MUMBAI: Which is the hottest place in the college? Where do you sit and share jokes? Where does the college band jams? Which is the most romantic place in the college? MTV is all set to uncover stories from every campus across the country with B’lue MTV Campus Diaries, an on-ground initiative.
Mid-last year, MTV had launched the massive 365 days long college connect program to unveil what makes college life fun and partnered with youngsters to turn their campus stories into legends.
The youth channel has spread the property to 200 plus campuses across 11 cities through monthly engagements, vignettes on TV, microsite and social media which has made it live 24*7.
MTV India head marketing, media and insights Sumeli Chatterjee believes that the main aim is to build a connection between the colleges. She believes that in India there are lots of colleges and campuses but no centralised platform where they can meet and connect with each other.
“Each campus has its own social media page and each city has its social media platform somewhere where all colleges meet and share stuff, but at the national level there was something missing. So, we at MTV thought of bridging that gap by building a platform which will allow the colleges to showcase their talent and collaborate with each other.”
Elaborating that it is more than a college festival which sees numerous colleges coming together to compete, Chatterjee says, “Campus Diaries is not about competition. It is a reflection of college life across the country. It is not 10-12 or 50 colleges, but here we are talking about 250 colleges which are a part of it.”
Unlike a show, where there is a procedure like call for an entry, show theme etc, the Campus Diaries has taken a different path. It engages with its TG through a series of fun engagements across cities and colleges, which include dance-mobs, fresher’s parties, college face-offs, celeb-diaries and many more.
“We as MTV decided to throw a fresher’s party in MTV style. MTV would be funding, organising and hosting the party,” says Chatterjee while elaborating, “Freshers were expected to throw in some creative ideas and each college had to earn their own MTV Fresher’s bash. Students needed to be creative and share their idea of coolest fresher’s bash to impress MTV.”
And, MTV did get impressed with 4 colleges across 4 cites and together with B’lue hosted the craziest fresher’s bash for the winning colleges across Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. These parties were covered on TV as well as digital.
Chatterjee believes that being in college and studying is very different from visiting and re-visiting the college. “It actually captures the stage that you are in the college, captures insecurities, apprehensions, optimism that the college fraternity has. You would see certain distance that will come from a Calcutta college versus a Delhi college versus a Bangalore college. One can also see things which are very similar.”
On the buzz part, Chatterjee joys over the fact that previous year it was more like MTV reaching out to them because it was connecting to them saying that we are really excited to be a part of the college, do you want us there? “They have seen us with them one year, this year it is more of them calling us and saying why don’t you come and visit us now as some interesting thing is happening now?”
This year the channel has also got in a celeb corner called ‘Celebs school’ wherein it will talk to celebrities and get-to-know how were their college years.
Is it a difficult task to manage? “Anything that you need to manage 24*7 needs a lot of commitment. Especially you are talking to a college student and you are talking to them about their life which they know more than we,” shares Chatterjee.
She believes that the easiest part is there are lots and lots of stories to capture and that bag of stories does not get over ever. There is a lot of commitment in terms of resources and brand to commit to this particular program. “It is a place where MTV wants to have a sustained presence to and a presence that is inclusive,” signs off Chaterjee.
