Blending tech & trends: Myntra’s marketing plan for year-end sale ft. Sunder Balasubramanian
Sunder Balasubramanian, Chief Marketing Officer, Myntra, provides insights into the platform's plans for its upcoming End-Of-Reason Sale (EORS-19), the Creator Fest and the integration of technology aimed at tailoring messaging towards shoppers.
During the festive season, E-commerce retailers were expected to garner sales worth INR 90,000 crore, 18-20% higher than last year, owing to approximately 140 million online shoppers, according to a report by Redseer Strategy Consultants. This trend, continuing well into the wedding and holiday season, has provided e-commerce giants like Myntra make the best out of the shopping experience.
Sunder Balasubramanian, Chief Marketing Officer at Myntra, provides insights into the platform's plans for its upcoming End-Of-Reason Sale (EORS-19) and the Creator Fest, stating that EORS-19 helps them build growth across different cohorts and attract new customers.
The company is poised to leverage consumer trends while aligning its marketing strategy to cater to the evolving demands of the market. Balasubramanian highlights three larger trends that are shaping their strategy.
He explained, "Wedding wear, across ethnic and western, gains traction during this time. We expect to see a pick-up of holiday wear and travel-related outfits. Lastly, party wear, especially among the Gen Z audience, sees a year-on-year growth."
Having observed a 35% growth year-on-year, Balasubramanian shares that the platform has over 6000 brands participating with over 2.3 million styles that are put together for consumers at large and early access for its insider cohort, following which, it's open to everybody from December 9, 2023.
Multi-channel approach to amplify the reach
Myntra's tailored approach to reaching its audience spans various platforms, with an emphasis on a 360-degree strategy.
Speaking about the year-end sale and media approach, Balasubramanian underlines, “We're looking to reach over 250 million people across TV, digital, social media creators and out of home. We also have an interesting playbook of leveraging Bollywood and cricket celebrities versus using the creator celebrities.”
The platform utilized the potential offered by celebrity couple Kiara Advani and Siddharth Malhotra for its festive marketing strategy. Advani is also seen promoting the EORS-19 in its latest advertisements.
Alongside her, Ranbir Kapoor, Shah Rukh Khan, Virat Kohli, Tamannaah Bhatia, and more have been the faces of the platform reaching different consumer cohorts. On the other hand, social media creators have been key to reaching the Gen Z cohorts who look for certain style inspirations across fashion and beauty.
The influencers are seen curating content related to wedding and travel fashion inspirations on social media platforms like Instagram, keeping consumer trends in mind.
Balasubramanian highlights maintaining top-of-mind awareness and consideration is a driving factor for the platform and the mediums utilised play a multifaceted approach.
“It's not about one medium over the other, it is about how you work all of them together and what role each of them plays, he emphasises and continues, “TV continues to play that role of talking about our brand and trend-first approach to fashion and beauty, while, digital advertising is in place across performance marketing, reach and frequency marketing to reach out to cohorts specifically with their interest areas.”
This is coupled with Myntra’s social commerce journey which began in 2021 with M-Live. With a Live content component, creators work in tandem to curate on-demand fashion content, where users can purchase social commerce has been a key focus area for the e-commerce platform.
The social commerce industry in India is expected to grow by 39.8% on an annual basis to reach US $5498.0 million in 2023, steadily over the forecast period, recording a CAGR of 23.8% during 2022-2028. Myntra, here, has been one of the first movers.
The creators and the influencer ecosystem become the gatekeepers of trends and mediums like out-of-home and print help bring out topicality and virality as and when needed, Balasubramanian elaborates.
When it comes to exploring new avenues and mediums that brands can look into, he mentions, “We are seeing evolutions in podcasts right now, and I think it should be interesting for brands to experiment and see what works for them in their category.”
Nurturing the creator ecosystem
With a creator-centric approach in mind, the platform has unveiled the second edition of the Creator Fest ahead of the EORS-19. The event has witnessed the debut of Myntra’s latest IP, Myntra Glammys, an award ceremony recognising sought-after creators for their fashion and content contributions.
With multiple themed fashion shows showcasing the upcoming trends in 2024 and experiential zones, coupled with Snapchat’s AR mirror, the fest aimed at boosting upcoming sales with the help of influencers as part of the strategy.
"This becomes a platform where all the creators, big and small, learn from each other. This is also a platform that brings brands and creators together. The third, more interesting aspect is the campus program from a Gen Z perspective.
“Through Myntra Campus Ambassadors, we are championing and enabling them to start their journeys as creators. That's the other place where they will learn about the same,” Balasubramanian divulges on the collaboration between Myntra and creators.
Tech integrations in marketing
When it comes to innovations and emerging technology like AI, Balasubramanian is of the opinion that it isn’t limited to marketing. Instead, the larger focus should be to enhance users' experience using the technologies.
Consumers buying fashion, beauty, and lifestyle online pose the questions and challenges of making their shopping journey easier, more immersive and customised to who they are as individuals.
For the same, Balasubramanian comments, “We have tools like the skin analyser from a beauty perspective, the virtual try-on from a fashion perspective, the fashion GPT, from a search and movement perspective, play out well for us, unlocking shopping journeys for users.”
He observes that users who interact with these tools experience better conversion rates. This insight helps in recognising the added value that these features provide to users, leading to increased shopping activity.
Taking the influencer game into the technological realm, the platform has also introduced its first-ever virtual influencer called Maya, introduced during EORS-18 to engage with Gen Z shoppers.
“Maya continues to take trends across the country from a social media perspective. While, we created Maya as a virtual influencer outside our app, and now we have Maya as an assistant on our app, where she comes in and answers real-time queries in your shopping process,” Balasubramanian remarks on the importance of having a virtual influencer.
Expanding beyond its core areas, Myntra has noted a 100% growth in its premium ethnic segment, while premium footwear grew by 70%, as per Balasubramanian.
“Gen Z demonstrated a 2x demand growth, and our Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) segment witnessed a 70% surge. Additionally, beauty products grew at 3x the market rate. Understanding these trends and their success among specific cohorts - Metro/non-Metro, Gen Z, male/female - we tailor our marketing strategy to fuel this growth. This customized marketing approach, with cohort-specific messages, is the key to driving growth," says the Myntra CMO sharing the platform’s upcoming plans.
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