Melodifestivalen is a massive annual televised song contest which determines who will represent Sweden at Eurovision. In response to a downturn in viewership, we created a second screen mobile app to increase viewer engagement with the show.
Lead designer · Perfect Fools + SVT, 2015—2021
Goal: Bridge the gap between the sofa and the arena.
Melodifestivalen is an annual televised phenomenon, but in 2014 most viewers thought the live show was pre-recorded, and mainly engaged with the show on other social media platforms and news sites. Consequently, engagement was on the decline.
Result: Record breaking engagement.
In 2021 Eurovision watchers suggested the show broke broadcasting records in terms of second screen engagement. Of the 3.23 million viewers watching the TV broadcast, with another 200,000 watching the show online, almost 20% of the audience used the app during the finale. (Other extremely successful second screen apps, like those for the 2018 British X Factor finale and 2018 FIFA World Cup, only reached 13-15% of the viewing audience.)
Vote with your heart.
We created a way for viewers to applaud virtually— which we transformed into a new voting system.
In previous years, voting was done by phone or SMS, two numbers, one with a n extra fee to donate to Radiohjalpen. The new voting system gives each user 5 free votes per artist, a major improvement for children and casual viewers.
The app allows you to send votes by tapping a heart. Tapping symbolically replicates applause but also increases the friction to vote, which in turn triggers reward pathways and feelings of satisfaction. Overall vote activty is displayed as a beating heart in the broadcast graphics, and users can compare their votes to friends’ votes and to the final result.
Melodifestivalen fans are so into Mello that we created collectable trading cards to build community (and give our most engaged users something to do between broadcasts).
Introduced in 2020, the collectable card feature has been a major success among superfans, some of whom have extremely specific collections in mind (for instance, every card issued with the same series number, or the entire series of cards issued for an artist).
Who will win? Everyone has a guess.
Melodifestivalen has been compared to a sporting event, where the focus is the songs, but the audience is consumed by guessing the outcome. We developed a feature for users to guess the outcome before the broadcast begins, and then compare their guesses to their friends, and later, to the actual result. It is both an excellent talking point and an interesting insight into who among your friends understands the whims of the audience best.
Sample user flow
Gamification
As of 2019, users who engage with the app in a few special, sometimes secret, ways can unlock trophies and outfits for their avatar. These range from individual accessories to full outfits, inspired by winning or otherwise iconic acts.
What we accomplished:
1.
During the weeks when Melodifestivalen is on the air, the Mello app is one of Sweden’s most used apps. We start warming up the servers on Thursday for a Saturday night show to be ready for the spike in user activity.
2.
We were nominated for 2 categories in Sveriges Designpriset and won gold for tablet design in 2018.
3.
Following the successful launch of personalizable avatars and collectable outfits in 2019, we created a collector’s card feature for 2020. This new feature caused strangers to swap cards and information in Facebook groups and other social networks.
4.
When Eurovision 2020 was cancelled, the show was broadcast in Sweden. We updated the Mello voting app to allow Swedish viewers to vote on their favorite contestants. We also debuted a new deck of collectors cards to give our users some new items to collect and exchange.