EXCLUSIVE: When it comes to MTV and award shows, the network is known for fostering some major social media buzz. At this year’s MTV Movie Awards on April 13th, MTV is introducing the Tumblr War Room and Mr. GIF as well as revamping its previous All Access Live experience. The Tumblr War Room enlists well-known Tumblr artists to create artistic interpretations of the show in real time, and Mr. GIF will assemble live GIFs from the red carpet and during the show. All Access Live will include an MTV Cut cam for fans to put together their own GIFs from behind-the-scenes moments. Cynopsis spoke to MTV Vice President of Content Marketing and Audience Management Tom Fishman to get the scoop.
Why did MTV see Tumblr as the platform to jump on for this event?
We launched our blog at the MTV Movie Awards in 2010, so it’s kind of an anniversary for us! But as with all our platform partners, we look to evolve with them, so we use our big events as launch pads for innovative ways to do that. As MTV continues to build on our overall philosophy of empowering and elevating great creative, partnering with Tumblr (with Taco Bell as the first ad partner for MTV and Tumblr) and our fan community is an exciting leap for our relationship.
Can you elaborate on how Mr. GIF’s past success helped to bring it back for another year?
[Mr. GIF creators] Jimmy Repeat and Mark Portillo each had stints working at MTV, so we were lucky to be exposed to their work and incorporate it into our Tumblr early on. The guys are geniuses, plain and simple. They get our brand, our audience, and their creative sensibilities often take us to provocative and quirky and unexpected places — exactly where MTV needs to be.
What about Twitter? This social platform has always been a mega community for most MTV award shows.
Absolutely, and we expect that we’ll see huge buzz and hundreds of trending topics once again. We love what Twitter brings to the table for us and our fans from an interactive and real-time standpoint. And with the pop culture water cooler moments that tend to come out of MTV events, it’s a match made in heaven. (T-Mobile and Revlon are sponsoring integrations with the Move Awards this year).
How has social interaction and media transformed MTV?
Great TV makes for great digital and social moments, period. Our series and event producers take that into account without going overboard with forced social elements in the show. I feel like you see that kind of thing a lot these days, and our audience senses “trying too hard” right away.
