Some 20,000 people gathered at the landmark 700th Anniversary Stadium in Chiang Mai to watch their favourite Asian music acts earlier this year. Artists like Korea’s mega-popular boy band Super Junior M, quirky Australian vocalist Kate Miller-Heidke and Bangkok-based rock band Slot Machine sang, danced and entertained the energized crowd.
Except this was not just a regular music event. The free outdoor concert, organized by the MTV EXIT Foundation, was actually held in support of the organization’s cause – to increase awareness and prevention of human traffi cking and exploitation. The United Nation’s International Labour Organization estimates that about 2.5 million people worldwide are victims of traffi cking and more than half of these people are in the Asia Pacifi c.
EXIT was launched in Europe in 2004 and expanded across Asia, with the cooperation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), in 2007. Today, it is one of the world’s largest anti-human traffi cking awareness campaigns. The Chiang Mai concert is just one of numerous events EXIT has organized. To date, it has produced 26 free live concerts, reaching more than 500,000 people throughout Asia.
But the movement goes further than running rock concerts. One of EXIT’s main goals is to use the cultural infl uence of the MTV brand to draw attention and raise awareness to its cause. Similar to its sister project MTV Staying Alive, a campaign encouraging HIV prevention.
Utilising the power of connected media, EXIT has adopted an aggressive two-pronged approach – employing various platforms, such as television, online, plus on-the-ground events, and creating diverse content to keep its message engaging.
For the foundation, this multi-platform strategy is one which campaign director, Matt Love, believes is key to the campaign’s success. As he told TV ASIA Plus, “We’re creating content that’s across all platforms. It’s not just traditional forms of TV programming.”
Such a move has become especially essential, considering the highly fragmented audience of today. Youths now have a greater wealth of options at their fi ngertips to choose from. Content and information can be accessed via not just traditional media, but new media as well.
A multiplatform approach thus seems to be pivotal for reaching out to all segments of the population, especially for an initiative like EXIT, which is trying to raise as much awareness as it can.
Love said that one way the campaign has done this is to go outside the Pay-TV structure into terrestrial TV territory also. The Chiang Mai concert, for example, aired on MCOT Channel 9 in Thailand, one of the country’s most watched television channels.
He added that the foundation is also currently working and in talks with other terrestrial TV stations, such as China Central Television (CCTV), Singapore’s Channel News Asia and Malaysia’s 8TV, to broadcast some of its new documentaries.
“There is a misconception that MTV EXIT only airs its programmes on the MTV channel,” said Love. “But right across the region, we’re working with terrestrial TV channels… So these are important ways for us to make sure our messages are getting out there to a wider audience than just cable.”
He added that at present, while the other platforms are still important, “What we’re really exploring more and more is a cross over to digital platforms. We’re using a lot of new media, social media platforms as a means of connecting to youth.”
To date, EXIT’s online efforts have included its offi cial website MTVEXIT. org, Facebook and Twitter pages. Visitors can also view documentaries, music videos and entire concerts on its website. But Love said that there are more online activities in the pipeline, as the initiative seeks to move beyond these few online avenues. “We’re also looking at online premieres of our new programming, to really maximize reach,” he said.
The former lawyer turned campaign director enthused that the foundation takes the internet as a tool to further its message, very seriously. “We do our research as to what are the major online platforms for example, in Vietnam, what are the major digital platforms in Indonesia that are being used and how we can really tap into all these platforms to engage youths and empower them as much as possible”.
EXIT’s content ranges from documentaries hosted by celebrities as Angelina Jolie and Lucy Liu, to formats such as a Manga-style animation series Intersection; and music videos featuring music acts as The Click Five, Muse and The Killers, to Public Service Announcements (PSA) produced locally for and across Asia. On September 17, Enslaved, the campaign’s latest documentary, premiered on MTV Southeast Asia channel. The programme is the second in a series of 12 new documentaries launching across the region in 2011.
Love was extremely pleased with the half hour documentary special as it “tackles diverse exploitation stories and not just the traditional” traffi cking victims who are poor and from villages. He noted that there is now an increasing prevalence of well educated, city kids being targeted through online recruitment schemes.
Still, sometimes the simplest ideas work just as well. One of the most successful campaigns saw EXIT go back to its MTV roots: music videos. A trilogy, produced in collaboration with international music bands Radiohead, The Killers and Muse received millions of views online, according to EXIT. These videos contain scenes depicting human traffi cking and exploitation throughout the world.
The multiple strategies has certainly carried EXIT’s name well across Asia, increasing its profi le and even shifting attitudes and behaviours. This has been its intent from the beginning and Love says that the multiplatform approach will remain the team’s backbone to innovate from and communicate to Asia’s fragmented youth about the daily reality of human exploitation, right on their doorstep.
