Creativeland Asia turns 10; launches content company - Baaash Digital

Exactly 10 years after founding Creativeland Asia, Sajan Raj Kurup has announced Baaash Digital, starting it symbolically at the same dining table he had launched Creativeland Asia on June 1, 2007. With this launch, Kurup aims to challenge the current traditional digital and social media ecosystem; which he believes is outdated and obsolete not in line with the dynamic content requirements of brands today. Kurup had recently also set up an investment firm, Ventureland Asia, which picked up a 40 per cent stake in kids apparel brand Masala Baby in January this year. 

Baaash is a digital ready content company that will create, execute and monitor everyday content for brands, and will cater to every communication need of brands from Branded content, Brand/ Product Stories, Experiential Engagements, AR, VR, Blogs to Content development for platforms, Usability Engineering, UX and Content delivery ecosystems, etc. 

Baaash Digital has an in-house ecosystem of everyday content creators. Film-makers, line producers, music composers, writers, information architects, creative technologists, editors, long & short format writers, UI/Ux designers, social-media and content strategists, ORM experts among others. Not to mention a host of content collaborators within India and overseas. 

Commenting on the launch announcement, Sajan Raj Kurup, Founder and Creative Chairman, Creativeland Asia and Founder, Baaash Digital, said, “At Creativeland, we have always challenged status quo and disrupted the market with our thinking. Right now, I truly believe there is a change required in the content ecosystem.” 

He further said, “Ten years ago, we created a new ecosystem that pushed the bar for brand communications and advertising content in this market. Now, we want to create a new ecosystem forevery day content that brands need. A decade ago, brands still relied purely on advertising content. Today, brands need to go beyond traditional advertising content to engage with consumers on a daily basis.”

“Traditionally, marketing teams run brand campaigns for about 60 to 90 days in a year, but the other 270-odd days brands need various forms of content from dynamic posts to digital films, AR/VR based experience designs, product films, Unboxing videos, web-series, web based assets and lots of these everyday needs. The traditional digital agency ecosystem is too fragmented to handle these requirements in an organised way. This requires a very different kind of an ecosystem. With Baaash, we will tap into this massive gap and create a new ecosystem that is designed to handle these everyday content for brands. With Baaash, we want to disrupt the traditional digital ecosystem. There has been a flurry of digital and social media shops after the advent of digital agency ecosystem. This eco-system today is fragmented with digital agencies, social media shops, various types of independent content creators, digital media outfits, ORM, social PR, etc. A lot of them who offer ad-hoc cheap social media management which is focussed on functional needs rather than pushing the brand’s creative potential to engage better with consumers,” Kurup added. 

He has groomed Tejas Ravindranath from within the Creativeland system to lead this venture with a team of 24 people to start with. The company will be backed by extended collaborations and 167 strong creative strength of Creativeland. Baaash will see interesting, unconventional people paired together. From brand strategists, writers, content producers, in-house editors, music composers, ORM specialists, usability experts, information architects, interaction designers to edit suites, hardware, software development and an in-house sound studio. Baaash is geared up to deliver on the simplest to the most complex needs on an everyday basis for brands and offers end to end content solution for brands. Including content conceptualisation, creation, execution and monitoring. 

“One of the key stakeholders and co-creators of this ecosystem are my client partners, who have over multiple formal and informal conversations expressed the need for such an ecosystem. While we will be using these learnings to further expand our market, the idea is not replicate but to customise our offering according to specific client needs,” said Kurup. 

Baaash Digital’s offering has been in a testing phase for the last few months, with the existing roster of clients who have integrated and digital mandates with Creativeland. This new ecosystem has already, among others, successfully delivered multiple VR content and digital films for Taj Group of Hotels. And every day digital content for Godrej on Cinthol, Aer and Protekt brands, respectively.