Viacom18’s Anshul Ailawadi on how marketing music became MTV Hustle’s marketing tactic

MTV is slated to launch Hustle 03 REPRESENT on October 21. Built on the success of its artists and their stories, this reality show will follow a similar approach in marketing this year. 

Sharing the marketing plan for this season, Anshul Ailawadi, Head – Youth, Music, and English Entertainment, Viacom18, said, “Team had a unique idea that we won't launch and market Hustle as a TV show. We'll actually launch and market the show as 120 new songs over three months. So it's more about music, marketing and launching great artists and great music in three months as opposed to launching the show.”

Contestants from previous seasons saw substantial growth in their social media following, making them the influencers for the show. Ailawadi said that MTV intends to build influencers out of the talent themselves. Its marketing, therefore, will revolve around keeping talent first.  

“Every contestant had almost 5X to 100X growth in their followers. So the biggest influencers that you can have for the show are our show’s talent,” said Ailawadi.

The winner of the last season, Abhishek Baisla aka MC Square has 1.6 million followers on Instagram today, while the first runner up Tanishq Singh aka Paradox has gathered 2 million followers and the second runner up Nihar Hodawadekar aka Mumbaikar Nazz has 119K followers. 

Apart from keeping talent first, OTT partner JioCinema has planned interactive activities to connect with youth. A Fantasy League has been designed that will allow audiences to make their own squad and win points for predicting which contestants will get Radio hit, highest squad scores and who would be eliminated. 

The show that primarily targets Gen Z, has seen interest from other age groups as well.

Ailawadi said, “We go after Gen Z in a very focused way and then we do have spillages over that audience, over that age group and below it. One of the unique things that we saw is that the younger people, Gen Alpha, are also getting hooked on to the show.”

After learning the audience’s consumption patterns, MTV has decided to explore unconventional mediums, including outdoor innovations around college campuses and college contact programs to effectively reach the Gen Z audience.

Gen Z’s popular mode of communication, memes, are not forgotten either. OTT platform JioCinema will share templates from the show on which users can create their own memes. 

Building on BotHard’s success

The last season of the show introduced a virtual rapper, BotHard, powered by artificial intelligence. BotHard rapped on any word from the English dictionary given by users on Instagram via a DM and created an instant rap on it. This campaign, shortlisted for the Cannes Lions 2023, not only showcased the power of AI but also heavily encouraged active user participation.

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DDB Mudra Group, the Indian creative agency behind the creation of BotHard, had told Social Samosa that each consumer sampled it repeatedly and each individual put in at least 7-8 prompts.This resulted in the campaign generating over 350,000 rap videos, creating a buzz around the second season, which garnered 2 billion views and witnessed a 9x increase in digital views compared to Season 1.

Building the AI momentum further, this year they have used visual AI to showcase how judges and other members looked like in the 90s via AI Generated Images.

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Furthermore, Ailawadi mentioned that the marketing budget also remains largely consistent across seasons with a focus on maximizing the impact of the budget rather than unnecessary expenditures. 

Speaking about how the marketing budget will be disbursed this season, Ailawadi said that a significant portion of the marketing budget will be allocated to traditional channels to build awareness around the talent and songs. Digital marketing, on the other hand, will rely heavily on organic reach and existing digital assets.

The show has bagged POCO as its title Sponsor and G0VO Soundbars, T-Series, Wildstone, and Appy Fizz as Co-powered Sponsors. Adidas Originals and Cadbury 5 Star will be its Associate Sponsors this year. 

This season, there are three fundamental changes that audiences and advertisers will see, as per Ailawadi:

• The overall scale of the show: The set and the vibe created will change substantially.

• The music production side: Karan Kanchan’s knowledge of hip hop and Anurag Saikia’s signature desi vibe to music, makes it a good mix.

• Partnership with T-Series: The partnership will ensure that MTV Hustle's songs have a wide global reach, with many audio output devices providing access to the music.

‘India Ab Tumhari Baari’ is the season’s clarion call, urging young India to proudly celebrate the representation of their hood, culture, music, passion, stories, beliefs, issues and even identity. MTV's IP also intends to have a concert-like vibe, amplifying the excitement and vigour three-fold for fans. Its marketing strategy, overall, will be focused on offering an immersive experience.