Falling to pieces

Help Britney pull it together

What?: MTV has launched the Britney Spears Wants A Piece Of You contest. As if she wasn’t mashed up enough already, the fallen princess of pop now wants you to take her apart in this new video remix competition.

Fans are being asked to create a new video for Britney’s forthcoming single, ‘Piece of Me’, using MTV’s Video Remixer tools. MTV has thrown open its Britney archives – which includes interviews, red-carpet appearances and performances – for wannabe directors to do as they see fit with. The winning video will air on TRL, have an all-day premiere on MTV Hits and an online premiere on MTV.com. The winning video creator will also receive a Haier Ibiza Rhapsody device and the entire back catalogue of Spears’ CDs and DVD releases.

So what?: Public meltdown has never been so lucrative. Doing your back in (Take That) or spraining your ankle (Spice Girls) is the new press-generating driver here. Shaving your head and looking unsightly on TV is just an extension of that principle. Bearing in mind the success Britney’s MTV awards performance brought the ‘Gimme More’ single, video makers would probably be well advised to create the shoddiest production imaginable.

“This campaign is a win for everyone involved. It lets MTV generate free content from old footage while pleasing fans with a bit of user-generated content. As for Britney, her videos are currently so poor that she can only benefit from a montage of video clips from when she was still good.”
Ruth Mortimer, Editor, Brand Strategy

http://remix.mtv.com