MTV drives with Nano for the second year

The broadcaster has used digital crowd sourcing model to decide the routes of the show and increase involvement.

MTV India and Tata Nano will launch the second season of the social travel show, Drive with MTV, on June 4. The social road trip this year will see 12 travel junkies on a 21-day journey across the country in a Tata Nano, discovering places, cultures, sights and scenes, and revelling in the experiences along the way (http://drive.mtvindia.com).

The first season had four teams travelling across the country over a period of 21 days. The event was webcast entirely on social media and claimed to have engaged 15 million people across platforms. Besides the 84 webisodes, there were two TV episodes that were telecast on MTV. Among the four teams, the team which had the highest social media response from people won Nanos at the end of the show.

Speaking to afaqs! about what differentiates this year's show, Ekalavya Bhattacharya, head of digital, MTV India informs that this year, MTV wanted to involve the online audience from the very beginning and hopefully create enough buzz to get a following even before the journey starts.

Last year, MTV gave out Rs 4000 to each team per day to manage expenses, which was not enough. Hence, the teams were asked to engage with the audience on social platforms and ask for their help in terms of lodging and food throughout the journey.

"This year, we wanted to make the engagement grand. Hence we have planned to take audience involvement to the next level. We have used both Twitter and Facebook to crowd source not only the routes in our show, but also the participants. Besides, unlike last year, this year we will have six TV episodes along with the 84 webisodes," informs Bhattacharya.

This year, the broadcaster has used digital crowd sourcing model to not only decide the routes of the show but also involve people and make them a participant in it. Unlike last year, in place of 16 participants, 12 participants will be divided into four teams, but there will be a fourth member of the team who will be chosen from Tweetups and Facebook meet ups held on the way. Tweetups and Facebook meet ups are real-life meetings organised by group members of social networking sites.

Besides, MTV has also used Twitter to decide the routes that the teams will be travelling on. On Twitter, MTV asked its followers to tweet #DriveWithMTV, telling them their favourite places in the North, South, East and West of India that the four teams must visit. Once the team reaches a destination, the name of the person who suggested the place will also be featured on the website and social platforms.

According to MTV, the activity recorded over four million responses across Twitter, and reached more than 800,000 Twitter accounts. MTV also got replies from @KeralaTourism and @kashmirtourism inviting the participants to visit the states.

The responses were used to chart a route that the teams will travel visiting suggested cities, destinations and attractions. "We also gave them an incentive for their help - MTV merchandise and mentions in the content of the show. Tweets with recommendations poured in in hundreds, telling us places to visit and things to do. Each tweet carried the #DriveWithMTV tag," Bhattacharya informs.

According to Bhattacharya, Drive with MTV social roadtrip Season 1 has helped the Tata Nano page to cross 3 million fans from 1 million fans a year ago. Besides, this has also helped to increase the follower and fan counts of MTV' s social media pages.

The show, which will start on June 4, will run till June 24 and will be webcast throughout that period. After that, the show will be specially produced for six TV episodes that will be telecast in July. The four teams will start their journey towards the four designated directions from Nagpur, the geographical centre of India.