Case study: Swatch, MTV and the art of the Playground
By Simon Fuller. Play art. Brands Swatch and MTV have joined forces to fire up youth’s creative side with an online destination combining art and social networking. But this is no Facebook knock-off – rather, the Swatch MTV Playground community aims at getting artists to upload their work, view the galleries of other creatives, and watch videos of live events.
Plus art-lovers can add their two cents by clicking the ‘appreciate’ buttons under each featured piece of work so those budding Picassos out there won’t go unnoticed.
“For Swatch, the objective was to get closer to a young audience,” says Antonio Canto, vp at Viacom Brand Solutions International. “The focus is on art, but allowing younger people to connect with art in a way that they feel [is] relevant, that they’re interested in. There are enough museums in the world, and some young people go to these, but lots of young people don’t, they find [museums] boring, so that’s why we came up with an online platform.”You can display art, you can appreciate it, [you can] use it how you want to – people get involved as much as they want,” Canto adds.
And this site’s for everyone, with animators and musicians in the mix too – artists from numerous disciplines are invited to enter competitions to gain exposure.
Connecting people who share a passion for art was an integral part of the project – hence the networking bias. “A key idea [for Playground] was social networks,” says Canto. “We wanted to allow interactivity for people [who are] into art, so social networking as a component was crucial – it’s the driving force behind Playground.”
For Swatch, which works with creative talent across the globe on its watch lines, the art theme of the Playground project was a result of the brand getting back to its roots.
“[Swatch] became interested in going back to its origins in launching new lines of artists – they did lots of collaborations [with artists] in the eighties, so that was the brief,” explains Canto.
“For Swatch, from a strategic marketing perspective, [Playground] directly supports the brand and its new products,” he adds. “It is all about Playground [itself] – the two brands are there but it’s about immersion into the community – consequently [this] rubs off on ad campaigns, shifting brand perceptions.”
And while Playground’s online community grows, the project isn’t limited to just the net – Playground Live will see events taking place across Europe and Asia throughout the year, which will feature local artists going head-to-head in ‘art battles’ while attendees can make their own marks on graffiti walls.
