For last year’s Melbourne Writer’s Festival, JWT Melbourne gave audiences a tour inside a writer’s head (or a scene from the fantasy life of every woman).

“We see Anya, a crime writer, tease out a particularly gruesome plotline using her family as stand-in victims. How should she dispatch with her husband? Slam his head in a cupboard door or decapitate him with a vegetable knife?” [Richard Muntz, JWT Melbourne executive creative director]

This year’s ad has the same sharp edge of dark humour. It’s a play on the classic inherited haunted house scenario, twisted to incorporate the app’s selling point, “You choose where the story goes”.

Twists & Turns is an interactive app that lets festival-goers become the heroes of their own choose-an-adventure stories. Starting at Melbourne Town Hall, festival-goers will be able to live their story as it is being narrated into their iPhones. It will ‘twist and turn’ with each street they choose to walk down, so that by combining traditional storytelling and high-tech geo-location beacons a one-off literary experience will be created.

The stories are written by Melbourne Writers Festival authors Nic Low, Leanne Hall and Liam Pieper, and narrated by well-known Australian actors John Wood, Noni Hazlehurst, John Flaus and Richard Piper.

The Twists & Turns launch ad will appear in cinemas, and aims to inspire viewers to imagine their own ending to the story of a father and daughter who has been mysteriously bequeathed a haunted mansion. A further two versions of the cinema ad will appear on YouTube, inviting viewers to use their curious minds and choose the story’s ending.

The campaign is supported by collateral including posters and signage plus website, online and press advertising.

Richard Muntz, executive creative director of JWT Melbourne, described the thinking behind the campaign that aims to broaden the festival’s reach, “Melbourne Writers Festival is not an age or lifestyle thing; it’s about human curiosity and it’s for readers, writers and thinkers.

“This year’s creative strategy takes storytelling to a new level and is aimed at people of all ages, from students to professionals, families, the young and the old; everyone with a curious mind.”

The ad was directed by Edwin McGill through production company, Guilty. “It was a lot of fun working on this with the JWT creative team for the Melbourne Writers Festival. Supporting writers is something I truly believe in. After all, it would be a pretty dull world without them.”

Twists & Turns will be available to download mid-August., with with cinema ads appearing across approximately 60 screens between now and August 31. Meanwhile have a play on the interactive YouTube version.

Creative credits:

Agency: JWT Melbourne

Executive creative director: Richard Muntz

Copywriters: Jono Aidney & Andy Segal

Art director: Chris Hince

Digital producer: Bill Louloudakis

Digital designer: Ander Hernando

TV producers: Eyvonne Carfora & Sherry Harvey

Print producer: Miryana Velanyovski

Branching narratives expert: Leena Van Deventer

App developers : Tactify 

Production company: Guilty

Director: Edwin McGill

Producer: Jason Byrne

DoP: Shelley Farthing-Dawe

Sound production: Risk Sound

Post production: The Butchery and Refinery