For the last year or so I’ve been doing small bits of consultancy for a really interesting mobile storytelling outfit call UNRD – the brainchild of two very smart guys, Adam and Shib.
The basic idea of UNRD is that stories unfold on your mobile over a number of days, as if in real time, as a series of Whatsapp-like group chats, short videos and Insta-like stories. It’s a bit like getting access to someone else’s phone and becoming embroiled in friendships, enmities, gossip and secrets as a series of dramatic events unfold.
They had a bit of a hit with their first production, Last Seen Online, with tens of thousands of people downloading the app. Commercially, it’s also a very cute proposition, since only about a third of the chat groups in the story are free to access. The rest are locked up with ‘keys’ that you have to buy if you want to know everything that’s going on between the characters. It means that for each production, there’s potential to generate a lot of revenue quite quickly.
UNRD have also started working with YouTubers and influencers to add a bit of celeb interest. Joe Sugg, for one, liked the platform so much that’s he’s now starring in one of the productions. All this before the company starts doing deals with advertisers or working with TV companies who are looking for new ways to engage audiences in storylines and characters beyond the TV screen.
My role in all this has been to help with dreaming up new stories – ‘The Big Question’ is one I helped out with, for example.
I’ve also been using my experience of digital content production to advise on how put in place robust development and production processes that can stand up to the rapid expansion of the company, both in terms of pushing out more and more stories regularly but also supporting a larger and larger cohort of writing and producing staff who need to be schooled in the ways UNRD stories work.
It’s stimulating stuff – and exciting to get a glimpse from the inside of a smart new digital content company trying to cope with enormous growth and demand in such a short period of time.
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