PR and stakeholder engagement agency Yasper, and You Platforms (the group behind Leeds List, Yorkshire List and Manchester List) have announced a strategic partnership aimed at helping organisations to better connect with and understand their audiences.
The two businesses have already been working together on several initiatives which draw on insights gathered from You Platform’s extensive reach, and Yasper’s approach to insight-led communications.
To celebrate the partnership, the two businesses have launched a first-of-its-kind City Index for Leeds, which will regularly take the temperature of residents about a range of issues, such as transport and housing to optimism levels and intention to switch jobs.
The new City Index will be the first time that a regular survey of individuals from the city will be collated and tracked publicly, initially being carried out on a twice-yearly basis.
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Dan Murray, founder of You Platforms said: “We have an extensive reach within the regions we cover and the information that we gather can be invaluable in terms of tracking how people feel about a variety of topics. We can measure over-time the feelings of residents and within that, there’s an obvious value to a range of organisations, from businesses to local government.
“We’ve become known and loved for our approach to content creation, forgoing pop-up ads and clickbait content in exchange for creating a more genuine connection to our audiences. This trust we’ve built over many years will help us to deliver some brilliant insights that will help our home city become even better.”
In addition to the City Index, Yasper and You Platforms’ partnership will focus on driving commercial relationships with the public and private sector. As engagement with consumers becomes more important on a range of issues – whether that be consulting on proposed new buildings or understanding sentiment towards transport –ensuring opinions from a wide range of individuals are taken into account is becoming vital.
Julian Pearce, founder of Yasper said: “Yasper and You Platforms share a real alignment of our values and approach, so launching this new proposition is an exciting step, both for us and our respective clients. Combining our areas of expertise will allow organisations to get a better feel for how their project or initiative is viewed and complement existing engagement strategies.”
Yasper and You Platforms have already collaborated extensively over recent months, with the most recent project being the co-creation of an insight report on aviation, and working together with shared clients in the transport space.