How unrd is thinking ‘mobile first’ when creating mobile entertainment

Shib Hussain
Nov 6 · 5 min read

The next 12 months will create some significant shifts in how we all experience entertainment through our mobile devices.

The launch of Quibi, the streaming wars, social networks creating entertainment content and no doubt more players entering this field will create an unlimited amount of choice for people to decide where they spend their valuable attention and subscription dollars.

However, simply creating TV’esque content vertically wont drive the retention and growth needed to build huge winners in this space -this is well documented with the great hype that Go90 received upon it’s announcement, all the way to it’s demise.

As aptly described by Matthew Ball on on REDEF:

Content itself hasn’t truly changed all that much over the 12 years since Netflix launched its streaming service (The Sopranos premiered in 1999) — nor have the ideation and production processes behind this content.

At unrd, we believe for entertainment businesses to attract and retain an ever growing, yet extremely fickle mobile audience it’s going to require a mindset and operational shift.

It seems an obvious statement on the surface, but mobile isn’t TV. Yet, most entertainment businesses create content for mobile in exactly the same way as they do for TV, passive entertainment with big budgets, designed for big screens.

Mobile behaviours are vastly different to TV. We don’t just watch it, we play with it. We crush candies and build castles. We take photos, we send voice notes. We write, delete and re-write. We snoop, we stalk. We fall in love. We like, we share. We get constant feedback and endorphin hits.

So what could the future of entertainment look like?

At unrd, we’ve been experimenting in this space for almost 12 months and have learnt that if you want to win on mobile, you’ll require the craft of TV and an intimate understanding of mobile behaviours.

Here’s our formula that we’ve had success with:

Create compelling narratives that emotionally move audiences, and deliver them in a way that is native to how they use their mobile devices — through messages, video, voice notes, podcasts and more….

This means content that’s written, shot and created for mobile behaviours.

We allow users to read messages between different characters, watch 36 hour live streams, listen to 6 part podcasts that give more clues and even call phone numbers that belong to their favourite YouTuber’s. The voicemails are hours of entertainment in themselves!

All our stories play out in real time. Meaning they’re living pieces of content. The story continues if you engage with the app or not. This creates constant cliff hangers, and repeat usage. You can’t binge or go forward or backwards.

For unrd this has resulted in 100’s of thousands of people engaging with unrd stories over the last 12 months and being heralded by The App Store ‘as the future of storytelling’.

For a taster, try out our most viewed series to date, My Last 3 days, the final episode launched recently. It’s had 100k’s of users experience it to date… and growing.

Some early learnings

As we’ve been building unrd, we’ve learnt a few lessons along the way that we believe will be at the centre of every great mobile entertainment experience, they touch on everything from product design, hiring and processes:

  1. You need emotion and mechanics working in sync to drive retention Depending on your bias, it’s easy to over prioritise on one or the other. However, we’ve found that our best performing stories do both well, they have a narrative arc that people engage with and takes advantage of with engaging media elements that people regularly interact with on their phone (messages, photos, videos, voice notes…)
  2. Interactivity doesn’t mean choice based narratives
    The first assumption many people make is that you need to let the user decide on the outcome. This is a hangover from gaming behaviours. We’ve found this doesn’t need to happen, people want a good story that they can relate too -that’s it. the mechanic should be defined by the narrative, not the other way round. Sometimes that can mean clue solving, other times it might mean tuning into a live stream multiple times a day.
  3. Craft like TV, iterate like software
    There’s a balance between art and science. No single creative genius will know what will resonate, and there’s no data model that can predict a hit. We’ve found, the best balance is to have ‘data informed creativity’. Have some principles that you have proven to be true, and then create new experiences on top of them to keep users coming back. A simple example being: treat every new story as a pilot. If it surpasses the retention rate required, double down!
  4. Produce for the screen your users are viewing content on
    In simple terms, you don’t need Hollywood budgets to create compelling content for mobile audiences. We’ve perfected a production method that is lean, has quick payback periods, and means we can shoot 80% of our content on mobile devices. Suddenly, you’ve got a model that is highly scalable, repeatable and doesn’t come with the capex that is associated with creating Hollywood hits.
  5. Have lots of feedback loops
    We don’t have a traditional software setup at unrd. We don’t believe you need product managers to create great products. What you need is a multiple, high frequency feedback loop with users . We’ve been able to optimise both product and stories by monitoring everything from clicks, completion rates, tweets, and discussions. The future of entertainment will require companies to be able to assess content success using all these factors, not just ratings.
  6. Hire for behaviours, not expertise
    A key learning has been that talent can come from any vertical. We’ve hired ex technologists, games writers, TV soap writers + producers, and AI researchers. There isn’t a correct talent profile, but there is a correct behaviour. We’ve found optimising for people who understand how people interact with mobile content results in much better performers than simply people who understand how to write a great narrative arc.
  7. Today’s talent isn’t yesterdays
    Similarly, to the above points, you don’t need Hollywood level talent to move the needle on mobile. The people we interact with everyday aren’t TV stars, they’re social media stars. They own and operate their own distribution channels and hardcore fan bases, which means they’re some of the best media channels on the market. It’s worth looking beyond the obvious TV stars when it comes to driving real engagement on mobile.
  8. Subscription-a-geddon is a myth
    I started this post talking about the streaming wars and the pending choices users may have to make when it comes to streaming. This largely relates to subscription revenue. We’ve found people will pay for, and subscribe for value. If you’re creating something of value that people will use repeatedly, subscription does and will work. People don’t generally have a pot of money they look at as subscription money, it’s just like any other transaction, a value exchange.

It’s still early in this space, and we expect it to grow and flourish as new startups, IP holders and media companies come to market. The next 12 months is just the start of how entertainment will morph for mobile, and it’s going to be exciting for everyone involved, especially the end user!

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade