For years, MTV has been bringing together eclectic groups of young adults to live together in loft-like spaces on the series "The Real World." Now, with the backing of a major technology marketer, the network has gathered 16 youthful creative types in a loft in New York for a contest that can be watched on TV or online.
Beginning Monday, the Viacom unit MTV and its mtvU channel, which is aimed at college and university students, will join forces with Hewlett-Packard to present "Engine Room," an original series that will follow the 16 contestants, divided into four teams, as they produce digital art using -- of course -- PCs, work stations, monitors and other products sold by HP.
Episodes of "Engine Room" run five to seven minutes each, and the series is scheduled to last seven weeks. At the end, one team will win prizes that include $400,000 in cash and a chance to program the giant MTV screen in Times Square in New York for a night.
"Engine Room" follows a previous video series that HP sponsored with MTV, called "Meet or Delete." It also comes after a video series for the back-to-school season, "Dorm Storm," presented by Hewlett-Packard in partnership with Broadband Enterprises, an online video producer and distributor.
Those series are indicative of the increasing interest in video campaigns among large marketers, particularly to reach younger consumers who have demonstrated a willingness to watch clips on their computers, cell phones and other mobile devices.
"We don't want it to be advertising; we want it to be real," said David Roman, vice president for worldwide marketing communications at the personal systems group of HP in Cupertino, California.
"We're learning as we go not to do so much talking about what we do but rather let people do things with the product," Roman said. "That's...

More... (http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=61836)