KOCHI:
UNLU, one of India’s best celebrity engagement apps is now connecting celebrities from the Kerala film industry to their fans. It has been launched by 4 serial entrepreneurs, Vipul Agrawal, Akshay Pruthi, Anurag Dalia and Himanshu Periwal who have over 40 years of cumulative experience in the start-up ecosystem.
Mollywood celebrities are some of the most revered and followed celebrities in the world. With fan clubs and fan associations in every town and village, Malayalam superstars have always enjoyed attention and unconditional love from their fans but all these activities have come to a halt due to COVID. UNLU will provide a digital platform for mollywood fans to get a birthday greeting or motivational message from their favourite stars and give Malayalam artists a chance to get back to interacting with their fans in a safe environment.
UNLU is exclusively designed as a celebrity-to-fan connect platform which lets users directly request for advice, a greeting or a heart to heart comment from their favourite celebrity. The app has been created to give fans across the country a unique and personalized experience, and intends to give them access to over 10,000 celebrities and influencers across genres such as sports, cinema, music, comedy, lifestyle, astrology and social media.
UNLU will cater to three distinctive segments namely Celebrities, Fans and Brands. One of the USPs of the app is the way it makes celebrities more accessible to their fans and helps them in turn to monetise their spare time. Another differentiator is the way it aids small and medium brands towards getting a brand endorsement from celebrities at a fraction of the price they usually charge.
Vipul Agrawal, Co-Founder, UNLU adds “UNLU has been developed, following our in-depth research to understand the present sentiment and demand-supply trends in this space. For the first time, celebrities on the platform can improve their earnings by 6X in their free time, apart from a 168% increase in their social media reach, thereby helping them to improve the longevity of their personal brand. Fans on their part can engage one-to-one with celebrities through a variety of mediums including Video Shout-outs. And brands stand to benefit by being able to generate a celebrity endorsement through a video shout-out at less than 1/10th the cost.”
Adds Himanshu Periwal, co-Founder, UNLU, “Our thesis is to build the biggest supply of celebrities across all possible categories, and offer multiple other forms of fan engagement beyond video shoutouts, which will ensure a fan on our platform finds the right celebrity and format for a one-to-one engagement. The Mollywood industry fanbase is very strong and entering the Kerala market will help us take our next step towards becoming a one stop solution for celebs and fans from any part of India.”
UNLU has been launched at a time when brands are under revenue and profitability pressure due to the current economic crisis and most are looking to spend wisely on ad campaigns involving celebrities. Unlike the past when brands used to spend crores on campaigns, they will be looking for video shoutout formats where higher ROI can be achieved at a fraction of the cost. The app is a new-age solution that makes social media endorsements and celebrity interactions enterprising and exciting.
The platform already has over 500+ celebrities including Saina Nehwal, Sai Kumar, Manjima Mohan, Archana Kavi, among others.