Detch Singh, CEO of Hypetap, unpacks the origins of the company’s “intelligent influence” approach, which combines rigorous data with human creativity to deliver measurable results. He shares lessons from standout e-commerce work, why self-regulation matters, how brands should integrate creators across the full media mix, and what trends will shape the UK’s fast-maturing influencer market.
What inspired you to found Hypetap, and how did you develop the “intelligent influence” mantra at its core?
The original inspiration for Hypetap came from noticing my partner at the time, who had a popular social media account, receiving quite a few products and invitations from brands that often didn’t align with her authentic interests or content style. I saw the inefficiency quite quickly. Brands were sending products to influencers without a clear way to ensure a good fit and they weren’t measuring anything. It was all an earned media approach back then and we made the bet that this would be a paid medium.
Once we actually got started, we realised the agencies or businesses that were serving this space were very transactional and tactical. We set out to bring the rigour, data, and strategic intelligence to an industry that was regarded as the ‘wild west’ in 2013. The “intelligent influencer” mantra really stems from that purpose.
How does your proprietary technology balance data-driven insights with human-powered authenticity in influencer campaigns?
This is such an important distinction. We always like to say that we are tech-enabled but human powered as a business. Hypetap’s proprietary technology acts as a powerful accelerator and precision tool, giving the human teams unparalleled insights for influencer selection, audience understanding, and performance tracking.
This frees up the human experts to focus on what they do best, like building genuine relationships, fostering creativity, providing strategic guidance, and ensuring the authenticity that ultimately drives consumer trust and measurable brand success. It’s about combining the efficiency and accuracy of machines with the creativity, cultural awareness and empathy of people.
You launched an e-commerce campaign with UNIQLO which achieved a ROAS of $34 for every dollar spent, which is impressive. What key strategies drove that performance?
We were really proud of this one because we were solving a real business challenge for a client. At the time, we found that they were getting a lot of drop-offs on their e-commerce site. Consumers were finding it hard to find the products they were looking for, and abandoned pretty quickly out of frustration.
We came up with “Shop my edit”, a creator-led campaign. Influencers curated outfits from UNIQLO products on social media that would lead directly to a Hypetap created microsite for each creator. From that microsite, anyone could look through multiple UNIQLO outfits and add the entire outfit (or specific products) straight to cart on the site and buy. Doing this gave people the right inspiration to buy, but also a frictionless experience to cart to minimise drop off. It resulted in a huge ROI for the campaign which we could measure all the way to product sales.
As Deputy Chair of AiMCO, you launched the world’s first influencer marketing code of practice. Why was industry self-regulation so important?
Industry self-regulation is incredibly important to the long-term health, credibility, and growth of influencer marketing.
Firstly and most importantly, it builds and maintains consumer trust. Our industry’s currency is authenticity. Without clear guidelines on disclosure and ethical practices, consumers tend to feel misled, eroding the very trust that makes influencer marketing effective.
When you’re a nascent industry with significant traction, it’s likely that the government will look to regulate the category. This is a good thing. But self-regulating before this helps shape rules that are practical, nuanced and reflect the unique dynamics of your space.
Finally, it drives professionalisation and investment. Clear standards for measurement, transparency, and accountability provide CMOs with the confidence needed to allocate significant budgets. It elevates influencer marketing from an experimental tactic to a strategic, measurable, and essential component of the marketing mix.
Influencer marketing is now a core part of the marketing mix. How are you helping brands integrate it strategically alongside other channels?
The main advice we give our clients is to look at influencer marketing as a category rather than a channel. This allows them to get the most value out of creators and look at the big picture to put together a social-first campaign that extends to other media with creators at the centerpiece.
This could mean that the campaign starts out on social media, but we also secure the usage rights to push that campaign out on paid media, including social but also other channels like out-of-home, TV and others.
After raising capital to expand into the UK, what parallels and differences have you found between the Australian and UK markets at five times the scale?
We didn’t raise any capital for the expansion. We’ve done it in a measured way from our own balance sheet which has been nice.
The biggest difference between the two markets is the scale you refer to. It really impacts the size of the opportunity for our business. We have the who’s who of clients in Australia, from the likes of Woolworths, Colgate Palmolive, Kraft Heinz, Chobani and Asahi to government and tourism bodies. The same or similar clients here have significantly more scale.
Other differences are minor and cultural, so we’ve been able to hit the ground running since coming here.
How does your Intelligence marketing platform use over 10 billion data points to guide campaign planning and measure effectiveness?
Hypetap Intelligence offers businesses a deep understanding of consumer trends and behaviours in relation to a brand. This division of Hypetap provides category-leading market intelligence in influencer marketing, deep campaign insights, and a competitive advantage for brands.
The offering consists of two main components: intelligence and insights.
The intelligence component offers competitive analysis, including influencer share of voice and estimated budgets of your peer set. This lets you understand whether you are over or underinvested during key trading periods.
The insights component focuses on campaign effectiveness, offering sentiment analysis, brand lift studies, and benchmarking tools. Our analysis goes much deeper than just determining if the sentiment was positive, negative, or neutral. We analyse what audiences are saying. Is there an intent to purchase? Was there brand discovery as a result of this? How much commentary was about the brand and the product? Were audiences asking specific questions that can help inform comms strategy?
Looking ahead, what trends in market maturity and consolidation do you predict for the influencer industry over the next few years?
- Influencer marketing as a core ecosystem and content engine, not a channel:
This is perhaps the most significant shift. Influencer marketing will cease to be seen solely as a social media channel. Instead, creators will be leveraged as strategic content production partners whose authentic, high-performing assets can be deployed across the entire media ecosystem – think, programmatic, TV, out-of-home, digital display, and email. The focus will be on the content’s versatility and how it fuels full-funnel objectives. Influencer usage fees will become a more significant part of the budget.
- Focus on measurable ROI and effectiveness:
The punting days are over. Measurement has caught up with, and in many cases, surpassed traditional media. Brands will increasingly demand and receive sophisticated, unified measurement strategies that go beyond the vanity metrics. We’ll see greater emphasis on brand lift, sentiment analysis, direct sales attribution, and true business outcomes rather than just reach or engagement. AI will play a critical role in providing these deeper, actionable insights.
- The true blend of data-driven precision and human creativity:
The industry will lean heavily into AI and advanced analytics for influencer discovery, vetting, and campaign optimisation. AI will automate tedious tasks, help identify ideal creator-brand matches based on deep audience demographics and content analysis, and flag brand safety concerns. However, it will remain a support tool, enhancing human strategists and allowing them to focus on creative strategy, relationship building, and the crucial qualitative aspects that drive authentic connections.
- Authenticity, trust, and compliance will remain paramount:
As the market grows, so does consumer skepticism. Transparency and authenticity will be non-negotiable. Self-regulation will continue to be vital in setting industry standards and ensuring clear disclosure. Brands will prioritise long-term, genuine partnerships with creators who truly align with their values, as this builds invaluable consumer trust and loyalty.
- More creators evolving into brands and entrepreneurs:
More and more, successful creators will become formidable brands in their own right, launching their own product lines or ventures. This diversification of income streams (beyond just brand partnerships) will give creators more control and will also mean traditional brands may increasingly compete with creator-led businesses.
