#BETInstabooth: We Got it Right with a 10 Minute Rap Song

This past June I partnered with Facebook and Instagram to launch the "#BETInstacarpet" on the red carpet of the 2015 BET Awards in Los Angeles with two goals:

1. Augment the organic social buzz around the BET Awards on show day with content that featured show talent.

2. Create an innovative social franchise that excited our participating talent and viewing audience, alike.

After weeks of meetings we determined that the #BETInstacarpet would be a music video shot on the red carpet and shared on social media in almost real time, which was no small feat.

We brought in acclaimed video director Benny Boom for the visuals and got an original beat from producer/super star DJ Just Blaze. The BET Awards red carpet team was gracious enough to give us a 20x20 space that we populated with a branded, air conditioned & enclosed tent positioned just before the step and repeat, and tricked out with over 500 mylar balloons, a DJ, smoke machine, mannequins and more. It was the coolest thing on the carpet, literally and figuratively. So much so that instead of the 15 celebs we anticipated, we got over 65!

Watch the #BETINSTCARPET  Video Here

Everyone from Floyd Mayweather and Michael Ealy to MGK and E-40 stopped by, and as you can see in the video, they all had a great time.

The biggest challenges of this execution were all linked to the Awards being a live show. Our barebones production team was prepared to cut and deliver a 15 second Instagram video to each celeb that participated, before they reached their seat. But we only delivered 10 before being overwhelmed by the rush. The next day we published the full video and distributed the remaining Instagram clips. Not ideal, but still effective in extending the conversation about the show and supporting the encores.

The #BETInstacarpet was well received, by the audience, talent and internal stakeholders, but not the smash that I was looking for; not the viral hit that we all knew no brand but BET was in the position to create. So before I left LA I began the conversation with Benny and my internal partners at BET about what we needed to do to at the 2015 Hip Hop Awards to make it truly magical.

In the three years I've been at BET the one question that seems to come up in some capacity every few months is, "Can you bring back Rap City Da Basement?" A fan of the show and the spotlight it put on lyricism myself, it was definitely one of my first questions. The Big Tigger freestyles were legendary, and there's a generation of rappers that never got their chance to step in the booth and prove themselves.

It was a no brainer. We needed to respond to audience demand and #bringbackdabasement at the Hip Hop Awards with the #BETInstabooth.

Watch the #BETINSTABOOTH Video Here

The Hip Hop Awards is a taped show, so we had time to give greater scrutiny to the final video. However, it is a smaller show, without as much talent to work with. And though we had our hearts set on a posse cut, along the lines of "Self Destruction" or "We're All in the Same Gang," we knew there was no way to ensure cohesion between everyone's verses. This meant the #BETInstabooth would be a straight up old school cypher, with only the most confident or carefree rappers daring to step up to the mic.

Benny Boom joined us again to direct, and this time we got our original beat from Grammy-nominated producer Needlz. Since Needlz was based in Atlanta we had him setup inside the #BETInstabooth with full DJ gear, recording vocals from the mic in a plexiglass booth just three feet away from him. It was an audio nightmare! But Needlz and his team developed a realtime solution, on the spot, that allowed us to capture audio clean enough for a track.

The #BETInstabooth was at the very end of the red carpet, so rappers were slow to trickle in at first. Some even turned away in horror once the door opened and they saw that you'd actually need to rap! But soon it was obvious that we'd accomplished our goal and made something magical happen. Young rappers stood on the sidelines to watch veterans like Hip Hop Awards host Snoop, and OGs like Scarface and Red Man gave props to younger guys they thought did well. Artists that weren't the best freestyle rappers even checked their egos at the door and jumped in the booth just to kick a few silly rhymes and enjoy the moment. People were having fun!

When it was all said and done we were left with 70 minutes of straight rap from 40 of today's biggest artists, all accompanied by hip hop's most beloved host. After the Hip Hop Awards aired we uploaded the video natively to Facebook and it immediately took off, doubling all view, like, sharing and reach metrics for the #BETInstacarpet within hours. In the first few hours of its publish the video generated 10k views an hour, and has achieved a reach of 10.5M and counting.

My team and I have already got our eyes set on a few key events in 2016, so stay tuned!