At ScoopWhoop, Millenials are more than just entertainment seekers

1. Share the success story of ScoopWhoop with our readers.

When we started ScoopWhoop it was just to have fun with content. We had no intention to start a business or to be entrepreneurs. We used to do our day jobs at the agency and in the night write articles on ScoopWhoop. In the first month itself, we went up to 3 million users, which was unprecedented at that point of time. In 2014, ScoopWhoop went from an experiment to one of the leaders in the media-publishing space.

ScoopWhoop has grown tremendously in a short span and is widely considered as a brand that is on the cutting edge of youth culture in India. Today, ScoopWhoop clocks over 250 million video views, and over 400 million content engagements across social and owned platforms monthly.

2. What are the challenges faced by the company in generating its content on the internet?

Reaching young Indians across languages is currently a challenge and an opportunity for us. The other big challenge, of course, is to be both constantly relevant but also constantly creating new trends. For a digital content brand, the competition is constantly ‘every piece of content on the internet ever’. To stay exciting, relevant and preferred in this scenario is hugely demanding.

3. Discuss some new developments in your company?

- To ensure greater value for our consumers & advertisers across our key owned platforms, we have strengthened our technology team by appointing Senior Vice President, Technology

- Additionally, we have relaunched our Hindi content platform - Gazabpost as SCOOPWHOOP HINDI with the clear ambition to build India’s only content brand that engages the Hindi belt’s youth at scale.

4. What are the key points you have to keep in mind while working with and for millennials?

-Millennials, contrary to the myth are much more than just entertainment seekers. In fact, we're seeing that information has never been more interesting to this audience. Particularly in the smaller towns, there's a curiosity and hunger to just 'know more'. It’s just about delivering it in a way that's easy to consume and share. And of course, relatable stories of being young in India today continue to excite.

5. How does ScoopWhoop dig out branded content?

-We work with brands to turn their stories into interesting content that's both relevant and fun for their audiences. Our focus is on creating native and organic branded content rather than awkward integrations with storylines. A recent example would be our campaign for Samsung Galaxy J6. The brief was to create content to showcase the features of the phone as well as Samsung services such as Mall. Our solution was based on the insight that we all have that one friend who badly needs a new phone but keeps hanging on to her old one. The solution was to showcase this behavior in a fun way and promote every feature of the phone as a level up from the current phones in the market. This was relatable, entertaining storytelling centered entirely around the product and brand and the results spoke for themselves – the content sparked conversations around the phone and generated overwhelmingly positive sentiment.

6. What type of content creators do you hire? Is there any particular structure that is followed?

We hire creators who are not only highly skilled but also have an innate understanding and passion for content consumed on the mobile phone & the internet. But the most important aspect that we consider is a good attitude.

7. What are your plans for ScoopWhoop in the next 5 years?

 ScoopWhoop will continue to invest heavily in the creation of new and exciting content across formats. Language is a big area of growth for us and deepening our influence across the top 15 cities is the immediate priority.