Mtv Marketing Strategy Analysis

On September 29, 1981, MTV had been in operation for two months, with twenty advertisers and 30% of available commercial time. At this time, the company was owned and operated by the Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment Company.[1] “Youth will be served,” this statement illustrates the foundations on which MTV was established. The company had already been serving the youths of the nation with “Nickelodeon,” hence MTV was created to target the “bigger kids,” the ones with enough discretionary income representing an attractive segment to marketers and advertisers.[2] In December of 1985, Warner announced that it would relinquish MTV, and that the company would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Viacom. At the time of the deal, Viacom already owned two- thirds of MTV’s common shares. The change of ownership served to increase the value of MTV by 100%.[3] The company is currently owned and operated by Viacom almost twenty years later. The vision for MTV is still catered toward the youth market, which is larger and more powerful than had ever been before, and most importantly, more profitable.

These types of strategies are used to enable managers to determine which markets to target and how to maximize profits realized from these markets. The three most common marketing strategies are mass market, niche-market and growth market.[4]

The primary objective of the mass-market strategy is to capture sufficient volume to gain economies of scale and a cost advantage.[5] There are two approaches to this strategy. The second approach is called differentiated marketing. This involves designing separate products and marketing programs for differing segments.[6]

MTV recently launched MTV Interactive, an Internet only music company to include music super-brands vh1.com, mtv.com and sonicnet.com. The music giant formed this company because it includes the three top music sites on the Internet, targeted towards unique segments. This gives fans a more