In a first, Flipkart-owned fashion platform Myntra has launched a reality show, Fashion Superstar, a digital fashion influencer talent hunt which will go live on its app as well as Zoom TV from 17 September. Judged by Bollywood actor Sonakshi Sinha and celebrity stylist Shaleena Nathani, the show is the first of many features that Myntra will be releasing over the next few months as it transitions from a catalogue-heavy browsing experience to a content-heavy online experience, the company said.
In an interview, Amar Nagaram, head, Myntra-Jabong, talked about the move toward content-driven marketing, influencer engagement and why video content is the biggest driving force in online fashion. Edited excerpts:
Why have you decided to take the influencer-driven content route to promote your platform?
Fashion buying and marketing is heavily driven by influencers today both from transaction and marketing perspective. Influencers are more relatable and their content does not come across as promotional which creates a much deeper impact on consumers. The proliferation of internet has led to high content consumption especially in the form of videos. Myntra aims to reach upwards of 100 million users through the Fashion Superstar show. Through content-driven activities we are looking to double the engagement and time spent on the app over the next three to four years.
How do you plan to leverage the video content?
The next set of fashion consumers who are coming online are millennials. They are heavy consumers of video content whose attention is not more than 30 seconds, and they are heavily influenced by celebrities and digital influencers. Therefore, engaging video content has become extremely crucial for us.
We are constantly working on making our product catalogue video-heavy and this has helped in increasing the engagement on the app. Myntra is one of the most engaged apps in the country, just behind social media apps such as WhatsApp or Instagram. Currently, users spend 22 minutes on an average on our app.
Secondly, we want to bring social influencing to our platform. Today, influencers have become this strong network of individuals who are creating engaging content in the fashion space just as a hobby or their passion. We are aiming to bring them on Myntra, where the distance to redemption from influencing to the point of taking an action (sale) is much lesser than any other platform. In this process, we are trying to integrate the influencer ecosystem to the fashion space in the country.
How are you going to use regional content to influence consumers?
Videos or visuals are a universal language which we are banking on. Video should do the magic of translating the catalogue to the regional users. Having said that, the content we would be producing in future through influencer network, experts or celebrities would be in local languages as we penetrate deeper in the country.
For instance, we did a very small pilot with the H&M launch on Myntra where influencers did unboxing videos in Hindi. We plan to create more such content across languages.
Which media platforms are you using?
We are leveraging all the digital platforms including short videos platform TikTok which has a maximum reach in tier-II and tier-III towns. We did a user-generated content-led campaign around our EORS (end of reason sale) on TikTok where users posted 30-second videos in which they would dance on ‘Myntra La La’ tune created specifically to promote the sale. We are engaging users on all digital platforms today. Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are equally important for us.
What is the average ticket size at Myntra?
The average size is around ₹2,000. We are the leaders in the apparel category and our sports footwear tends to do really well.
What is your biggest challenge today?
There are still apprehensions among a set of users to buy fashion online. Therefore, we have invested in technology and initiatives such as Try and Buy to bring online experience as close to offline. The second challenge is to anticipate the demand right. We are the largest fashion e-commerce player in the country which means we are sitting on a lot of fashion consumption data, which is used to predict what India will wear next year. This data helps address the biggest issue that the fashion industry (online and offline) faces, that of excess inventory. We can better manage the demand and supply gap. We are using the consumer data to predict which colour, style or pattern will be trending we are transferring this intelligence to brands and stocking up selected products as per the expected demand.
