Influencer Marketing Mavericks: Story behind pandemic-born Krazyfox's quick rise
Vishal Srivastava and Ozair Yermal, co-founders of Krazyfox, on India's influencer marketing boom and going global.
Note to readers: ‘Influencers’ have forever changed the way brands and people engage with each other. Bringing together brands, content creators and digital publishers and curating a narrative for marketers are the influencer marketing agencies. They are the new-age agencies focused on the biggest disruption in the world of brands - influencer marketing. Storyboard18’s special series brings to you a view of what these influencer marketing mavericks do and how they think.
Founded during the Covid-19 pandemic by twenty-somethings. That's a commonality that ties together some of the Influencer Marketing Mavericks we've covered in our special series.
24-year-old Vishal Srivastava and 23-year-old Ozair Yermal are the co-founders of Krazyfox, a Pune-based influencer management agency. The duo started the agency in 2020 while they were in college. At the time, they had no creators on board and no employees. Cut to 2022. Krazyfox has over 250 employees across India and markets like Singapore and the Middle East. In two years they have worked with over 15000+ influencers and content creators across categories.
“We are glad that we started Krazyfox in the early days because the influencer marketing business has grown tremendously in the past two years. We believe that industry has a lot to achieve in the coming years as it is becoming an integral part of marketing,” says Yermal.
Srivastava also has a global vision for the company. He says while they have already established the business in India, Bangladesh, Middle East, it’s time to look beyond. “We are now looking forward to unleashing the potential of the US market,” he tells us.
Take a look at the latest agency to enter the Influencer Marketing Mavericks club.
What is Krazyfox and what do they do exactly?
Krazyfox is one of the fastest growing multi-channel networks in India, helping brands, creators and influencers to increase their digital presence through various social media platforms. It provides the right brand collaboration opportunities to creators and drives effective content. In other words, they basically try to find the right creators for strategic brand campaigns and promotional activities and help brands to reach their target audience via digital influencers, creators and bloggers, and vloggers. To sum it up, services include digital marketing, content creation and influencer management.
FACT FILE
Founded: 2020
Founders: Vishal Srivastava and Ozair Yermal
Revenue: From Rs 90 lakh in its first year, the brand has grown to a revenue of Rs 26 crores in 2021-2022.
Employees: 250+
Key Clients
Brands: Till now, Krazyfox has worked with 200+ national and international brands, that includes big giants such as the MOJ app, ShareChat app, Zee Entertainment, Happn app, Apna app, Snow Corporationand more.
Influencers: Saloni Singh, Dhiru Monchik, Riza Afreen, Shivamsingh Rajput and others.
GET TO KNOW
Best campaigns and what it did for influencers and brands
In its first year, Krazyfox started working with a newly launched short video app. The founders were given the opportunity to onboard content creators and celebrities and in six months they ended up onboarding 3000+ content creators across languages like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Odia, Bhojpuri and Bengali.
"Recently, we collaborated with Moj and launched a creative studio in Mumbai to resolve the creator's shoot needs. It helps creators and celebrities to shoot video content with 19 different setups and equipment. It further helps creators to get good monetization opportunities," they share.
Biggest challenges facing influencer marketing agencies
"The biggest challenge agencies face is educating creators to wait for the right offer," the founders tell us. "Sometimes brands offer less than what the creator rightfully deserves and creators end up accepting the offer fearing loss of revenues. Continuous creator motivation and confidence are also a challenge. As an agency, we need to ensure that the creator is floating the right content in the market so brands collaborate with them. So we push the creator to develop the confidence to say ‘No’ if the offer is not up to the mark."
Biggest opportunities
"In the past two years, brands have realized the potential of influencer marketing for success and they have increased influencer marketing budgets. This is an excellent opportunity for us and we are growing our creator base globally. We think it is also an opportunity for India to become a leader in the creator space as we have a vast young population inclined toward the industry."
Top five trends that will change the industry/ecosystem
1. Rise of Metaverse Influencers and their participation in branded content.
2. With blockchain, social tokens under influencers' names can be launched, further creating an independent platform for Influencers to sell their own NFTs, merchandise and more.
3. Privatization of content by influencers holds the key to unlocking higher monetization value for creators who are subject-matter experts.
4. Creators marketplace bridging the gap with brands and influencers, which can further benefit the brand in swiftly executing campaigns. Influencers can get more monetary value since there will be almost no middlemen.
5. Performance marketing is another trending space. Influencers with a loyal and engaged fan base can earn more via accepting variable payments for integrated/dedicated videos on YouTube and Instagram.
Brands tend to pay a fixed amount to influencers for collaboration, wherein, at times, they need only view commitment on the deliverables. Creators who accept variable payments get paid based on the number of app installs and successful registrations, and they end up making much more than fixed payments. This setting is primarily applicable for app promotion as of now.
Annoying things all clients do
"Follow-ups just after shooting the campaign. We try to help brands as much as possible, not only assisting with their requirements but also trying to build a long and trustworthy relationship. And when you build relationships, you don't get annoyed, but you try to make them work by enhancing your services and providing a solution to the best of your abilities. We are working with the same mantra."
Three questions for brand managers
1. How can we serve you better?
2. Have you increased your brand's influencer marketing budget? If not, please up your marketing game.
3. Feedback is key to success in any business. Therefore, we keep asking our clients if they are happy with our services?
Three questions for influencers
1. Do you need an influencer marketing agency?
2. Do you want a content strategy?
3. Do you want to earn more money from your content?
