MTV has had to conquer various environmental hurdles in order to expand their network to reach a global audience. While the marketing strategy and the product strategy that MTV employed was not particularly innovative, the common sense approach proved to be extremely effective.
Key Environmental Challenges and the Solutions
The major challenges that MTV faced were producing content that appealed to a global audience and selling their product to countries with considerable cultural differences. Initially, MTV attempted to export American culture, but soon discovered that approach was not reaching foreign audiences. In order to overcome this obstacle and in order to be successful in their endeavor MTV began to develop content that appealed to individual cultures. This individualized approach also allowed MTV to sell their product to countries with more extreme cultural differences like Israel, Singapore, Cuba, and China.
Global Entry Strategy and the Advantages and Disadvantages
MTV entered the global market in 1987 with MTV Europe. Soon they became the largest network in Europe. As the demand for televisions and paid programming grew in other countries including Latin America and India, MTV took advantage of the opportunity. They targeted the youth market in these countries in their efforts for global outreach.
These were definitely wise decisions and appropriate since youth are as much consumers as adults are. The advantage to this strategy was that foreign youth do listen to American music, so there was definitely a market for MTV’s type of programming. The disadvantage was that teens tended to be more interested in the happenings in their own countries. Solving this problem would be complicated and costly.
Global Product Strategy
The global product strategy was to produce localized programming content that would appeal to the youth in their individual environments. This was definitely an excellent strategy since MTV’s audience is for the largest part, youth and teens. Digital television and interactive services are in demand in Europe. Armed with that knowledge MTV created a service that enabled the viewing audience to acquire information on CD’s, verify concert dates and cast their vote during the MTV European Music Awards from their televisions. In Asia MTV developed a different approach to programming.
They created a virtual veejay who they named LiLi. LiLi is capable of interacting in five different languages in such ways as interviewing guests or giving the audience tips on popular culture. In Japan, MTV partnered with H&Q Asia Pacific created a service that allowed viewers to subscribe to in order to download music and entertainment news to their mobile phones.
The efforts that MTV has made to reach a global audience has surpassed successful. They now own thirty-three district channels. They broadcast their programming in eighteen different languages in over one-hundred sixty countries. MTV is a cultural icon that has acquired 1.8 billion viewers worldwide.