Sarcasm and cynicism at its finest, MTV's 'Rock the Vote' campaign

Coming from the bouquet of Viacom18, MTV India has been creating quite a buzz with is very smartly sarcastic ‘Rock the Vote’ campaign. In view of the coming General Elections in 2014, the youth entertainment channel had launched a campaign to encourage the youth of the country to vote. The campaign is carried and pushed ahead with a cheeky tagline ‘Dabaona… button’, seeking to mobilize all youngsters aged 18 and above to register themselves as voters.

Partnering with Rock The Vote (USA), a non profit, non partisan organization which pushes the political awareness amongst youth across many countries including USA, Canada and Chile, MTV aims to bring that awareness in India as well. Founded 21 years ago, Rock the Vote (USA) has registered more than five million young people to vote and has become a trusted source of information for young people about registering to vote and casting a ballot.

While the commercials were released recently on TV, there will be animation based films and consumer engagement initiatives. Later, the channel will release a song and a music video/on ground activation. The currently on-air TVCs have been made very smartly, inserting elements of sarcasm, wit, and in-your-face attitude, thus staying true to its brand philosophy, ‘Stay Raw’. And who better than Piyush Mishra (doing the voice over) to get the right amount and intensity of cynicism and ‘desipan’ catering to said targets!

The campaign that is supported by a 360 degree marketing outlook is clearly focused to create awareness and engagement amongst the youth, its main target audience and the larger share of voter population. With debates and discussions with young policy makers, concerts across 4 cities, 300+ colleges connects, interactive videos, a massive digital push across platforms and college festival partnerships; MTV will go all out to motivate and mobilise the 12 crore first-time voters to register and vote in general elections 2014.

A dedicated website has been created for the campaign with a section on ‘How to register’ where one can register through their mobile number and email after being led to the website of Election Commission of India, and also understand the voting registration process. An ‘FAQ’ section houses answers to general voter queries. The website also features short videos to raise awareness, while a Twitter stream pulls out all tweets with the hashtag #RockTheVote.

Youth icons Rannvijay Singh and YoYo Honey Singh have been roped in to encourage youngsters to get to their nearest voting booths and vote. ‘Rock the vote’ will have its own music anthem ‘Let music move the generation’. As reported, it is the longest unique youth anthem to drive awareness through music, and the channel is working closely with YoYo Honey Singh.

A crowd-sourcing initiative will look for videos, T-shirt designs and interpretation of Rock The Vote. As a part of the campaign, MTV is tapping its campus ambassadors’ network – college students across 300 colleges in 10 cities. Integrating the campaign on MTV itself, an effort has been made to popularise the campaign as the auditions of the channel’s popular reality show ‘Roadies’ will also include a few questions about voting. After receiving clearance from the commission, MTV will organize registration camps at various colleges.

Sharing a long grown relationship with Hero, the channel has the well-connected-to-the-youth brand on board yet again. With Hero as the title sponsor the youth entertainment channel has struck the right cords with this campaign. ‘Rock The Vote’ seems to set on the right foot with the youth after the recently concluded Delhi Assembly elections which saw the largest voter turnout. It would be interesting to watch how this integrated approach shapes up.