M Net: MK IS

Credits & Description:

Category: Broadcast Design and Graphics Incl. Animation

Advertiser: MULTICHOICE M-NET

Product/Service: MK MUSIC CHANNEL

Agency: OGILVY JOHANNESBURG

Executive Creative Director: Fran Luckin (Ogilvy Johannesburg)

Creative Director: Mariana O'Kelly (Ogilvy Johannesburg)

Writer/Art Director: James Smith (Ogilvy Johannesburg)

Writer/Art Director: Frank Van Rooijen (Ogilvy Johannesburg)

Writer/Art Director: Mark Haefele (Ogilvy Johannesburg)

Business Director: Caree Ferrari (Ogilvy Johannesburg)

Group Director: Kay Motuba (Ogilvy Johannesburg)

Executive Producer: Daniel Siegler (NOW&PARTNERS)

Producer: Julia Thorpe (NOW&PARTNERS)

Director: Henrik Purrienne

Editor: Jamie Taylor (House On Fire Films)

Producer: Lisa Wides (Ogilvy Johannesburg)

Media placement: On-Air Idents - MK Channel - 2 July 2011

Media placement: Character Blog - Www.mkis.co.za - 2 July 2011

Media placement: Facebook - Www.facebook.com/mkislive - 2 July 2011

Media placement: Twitter - Www.twitter.com/mkis - 2 July 2011

Media placement: You Tube - Www.youtube.com/mkisza - 2 July 2011



Describe the brief from the client

MK is a South African cable TV music channel that showcases new South African indie bands. With international acts gaining increasing popularity, the image of South African music has suffered and it is seen as staid and boring. MK, as the representative of the local indie music scene, suffered too. The brand needed to reconnect with the hip young influencers and style leaders in the 16-25 year-old age group – and so reclaim its position as the leading voice of the South African music and lifestyle scene.



Describe the challenges and key objectives

South Africa has an incredibly diverse youth audience who defy neat definitions. They all belong to the Facebook generation. For them, personality is not a fixed thing: it changes from status update to status update. Rather than create a monolithic brand identity, MK wanted young South Africans to feel that MK is...well, just like them: unpredictable, dynamic, and impossible to fence in.



Describe how you arrived at the final design

We created a generation Y, an undefined brand using a blend of media. MK became 3 different living characters whose lives unfolded 'live' as 60" idents, each depicting a moment of the character’s day, to form an entire story over a period of 20 days. Each had a soundtrack by an unknown new South African band.

The idents directed the audience to MK’s blog, Facebook and Twitter feed where he had written the rest of the story. Viewers could BBM or direct message MK in real time. We made MK a real-time person, who was just like one of our target audience.



Give some indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

We got cooler, more influential young people to love MK. Before the campaign, the MK Facebook page had 83,000 friends - each with an average of 84 friends. In 60 days the new 'MK is' Facebook page attracted 467 friends in our target market, with an average 457 friends each. The new fans were 4x more influential, and they posted the campaign stories in their feeds - giving us a potential reach of 208,000 friends or fans. 20,000 people interacted for the first time with the MK story in a post from a friend’s feed.