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

The 2015 MTV VMA campaign turned its entire national TV, outdoor and social media buys into green-screen canvases. Every piece of media drove traffic to an open-source microsite that let the Internet download free VMA assets to create anything they wanted. A social activation incentivized fans to share their pieces of VMA art on their social channels with the hope we might use it for our campaign. Two weeks later, we swapped out our green-screen media buy for fan-made art. A campaign with tons of moving elements integrated seamlessly into a story more compelling than the sum of its parts.

Especially with younger audiences (12-34), award shows are a dying breed, seen as expected, overly scripted, and self-indulgent. And how award shows are promoted are even more expected, with the typical TV spot that lists famous names with famous faces being the default execution. We wanted to set the VMAs apart by first acknowledging that now more than ever online conversation and social output before, after, and around live TV events are what frames how they’re talked about and how they’re remembered. And so instead of setting out to (only) make :30s TV ads, we set out to empower and engage online music fans to amplify awareness around the VMAs, restore some of the irreverent artistic fun MTV used to be known for, and convey the mood and chaotic atmosphere of the live show itself to drive big awareness and a big audience to the live show on TV.

The Video Music Awards are MTV’s biggest night of the year. It’s a critical time in our brand narrative with a heritage of on-stage moments that live on in pop-culture for years, sometimes decades, to come. And despite the award show format at-large trending down with our younger demographic, it’s still an opportunity to make our mark in a big way by disrupting award show conventions and restoring the artistic and creative credibility MTV once owned.