It’s been a winning year for Underknown. We took home not one but two major digital video awards. How to Survive was our biggest tour de force on the award show circuit.
The show brought home:
- The Webby: Science & Education (Video Channels & Series), People’s Voice Winner, 2022
- The Telly Award: Gold Winner in Social Video Series: Education & Discovery
and two Digiday Award nominations:
- Video Team of the Year
- Best Video Distribution and Programming Strategy
How to Survive’s success is proof that setbacks can be your most significant assets. “How to Survive was born out of failure,” says Underknown CEO Steve Hulford.
In 2018, Underknown created a show called According to Science. This show combined scientific papers with storytelling to give people insight on topics like how to succeed in life or be a good parent based on scientific facts.
The channel ultimately failed. According to Science died. But from this experiment, Steve notes, Underknown co-founder Raph Faeh saw that survival-based videos were still among our highest performers.
Eventually, these bits of brilliance, born from failure, would be revamped into How to Survive.
Former showrunner and now Senior Manager, Production Kevin Colacci says the heart and soul of How to Survive and the main contributor to its award-winning performance is the brilliant team that makes it happen.
“People have contributed to it from all over the world in different aspects. Over the year I worked as a showrunner, I got to see them all get to the point of a high level of understanding of the show. These awards prove how great the team is and how much they understand the product they’re putting out.”
After all, How to Survive has the Digiday nomination for Video Team of the Year to show it.
Underknown videos are for our viewers and subscribers first, but the added layer of industry cred that comes with award wins certainly doesn’t hurt.
“I think the awards provide some credibility to the show on a couple of levels. For one, in the industry, when we’re meeting other creators trying to collaborate, expand our brand and take on new projects with other companies worldwide, I think it looks really good on us,” says Kevin.
“Internally, it’s a great motivator for the team to know that we’re creating content that is not just out there to make money but is resonating with people. It’s teaching people, educating people and making some impact.”
