotra.