‘If We Didn’t Grow With Millennials, We’re Dead’

How were your sales during the pandemic?

During last year’s nationwide lockdown, when only essential items were being allowed to be sold, headphones were not classified as essential. In the second wave, e-commerce was allowed. But the supply chain was a bit troublesome as everything was in the grip of Covid globally, and there was also the issue of chipset manufacturing globally. Therefore, there were more supply chain constraints than demand-side constraints.

What are your lessons from the pandemic? Are you still sourcing from China?

We have started holding more inventory because no one knows when the supply chain might get disrupted. At the same time, we have started to expand production to other countries. We went to Vietnam for our production. We also started buying from India. In fact, we have already done one million units outside India. We are expanding in India. Furthermore, we are moving away from being dependent on one country in terms of supply chain management.

You use young celebrities like Masaba Gupta, Taapsee Pannu and Diljit Dosanjh. Does it create consumer connect?

It’s a strategy we adopted a few years back – which has a multi-celebrity, multi-platform and multi-distribution model. Our marketing campaigns never go overboard. Instead, we see what’s working, and if something works, we double down on it. Our growth over the years has also been driven by consumer acceptance. In fact, a lot of brands are copying what we are doing now.

I always say that whenever I start spending, the chartered accountant in me raises the question of ROI (return on investment) with the marketer. ROI is very important; We are making profit from day one. We don’t like burning money. We like to earn money.

Any interesting brand tie-ups you can talk about?

Currently the singer is with AP Dhillon. He is a global sensation in Punjabi music. This was the first time he was touring India, and we brought him here with BookMyShow.com.

As a youth-centric, millennial-focused brand, we know the stars keep changing for young people, and that is why they love Dhillon. I was surprised to learn that all his shows were sold out, even in Hyderabad and Goa. I’ve never seen such a great response on our Instagram and Twitter pages when we ran contests around those who did well. Earlier, we did another campaign which was ‘What floats your boat’ with actors Kartik Aaryan and Kiara Advani around the second phase of IPL in 2021.

Do you also include influencers online?

Influencers are very important today. So, if you don’t work with influencers, you should discontinue your brand and just do something else. They are important to brands like us. Celebrities are influential too—they’re just macro-influencers. So, all these people come under influencer marketing. Few non-celebrity influencers have better traction than the celebrities themselves. So, I don’t know whether a celebrity should be called an influencer or an influential person a celebrity.

Do Direct-to-Consumer Brands Have a Story to Tell?

Absolutely, without a purpose, without a story, a brand is just a commodity. We are working in an industry where there are more than 200 brands. Every day, an old brand dies, and a new brand comes along. So, unless there is a story and a compelling story, why would people pay a premium for us over other brands?

Our story resonates very closely with the consumers we are working with. We speak to consumers in a language they understand. We are where they are.

Whether they’re shopping on Instagram or on Facebook, we’re there. If they are on Nykaa, then we are there. We keep bringing new talent to the marketing team, which keeps guiding us to grow. Millennials are very impatient, and if we don’t grow up with them, we’re dead.