YAAP is a new-age, specialized content company that brings together technology, data, and content to deliver high-quality creative solutions. Yaap believes that every strong organization has great stories to inspire and influence its environment, only if it is told well. YAAP is a group of new-age storytellers who love the 3Ds of the business of storytelling- design, discovery, and distribution. The biggest differentiator is the technology that backs up our content marketing strategies. The company believes that consumer intimacy and influencer relationships have always been the secret to building powerful brands. YAAP’s innovative marketing solutions are an infusion of technology and brand management that are indispensable to create a long-lasting impact.
MediaNews4U spoke to Atul Hegde, Investor & Director at YAAP & Manan Kapur, Partner at YAAP on the growth of YAAP, Company’s motto, and way forward…
Today there are a plethora of platforms offering various digital marketing services, what is the USP of YAAP?
MK – YAAP is a content-first agency. We bring together technology, data, and content to deliver high-quality creative solutions. We work on the philosophy of 3 pillars i.e. Design, Discovery, and Distribution.
YAAP was launched in 2016, how has the journey been? The challenges?
MK – Right from the start we have believed in scaling: be it our team, services, or client acquisition. In the last 5 years, we have seen ourselves grow as an independent agency, building a network across 3 countries and 7 locations. So far, we have worked with over 150 brands, such as the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), Visit Dubai, Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), SBI Cards, ITC Hotels, and Tata AIA Life Insurance, among others.
In the initial years, we faced some challenges in hiring the right talent, but we have been fortunate enough to overcome this. Currently, we stand strong with a 75+ member team and we are here to grow.
“Design, Discovery, Distribution”, can you elaborate on this?
MK – Design begins right from research, strategy, ideation to execution; it is the entire packaging of an idea.
Discovery is when we dispense the packaged idea through various channels such as onboarding influencers.
Distribution is the implementation where we optimize the content via media partnerships.
Going by this philosophy, we are able to deliver high-impact creative solutions to our clients, led by experienced teams specific to each of these pillars.
The crisis has seen an exponential growth of Digital, how are you seeing this trend?
MK – Across the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the everyday behavior of billions of people. There is a particular impact on digital channels. With more and more people spending more time online, brands are also moving towards becoming digital-first companies now. We believe this trend is here to stay.
YAAP has also had a few acquisitions; can you take us through those?
AH – As we know, YAAP has been built on the 3 pillars of design, discovery & distribution which is an amalgamation of creativity, tech & data. The fastest way for us to achieve this was to have a few strategic acquisitions – Elephant Delhi in the branding space, Singapore-based Oplifi in the programmatic media space, and these were bolstered with a fully owned subsidiary in the UAE along with a strong Influencer Marketing practice built organically. We are currently actively looking for potential M&As in the martech space to further strengthen all the offerings at YAAP.
Where do you see Digital Marketing in the coming years?
AH – Digital marketing spends in India is already more than double print spends and about 20% less than TV ad spends and the trajectory is only upwards. While it’s a matter of time before it becomes the no. 1 medium of choice for all advertisers, what’s really exciting to see is the way the digital content creator’s ecosystem is growing both in terms of numbers and quality. This is where I expect a lot of innovations to come in be it powered by Tech or/and by creative ideas.
Way Forward and Focus for 2021
AH – When the pandemic hit us in 2020, we immediately went into survival mode. The focus was not to lose any ground on all the progress made over the past few years and at the same time we wanted to insulate our biggest assets: our people from any adverse impact. We were fortunate to navigate that period without any drastic measures like salary cuts, layoffs, or for that matter we did not even delay salaries by a day. It was business as usual as far the team was concerned and fortunately all our clients stood by us. This is now poised to pay off in a big way. This year it’s all about making that transition from survival to thriving. YAAP is looking at a 50% growth this year on the back of strong recent wins and a healthy pipeline. The industry overall is on the up and if mid-size agencies are able to battle the cash flow challenges for this year, most of them will be out of the woods by March 2022.
