Produced in 16 markets around the world, the debut of Exquisite Corpse marks the first ever collaboration between MTV's creative directors utilising materials exchanged digitally via the Internet. The global campaign was unveiled yesterday by MTV Networks International creative president Brent Hansen at the 50th Anniversary of the International Advertising Festival 2003 in Cannes, France.

An official release informs that Exquisite Corpse is based on an old parlour game played by several people, each of whom would write words or phrases on a piece of paper. Then the sheet is folded to conceal part of it after which it would pass on to the next player for his contribution. Cadavre Exquis, as it was originally known, was also used by the surrealists in the early 20th century, such as Lautréamont, Ernst & Calas to explore the mystique of accident.

Using this concept as inspiration, MTV's channels around the world participated in a form of imaginative and creative Exquisite Corpse. They came up with just three seconds of material based only upon seeing the preceding three seconds of material that was produced in another region. The material was exchanged in digital format over the Internet and finally edited together to produce each of the campaign's 16 30-second spots. Featuring original music, the result is a distinctive, yet abstract, blend of animation, still and moving images, which highlights the diversity of the company's award winning localised TV channels and Web sites states the release.

The 16 MTV channels and MTV Web sites involved in Exquisite Corpse are Asia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Europe, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latin America, Nordic, Poland, Russia, Spain, US, UK & Ireland. The entire campaign is being made available to all of MTV's 38 channels and 22 Web sites. A Web page unique to the campaign, www.exquisitemtv.com has been produced providing all regions with a link and the ability to stream the 30-second spots, along with flash animations illustrating the campaign's concept.

In addition MTV Latin America will be competing for an award at the ad festival with its latest campaign, I Once Saw MTV (Una Vez Vi MTV), produced in partnership between MTV Networks Latin America VP marketing Cristian Jofre and the creative agency, la comunidad. This was one of the 50 ads that Leo Burnett had earlier selected for its annual Cannes competition. The scene where the baby girl goes towards the mothers breasts in a fetching manner because she saw the music channel is hilarious.