5 Qs With Pranay Swarup On Chtrbox's Acquisition
Founded in 2016, influencer marketing company Chtrbox has been powering various brands to tell great stories at scale. Chtrbox offers its clients end-to-end influencer content solutions, including a massive diverse pool of influencers, from celebrities, social media stars, Gen-Z creators to micro and nano influencers. Recently, the company was acquired by Canada based media firm QYOU Media.
With this deal, Chtrbox will gain access to massive distribution reaching millions of households, and continuing to power engaging creator-led content across digital platforms and apps. QYOU media will also be able to increase its influencer marketing business in India and deliver immediate capabilities to QYOU’s India broadcast operations.
In a conversation with BW Marketing World, Pranay Swarup, CEO and Founder, Chtrbox speaks about this acquisition, the immediate changes that can be expected, future plans and more.
Excerpts:
Q) What was the idea behind the Chtrbox acquisition?
At Chtrbox, we’ve always believed that creator content will play an increasingly important role in brand communications as well as become a central theme in general entertainment. Today most creators only have access to the followership they have built organically, and are limited to social media. QYOU innately understands the popularity of influencer content programming, paired with the compounding impact of wide distribution across traditional channels & OTT. In India, their influencer-powered channel 'The Q' has smashed recent ratings, and now reaches over 100 million households.
The idea behind us coming together with QYOU is to become a next-gen media powerhouse with influencer content across TV, OTT, social & apps and to eventually evolve into a succinct content to commerce journey.
Q) What immediate changes can be expected? Is the leadership team going to be impacted?
Chtrbox will continue to operate under its current entity; Julie Kriegshaber, Chtrbox COO, and I will continue to lead Chtrbox as an independently positioned brand. We are definitely excited about having the support and guidance of QYOU’s leadership team. We will be working closely with Krishna Menon, COO, The Q India, Simran Hoon, CEO, The Q India and Curt Marvis, CEO & Co-Founder, QYOU Media among other lead team members. This combined team, along with support from Chtrbox’s investors and backers - Rohit Raj, CCO & Co-founder, The Glitch, Roshan Abbas -Serial Entrepreneur & Media Personality, Gaurav Kapur, Founder, Oaktree Sports & Media Personality makes one really strong team.
While there are immediate opportunities that get unlocked and we’re already exploring a few together, all entities have a whole lot of exciting work going on and the goal is to stay focused on our core areas of expertise and continue driving the best for our clients and influencers. Post three months is when we will establish stronger synergies in teams.
Q) How are you looking at advanced content distribution and production opportunities?
Chtrbox’s core value proposition to businesses comes from easing content production and distribution by partnering with the best creators for the job. This unique approach is what’s changing the game - bringing in speed, authenticity, cost-effectiveness and diversity to storytelling. Influencers are amazing at just shooting content through smartphones - these phones and tools today have more equipment packed in them than what many studios had a few years ago. And of course, influencers offer brands distribution that the consumer actually wants, it is pull, not push. We are not messing with this magic, we’re just going to scale our efforts and enhance quality big time. Having said that, creators are always looking to pimp up their content, and reach new audiences, with QYOU’s strong production and distribution capabilities across TV, digital and OTT we will definitely look to leverage these added capabilities for our creators and brands.
Q) How will the industry at large be benefitted from this acquisition?
We believe the acquisition is a win for all Indian influencers; it further validates the great work creators have been doing over the past years and potential the influencer marketing space has to offer. Chtrbox + QYOU’s combined capabilities will enable us to grow the landscape better and faster, and most importantly, for influencers, allow us to come to them with bigger opportunities.
Q) Take us through some of your future plans and initiatives?
Coming together with QYOU unlocks the following benefits for our stakeholders: - Integrating Chtrbox and QYOU's USA influencer marketing business’s best practices across technology, data analytics, creative brand strategy, and content production that will advance capabilities for both markets. It will provide us with the ability to offer 360-degree influencer-driven ad campaigns across TV, OTT, digital and app-based platforms that fully leverage the deep experience and knowledge of both teams.
The deeper access for The Q to hundreds of thousands of influencers for programming and content, including over 30 top and emerging influencers exclusively represented by Chtrbox - The opportunity to drive more rapid development of social commerce business opportunities, which are influencer-driven at their core.
