Playz experiences new forms of audiovisual narration with the #ElgraSecuestro multiplatform event

RTVE and Shine Iberia drive for four days an innovative audiovisual format that breaks the borders between television, social networks and entertainment. Playz was the protagonist of #ElGransade, an original idea of digital creators Manuel Bartual and Modesto García inspired by the escape rooms and video games.

Playz Twitter and YouTube accounts, the young digital channel of RTVEThey have been hacked. A mysterious message shows the singer Ruth Lorenzo asleep, in an industrial space, and a stranger dragging and chaining it to a pipe. Overprinting in the image An countdown. There are 6 hours left to start ... what?

This way it started #ElgraSecuestro, a multiplatform event produced by RTVE in collaboration with Shine Iberia, created and directed by Manuel Bartual and Modesto García, known for being the creators of large Twitter threads as Everything's fine, I discovered a murder on Twitter or #Redmonkey.

For Fran Llorente, project director and corporate strategy of RTVE, has been "an innovative and talented experience with which RTVE fulfills part of his mission of betting on talent and stories that connect with people."

Alberto Fernández, Digital Content Director of RTVE, explained the complications of the process and has emphasized that "it had never been done before and was growing as it developed." "For Playz it has been a success at both the image and creativity level."

Ana Rivas, director of programs at Shine Iberia, has insisted that "the fundamental thing was that nothing was known during the process, and we got it."

"It has been to fulfill a dream," he acknowledges Manuel Bartual, for whom "Twitter conversation is part of the format in this project, which was being done on the fly." In this sense, Modesto García believes that "when you make a fictional story on Twitter, which is a social network that you normally use to inform you, where there is so much controversy, people appreciate it." "You can't underestimate the Twitter collective, riddle someone was going to solve them super fast. That's why we needed something else."

Also the ‘kidnapped’ have given their vision. "Everything could happen, any failure, and see how we were resolved and threw forward ... I did not hesitate," he said Ruth Lorenzo. To Arkano "Dare to devise this is a genius." Máximo Huerta believes that "locking me has made me recover the Max that I am, as when I was Crio, without prejudices, without limits. In addition, I have seen the best, ingenious, interactive twitter, that energy I had before." And María Gómez has reflected on "What can we do to motivate young people."

#ElgraSecuestro

16.00, an alarm sounds and Ruth Lorenzo wakes up, scared tries to let go of the pipe but is useless, but no one who listens to him. A screen turns on. A stranger with a sack in the head, the kidnapper, tells him that he must solve a series of riddles to be able to get out of the abandoned factory. To achieve this, he will have the help of people from abroad who are witnessing everything from the hacked YouTube page of Playz and will remain broadcasting live from that moment until he ends #ElGranscuestro.

In the following days, rapper Arkano and the presenters of the 1st program from today, Máximo Huerta and María Gómez will be kidnapped. In addition to the abandoned factory and the Magician dressing room, they will go through a sinister hospital and a strange white room that keeps mysteries on their walls.

During those days, the kidnapper submits them to innumerable tests and constantly counted the kidnapped with the public's collaboration, which following them through live streaming on YouTube, and commenting through Twitter with the hashtag #elgrasecuestro showed them things that from within the room it was impossible to see, they investigated on the internet the responses to impossible setbacks or even Royal, such as the Plaza de la Villa de Madrid, where the kidnapper had hidden 8 of hearts essential to solve the test.

Four days monopolizing social conversation

All this transmedia interaction caused a flood of viewers's tweets, at first curious to see what was happening and as soon as the tests began, absolutely overturned in collaborating with Ruth, Arkano, Máximo and María.

They were published More than 25,000 tweets With the hashtag #elgrasecuestro, or some of its numerical declines used for each day, and this caused the event to be Trending Topic during the 4 days, continuously, from 16.00 that the kidnapped were awakened, until they managed to pass from the room, to the midnight edge. These tweets had a potential impact of 13.5 million people

The Playz account tweets achieved a volume of out of the normal impressions, more than 2.4 million, which represents 760% higher than any other usual day.

On YouTube, more than 150,000 viewed (between direct and vod) and an unusual activity in the chat that accompanied the viewing, where the spectators also commented on what happened in the rooms and tried to help the kidnapped.

During this week, every day it will be published in Playz (both on the platform and on its YouTube channel) a summary of the highlights of each of the kidnapping days and the event will end on Friday, November 29 at 7:30 p.m. here.

For Playz, #Elgransecuestro is to capture the commitment to innovative and digital native content of the RTVE Digital team. "This is the most important Playz project since its launch more than two years ago, since it includes all the elements that define us as a channel: commitment to digital creators, free and multiplatform distribution, development of transmedia content of quality and active and significant interaction of the audience," summarizes Alberto Fernández, Digital Contents Director of RTVE.

As you confess Ana Rivas, director of programs of Shine Iberia, "This project has been a great challenge for the entire team. It has had to update languages and adapt many elements, but the essence of the work we develop every day in other formats is maintained: a great story, a good and solid mechanical and the best professionals to get an audiovisual show that will hook the spectator."

The creators of the idea, and directors of #Elgransecuestro, Manuel Bartual and Modesto García, wanted to step forward in what they had done to date, the Twitter threads. "We thought there was a great potential in expanding the interaction we had lived in previous threads, taking advantage of everything that a 24h streaming can offer on YouTube," they conclude.