A creator knows its audience the best, brands should trust them & leverage their content: Urban Company's Antil Yadav

As social media and platforms keep evolving so does the content creation space. With more and more brands focusing on building a digital identity and the sudden surge in platforms and content creators, it is difficult to stay relevant, as per Antil Yadav, a Content Creator at Urban Company’s YouTube Channel- Urban Guide, apart from being an influencer himself. 

The brand’s YouTube channel is an experiential lifestyle one where the content is focused on resonating with the Urban Company’s target audience at a bigger level. Currently, it has 210 thousand subscribers and around 200 million views 

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheUrbanGuide 

Yadav, who also had a notable stint with ScoopWhoop in the past, spoke to BuzzInContent.com about the content marketing space today. He said, “Content creation is such a crowded space today that staying relevant among all the noise is challenging.” 

According to him, the content space has evolved for the better and it is more democratised. “Earlier if someone was a creator, they had to have a backing of a publishing house but that is not the case today. Today if you are consistent, you can make a big name for yourself. Brands are more accommodating today; brands want to leverage the content that the creator creates which is an important change. Earlier in a 30-minute piece, the brand used to ask the name to be mentioned 15 times.” 

Speaking about Urban Company’s influencer approach, he said, brands have started using impact influencers to drive their messages, which is what Urban Company tries to achieve with their influencers. “We want to engage with influencers whose target audience matches ours and who create the kind of content that our audience wants to watch.” 

Bhavya Sharma, Associate Director, PR and Communications at Urban Company, said the brand focuses on content marketing to create awareness rather than business generation. “We focus a lot on content marketing but not so much on business generation as much as on building awareness and recall. We want to be a part of the consumer’s life. Of our overall marketing efforts, content marketing takes up 30-40%.” 

On challenges in the content/influencer space 

Yadav further explained that there is no one size that fits all when it comes to content creation. Explaining how creators today can navigate creative blocks, he said, “Acceptance of the block should be the first step. What works for me is to accept the block and not power through it. I don’t shy away from asking for help.  I understand that content creation is such a competitive space that taking a break is not easy, but it is important. Content creators today can be totally honest. You can talk to your audience about your block, ask them for opinions and feedback, and tell them you need a break. Audiences definitely try to help you out. In my case, this has always worked in the past and I hope it continues to work.” 

Back in 2015, and 2016 many branded content properties like TVF Pitchers were cutting through the clutter and making a lot of noise. Upon being asked what keeps content pieces from evoking the same type of response from the people today, Yadav said that the audience is spoilt for choice with a number of shows and platforms operating simultaneously.

“However, every now and then some shows do catch the attention. For example, Unacademy’s Aspirants,” he added. 

He further spoke about the checkpoints that brands must ideally keep in mind while designing content strategies. According to him, the target audience of the creator and the brand should match. “You should not work with a certain influencer because every brand is working with it.” 

“Brands should stick to one or two message points. The content should also be organic to stay authentic. Brands should trust content creators; they know their audiences the best. They will be able to tell you how to integrate something organically. At the end of the day, we visit social media to consume content not to consume ads,” he explained. 

At the end Yadav also said that at Urban Company they try to give the creators as much freedom as possible, but they do have a few guidelines in place.