E-commerce has opened up new markets for the brand: TS Kalyanaraman, Kalyan Jewellers

Irrespective of the market scenario, jewellery brand major Kalyan Jewellers has decided to be aggressive throughout this most important quarter of the year with marketing and advertising.

TS Kalyanaraman, Chairman and Managing Director, Kalyan Jewellers, tells exchange4media that they plan to go on with a full-fledged Diwali campaign featuring the newly appointed regional brand ambassadors alongside their global ambassadors Katrina Kaif and Amitabh Bachchan. Their marketing and advertising budget continues to be at 2 per cent of their revenues.

Kalyan Jewellers is rapidly strengthening its digital presence. How has the response been and how has the presence in digital helped the growth of the brand?

Digital disruption as well as the overhaul of the financial ecosystem has brought about a new kind of audience in India. Consumers are looking for service-backed jewellery brands and ecommerce has opened up new markets for the brand. While we are seeing continued customer engagement on big ticket purchases with our mother brand Kalyan Jewellers, we have also noticed that smaller token purchases have moved online. This is leading to a new category creation in the space of jewellery. Throughout the year and especially when it comes to festivals or special days, our ecommerce entity candere.com witnessed a surge in gifting orders, and this is a trend we predict will continue through Diwali and New Year.

Buying gold is not like buying clothes or electronics online. Are Indians open to the idea of buying jewellery online? Is there a ticket price cap that people are comfortable with when buying jewellery online or are their customers that do big ticket buys online too? Help us understand the trend?

In India, where customers usually like to buy jewellery on the basis of the look and feel, we naturally see the highest contribution of sales through the brick and mortar model. That said, we are seeing a trend, where small token purchases and gifting are moving online. Earlier the concept of gifting jewellery online didn’t exist, but it is today a practice with urban audiences preferring to use our website for gifting purposes — creating a whole new category and segment. Our ecommerce offering taps into this newer, young audiences. With a catalogue of more than 6000 products and multiple features, Candere has come much closer to their dream of making online shopping the inevitable future for buyers. In the past year, our online revenue has grown, and now close to 3 per cent of our total revenues come from candere.com.

What are you doing to market your brand at a time when the market sentiment and buying pattern both do not look positive? What is your marketing budget for the fiscal? Has it gone up when compared to the last fiscal? 

Usually, our marketing and advertising budget constitutes 2 per cent of our total revenues. We have always been aggressive in our marketing approach by using multiple channels to drive the brand’s message towards our target audience. Irrespective of the market scenarios, we have decided to be aggressive throughout this most important quarter of the year and go in with a full-fledged Diwali campaign featuring the newly appointed regional brand ambassadors alongside our global ambassadors Katrina Kaif and Amitabh Bachchan. 

You have recently signed a lot of local stars to endorse your brand. How has it helped your brand?

In 2018, we roped in Katrina as the global brand ambassador of the brand. She continues to hold a mass appeal among the tech-savvy audience. The actress is very active across social media platforms and has fans and followers from around the globe, which is proving to be a big plus for us. Similarly, this year we have gone one step ahead to woo the millennial audience by signing up four regional brand ambassadors Kinjal Rapriya (Gujarat), Pooja Sawant (Maharashtra), Wamiqa Gabbi (Punjab) and Ritabhari Chakraborty (West Bengal). These actresses are seen as style icons by the millennial audience and we have campaigns planned with them to penetrate the market with a region-specific hyper local approach. These celebrities will be part of multiple customer-centric initiatives and on-ground engagements in their respective states. 

Tell us about the new campaigns are ready to hit the market.

The festive third quarter is usually the most important crucial for any business in India. We have kick started our campaigns for the season with the 4-Level Assurance Plan which is a special initiative by Kalyan Jewellers to continue enhancing the brand’s commitment towards increasing transparency offering the very best to its patrons and customers. The North India ad campaign features the peerless Amitabh Bachchan who is a symbol of excellence alongside his daughter Shweta Bachchan Nanda.

In the South, our Southern Brand Ambassadors and iconic superstars Nagarjuna (Andhra Pradesh & Telangana), Prabhu (Tamil Nadu), Shivraj Kumar (Karnataka) and Manju Warrier (Kerala) drive the message in their respective states.

We have our Diwali campaign coming up which will be amplified across platforms in the upcoming month and throughout the festive season. This campaign will feature our newly appointed regional brand ambassadors alongside Katrina Kaif and Amitabh Bachchan.

Tell us about your expectations from festive sales. How was the business last year and what is your overall sales target for this year?

The rise in gold prices has had an impact on consumer sentiments and gold buying trends. But we believe that these sentiments are short-term and we are expecting the demand to pick up soon.

Currently, the response received by us is at par with the previous year considering the wedding related big-ticket purchases. We believe the recent announcements made by the government are in line with this and will increase the liquidity and also boost the overall sentiment in the market. We are expecting an increase in the footfalls in the near future wherein consumers buying lightweight jewellery on occasions like Dussehra, Diwali and Dhanteras will drive the sales. Overall, we are looking at a projected revenue of Rs 11,500 cr (approx) for FY – 2019-2020.