Media & Entertainment · Enterprise · Northern Europe
Creating the world's first streaming entertainment app with built-in chat and co-viewing.
MTV's mobile brand in Northern Europe, aimed at millennials, was losing relevance. And its audience was already sharing tips for illegal downloads on MTV's own website.
AKQA was appointed to conceive, design and develop a product that would create real value for this audience and give them a reason to stay.
We discovered that the target audience were content-hungry control freaks. They wanted MTV on their own terms — when, where, and how they chose.
So we gave them total control. MTV Under The Thumb was one of the first products from a major global brand designed from the ground up for a second-screen experience – an app and platform that let viewers watch on the go, use their phone as a remote control, chat, and synchronise viewing with friends. Every feature was an expression of one concept: the content you love, entirely in your hands.
'The audience was posting illegal download links on MTV's own site. That told us everything — they loved the content, they just wanted control. So we built the product around that.'
MTV Under The Thumb launched at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, targeting tech and TV enthusiasts. Before the conference was over, the app was achieving one download every minute.
It was featured in the Apple App Store's New and Noteworthy section, received numerous four- and five-star user reviews, and won a Bronze Lion at Cannes.
What began as a retention play for a struggling mobile subscription became a product and platform that prefigured a decade of second-screen, social viewing experiences.
This was the first project I worked on at AKQA.
