We turned our entire TV buy, outdoor buy, and social media channels into green screens, created a website that gave the internet complete free access to VMA photo and video assets, and let them create whatever the hell they wanted. Two weeks later, we chose our favorite pieces and swapped out every green screen in the real world for a piece of VMA internet art. Even the show set design was influenced by some of what was made by fans and artists.

A month before the show, we turned our entire national media buy into green-screens, from billboards and wallscapes in LA to double decker buses and subway posters in New York.

Every piece of media drove traffic to MTVVMA.net, a completely open-sourced site where people could download any and every asset from the VMA campaign for free, and make whatever the hell they wanted. Incentivized by the promise MTV would pick the best pieces to replace all the green-screens out in the world, people shared their works of VMA art on their social channels, spreading the word beyond the traditional media buy.

Then, two weeks before the show, we chose our favorites and swapped out our green-screen media for fan-made VMA art. Everything completely and continuously refreshed so that people might never see the same VMA ad twice. And we created a story arc from the campaign straight into the show.

Thousands upon thousands of fans posted thousands upon thousands of VMA fan art online, spreading word and conversation, and promoting the show’s big acts far beyond our traditional media buy. Fan social media became our free media.

Our results:

• 24 million #VMA hashtags

• 541 million social engagements

• 64 million interactions on Instagram alone

• A viral lift of 2005%

• Overall reach of 122 BILLION impressions

• The 2015 VMAs was the #1 awards show on cable with 76 million total views

• The 2015 VMAs was the most tweeted TV program ever, except for the Super Bowl