Lets talk about Yama

Your business is obviously successful and growing so what you are doing is working - I want to complement you current activities. The observation I have from viewing everything strategically is that the majority of your social media content is focused on middle of funnel activities in that it is nurturing folks who already have awareness by showcasing features and benefits. I am not sure what happens when someone enters the bottom of funnel sales process but I’ll assume you are doing an equally competent job there. The opportunity I see is that we need ways to expand the top of the funnel to generate more views and engagement. With top of funnel activities I would look to cast a wide net that catches the right persona. Marketing mystics and statistics agree that as long as the additional viewers are tangentially connected to the middle of funnel value we will have good opportunity for growth.  

In 2026, stunning visuals are no longer enough. The brands that I observe doing the best on Social Media seem to be the ones with the strongest concepts who are telling the best stories. I have done a little bit of brainstorming around the concepts/categories that I think are working and have come up with the following ideas: 

  • Setup in a familiar location with a similar visual identity (like the captain's chair facing aft with the windshield as the background of the shot). Have the personality portrayed either as an expert or as a student who is researching and sharing what they learn. Providing lists, comparisons, rankings etc. Examples include:

    • Best Hikes within 100kms of ____City,

    • Best scenic detours off the trans Canada highway,

    • Top 5 Ski Hill parking lots to overnight camp in,

    • Prettiest ferry rides on the west coast,

    • Top 5 highway drives in North America,

    • Best campgrounds in the Rocky Mountains, etc.

    • Overcoming the monster: "Yama vs. AI".  The premise: Nano banana thinks [_x_] would be a good image/video/location for marketing our vans and a stubborn IRL marketing team needs to find that sort of location, travel there and get content with a similar vibe

    • Voyage and Return: "Yama be back by 10am". The premise: Team members take a van out after the boss leaves, do a task (make breakfast, catch a fish, bike a trail) and make it back into the office before work the next day

    • The Quest: "Yama see the world". The premise: Team members quest to various North American locations to get a souvenir overcoming obstacles and distractions along the way. Trophy case at HQ

  • I enjoyed the cinematic video you posted on July 28. It didn’t get a lot of likes but it received enthusiasm in the comments; just because it didn’t reach exit velocity with views/engagement I wouldn’t stop exploring within this format. The post kind of reminded me of a viral post that North Face had on August 4th for its duffle bags. The North Face bag post had a stronger story/idea and I think it reminded a lot of people why they love the bag/brand so much. Your post on June 18th taps into a similar vibe and I think it was really strong conceptually - it could have been better cinematically but the story is great. As an idea for a similar type of video I would want to shoot a van tire with various types of shoes walking past it (wheel in various climates/terrain) for example, rock climbing shoe, hiking boot, bicycle shoe, ski boots, kid in skates with skate guards etc. 

  • A spectacle is something that really stands out in the feed. I would like to see an overnight timelapse with the van in the foreground and the milky way appearing and rotating past overhead. Can we park a van in Churchill Manitoba and get a polar bear sniffing it out? Can we go to starbase Texas and film the van with a rocket launch in the background?

  • As a standalone content category this one doesn’t feel as relevant to how Yama currently presents itself however perhaps it will make sense to explore once we have some momentum in top of funnel content creation. One idea would be to hide a remote controlled cricket chirp somewhere in a fully loaded van. Another idea would be to swap the labels on the soup cans packed for a trip so the only thing the marketing team has to eat is creamed corn. Could be as simple as a sign reading “its Pat’s birthday - give him a thumbs up when you drive past”.

Once we have selected a few things and delivered on them with enough consistency to have good data we keep iterating our approach. The data I would be looking at is the hook rate. After a few seconds, how many people are still watching? After that I would be looking at share rate: Instagram has said it is prioritizing posts with a high share rate and what Mark Zuckerberg wants Mark Zuckerberg shall get. 

My intuition is that we won’t have as much of our target market using TikTok today but who knows what the split will be a decade from now. It would probably make sense to share across platforms even if we don’t put in the direct effort of specifically re-tooling the content for each platform. The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago, the second best time is now.

Ultimately content has to support sales. When we launch new products and services we will need dozens of pieces of creative to get the job done. Teaser Content, Unveiling Content, Launch Content - this could require 30-50 individual assets alone. Being systematic and planning ahead so that we get the content in the field when out shooting our other work will be key.

If you are anything like me, you are probably wondering: “What is someone who hasn’t done a lot of posting on social media doing applying for a creative content manager job?” That’s a good question. I was rooting for Harry Potter over Voldemort. Rocky against Apollo Creed. Katniss vs the Capitol. The world loves an underdog, an “up-and-comer”, someone who could be the next big thing. Heinbecker = Harry Potter… in the first book anyway. Tune in to see where the series goes.