Clutched is a digital media company specializing in the automotive industry. Founded and based in Singapore, the company caters generally towards car-lovers and enthusiasts. The company describes itself as “a car review show” with focus on digital media in order to provide information to “help viewers make the best informed automotive decisions”.
Contents
Values and Vision
Clutched content follows a niche “For Passionate Car Enthusiasts, By Passionate Car Enthusiasts” type motto. Its work centres around four core values: Legitimacy, Unbiasedness, Relevancy, and Usefulness. Articles and reviews take on an interactive and relevant approach through the use of local and satirical humour.
History
Founded by Jackie Prabhu, Clutched first started out as a YouTube Channel hosted by Jackie. The YouTube Channel, named “Clutched with Jackie”, focused on offering real-world unbiased reviews on cars.
Jackie Prabhu, a Singaporean car enthusiast, recognised the problem most of his peers and friends were facing; most Singaporeans are unable to make well-informed decisions in regards to their purchase of cars due to a lack of unbiased sources in the Singaporean community. Most information coming from salesmen and dealerships were unreliable with an intention to sell. Jackie decided to start “Clutched with Jackie”, leveraging on YouTube’s digital media platform to share his passion and knowledge with the wider audience.
Since its reception, the “Clutched with Jackie” YouTube channel has since evolved into a company that provides customized content generation for clients. In addition to the initial standalone car video reviews, news and events coverage are a few examples of activities the company is now engaging in, attending press conferences, product and car launches from dealerships and media companies. In October 2015, Clutched rebranded itself with a new logo along with a modern, fully functional website, new categories such as product and event reviews added into their video offerings, articles providing updated automotive news, directory listings and a participatory forum. Despite its growth, reviews the company has done still remain real, with a more accessible and local Singaporean twist. The Clutched audiences had since expanded to include a wider range of viewership to include both car enthusiasts and the general public.
Content
Clutched publishes daily content in the form of articles, videos, and features. Since its website launch in January 2016, Clutched has published nostalgic content, car reviews, guides, car hacks, think-pieces, news, and humorous entertainment articles. Popular formats utilized in their articles include lists, videos, memes and gifs. Usage of local slangs and laymen terms are common in the company’s published pieces such as “buy, don’t buy or I don’t know”. It’s YouTube channel of the same name, is currently in its fourth season.
Car Reviews-Cars are selected to be reviewed based on audience and dealership requests, submitted through their official Facebook channel and Forum.
Product Reviews- Automobile-related products are reviewed and demonstrated.
Merchant Reviews-Features on automobile offerings such as special interviews with like-minded enthusiasts, automotive connoisseurs, and features on car clubs and local businesses.
Variety- Article and video releases tongue-in-cheek views on anything surrounding the automobile landscape in Singapore, from social experiments to advice on road etiquette and current affairs.
Event Coverages- the company covers local and overseas motorshows, car meets, press conferences and product launches.
Technology & Social Media
At present, Clutched runs a website, forum, article column, YouTube channel (Clutched and Clutched Culture), Instagram account, Twitter feed, and Facebook page. The company mostly engages in content strategy to obtain traffic and service clients. Daily evaluation of effectiveness of content: page views, link clicks and content reach, are measured through SEO tools.
Cars
Cars reviewed so far include: