‘More than being a commerce platform, D2C is a good way of building brand narrative’

The inaugural edition of e4m D2C Revolution: Summit & Awards 2022 brought some of India's D2C brands and their top management together to share insights on their game-changing success stories, trends and more. The theme of the summit was ‘Marketing of D2C Brands & Expanding the D2C universe’.

The first panel discussion of the summit was on the topic ‘Decoding The Speeding Trends of D2C’. The panelists comprised Yogesh Kabra, Founder, XXYX Apparels; Kabir Siddiq, Founder and CEO, SleepyCat; Vinit Garg, Founder and CEO, Mylo; Pallavi Barman, CMO, HRX; Abhishek Ramanathan, COO, Nua; Abhik Santara, Director and CEO, Atom Network and Vinodh Ramakannan, Founder and CEO, Spinta Digital. The session was moderated by Yash Jain, Co-founder & CEO, Nimbus.

Kickstarting the session, Kabra said, “More than a commerce platform, D2C is a very good way of building the brand narrative. If everyone is spending time digitally, the brand building will also happen digitally. As part of building a brand, D2C or the digital ecosystem is where we get the conversation going with the consumers.”

“Certain brands simply like to be in marketplaces because the kind of checkout process they give and the kind of the comfort level the customers have on the platform are definitely an important thing,” Ramakannan added. 

Talking about the impact of celebrities getting into a D2C brand and what are the benefits one sees in celebrity endorsements, Barman stated, “Imagine in a D2C setup, you are generating your own traffic because you are not leaning on marketplaces. How would you generate that traffic? You spend lots of money for discovery and then enhance that by putting money for performance marketing. But the moment you get a celebrity onboard, it provides a springboard wherein you immediately start seeing certain efficiencies in your metrics which means your click through rates improve. The conversions improve, thereby giving certain efficiencies in the metrics when we are spending money and seeing better ROI. Hence for D2C business, the investment of celebrity is becoming an acceptable norm.”

Sanatra deliberated, “I think the question is not about whether celebrity is required for D2C brands or not. I think we have been facing this question forever-why do brands really need celebrity endorsements? Of course it makes a lot more relevance for D2C brands, but the classical advantages of using a celebrity for a brand are that they give you easier cut-through and instant awareness for the brand. The same principles apply to D2C, with a lot more added benefits. One of the important tasks for the D2C brands is to get the initial customer base right, and getting a relevant identifiable and aspirational face to the brand helps to get the initial traction going to the brands.” 

“There are two things that we look at. One is the objective- that is, what are you trying to get out of celebrity engagement or endorsement or what you really want to do as a brand and the second thing is about timing. On the first one, it is really about whether it is about your brand or performance marketing. If you are going to use a celebrity for performance marketing, then it is really no point. There are other influencers who can do it. From a measurement perspective, you have to look at ROI. As a brand, you have to be clear on what stage the celebrity is in because you need to invest capital not just on celebrity but also in terms of running a campaign for a period of time,” Ramanathan added.

Siddiq elucidated, “Distribution is becoming very important at the moment because it’s a norm that D2C brands are getting celebrities. When the push factor comes into play, the most important aspect is distribution. How can one distribute the videos and anything they have created in a form of content so that they can maximise their views. Therefore, distribution is the most important aspect and that is what you need to plan and think about now when you are getting a celebrity onboard.”

Speaking about funding and its metrics in D2C, Garg said, “We started as more of a community tech platform and we onboarded investors who were keen on helping us build our product and that was where our journey was. I think that there is a tendency to think that entrepreneurs are all different but the investors are the same. In my view, the investors are also different. You could find investors who want to play in the long run and are okay with a slow approach or you could find some who want very fast growth and that is their thesis. So, as an entrepreneur, it is your job to understand and do the right requirement for yourself. You must know who you are and what kind of product you want to build.”