Myntra.com: Back to the basics

It has been a while since online retail began to modify consumers' attitude towards shopping. Yet, after all this time, Myntra's latest commercial goes back to the basics to remind people about the convenience of e-commerce, making offline shopping its enemy.

Online retail has caught up fast in India, especially in smaller towns which do not have access to outlets of famous brands. This is reflected in the success stories of several e-commerce players. One of the leaders in the space, Myntra.com, has now extended its brand theme, 'Real Life Mein Aisa Hota Hai Kya', which highlights the convenience of online retail shopping. The brand's latest TV campaign, titled 'Ayega, Ghar Baithe Payega', communicates the benefits, convenience and ease of shopping online at Myntra.com.

The television commercial attempts to establish Myntra.com as the most convenient alternative to real world shopping for fashion related products. Demystifying the inbuilt inertia of shopping online, the ad provides a treatment to educate and captivate the audience on the perks of online shopping over offline.

The commercial, as is very common with all brands these days, was first launched on YouTube and Facebook before being aired across major TV channels starting November 30.

The ad showcases a mammoth parcel being carried across crowded streets by a large number of Myntra delivery boys. The parcel gets ferried across the river, over the bridge and through tiny lanes to reach its final destination. The parcel, upon arrival, unveils the numerous fashion apparel and accessory options that Myntra.com offers its customers, reiterating its position as the one-stop-shop for fashion. The catchy background score picks pace through the journey and conveys the advantages of shopping with Myntra.com in a simple, realistic manner.

Shot in Panjim, Goa, the film was directed by Nikhil Rao and produced by Jamic Films. The campaign was conceptualised by Agnello Dias of Taproot India.

Glaring Contrast?

Myntra has been promoting itself as an alternative to real-world shopping with its earlier campaigns featured in 2012 with the brand theme 'Real Life Mein Aisa Hota Hai Kya'. The new campaign, too, means to showcase the contrast between online and offline shopping and focus on the core benefits of e-commerce. It extends the brand theme, 'Real Life Mein Aisa Hota Hai Kya', established earlier by two TVCs.

Launched in 2012, both ads contained a direct message that promoted the benefits of online shopping within the story lines highlighting features such as 'no waiting queues as virtual service waits on you' and 'product trials in the comfort of your home'.

"The first ad was focused on bursting the myths related to online shopping while building trust. The second ad was to convey the wide variety of products available and the current ad is going back to the basics and conveys the convenience in a catchy sing song format. Our sole objective was to build trust for Myntra.com and create a clutter breaking and memorable ad while focusing on building awareness on the benefits of shopping online," says Vikas Ahuja, chief marketing officer, Myntra.

The current campaign will be live for four weeks. Along with television, the ad is being carried on 150 movie screens across 40 cities. Myntra is also running a voucher activation for movie goers in 12 Tier II cities.

Myntra launched its first brand campaign with a TVC in July, 2011. The commercial, titled 'A fashionable new age' was created by Happy Creative Services and aimed to juxtapose new age fashion with old world grit.

Myntra's second campaign, with the tagline 'Ramp It Up', was launched in October, 2011 with another TVC. The new ad scored high on the fashion quotient and the core message was to communicate the launch of the Autumn Winter 2011 collection on Myntra.com. In February 2012, Myntra also rolled out an OOH (out of home) campaign across Tier II cities, to build brand awareness and promote online shopping.

In June 2012, Myntra launched its third campaign which was created by Taproot India, emphasising the benefits of buying online, and was titled 'Real Life Mein Aisa Hota Hai Kya'. Myntra continued the theme in its next campaign in October, 2012 and extended it to showcase its wide catalogue and returns policy.

Topping the charts

With the establishment of the e-commerce industry, the greatest challenge for the company was to educate and captivate the audience on the positives the realm holds. Being a national brand with presence across 400 cities, a TV campaign was the best medium to reach and spread awareness among Myntra's audiences.

So how does the TVC help Myntra in beating the competition? Ahuja says that Myntra's product repertoire is its primary USP and that is what differentiates Myntra from competition. The TVCs intend to bring more shoppers online to Myntra.com and experience the products.

"Myntra.com is one among the few vertically focused e-commerce companies in the fashion and lifestyle space offering over 45,000 products from over 600 leading national and international brands. This coupled with exclusive brand offerings such as HRX by Hrithik Roshan, Being Human by Salman Khan, Stanley Kane and online exclusives such as CAT, Merrell, Supra and Steve Madden make Myntra the default shopping destination," he adds.

Moreover, in today's challenging e-commerce scenario, erosion of ARPU (average revenue per user) and increase of consumer acquisition costs are challenging the overall profitability of e-commerce players. However, Ahuja states that for Myntra, customer acquisition costs have always been lower than ARPU and have been steadily declining over the years, thereby boosting profitability.

Myntra currently claims to do an average of 12,000 to 14,000 transactions every day and the company targets to close the financial year with GMV of Rs 800 crore in revenue. Gross merchandise volume or GMV is a term used in online retailing to indicate a total sales value for merchandise sold through a particular marketplace over a certain time frame.

Founded in 2007, Myntra is an online portal in the fashion and lifestyle space and ranked among the top three e-commerce companies in India. In October 2007, Myntra received a seed funding from Accel Partners (formerly Erasmic Venture Fund), Sasha Mirchandani from Mumbai Angels and another angel investor. In November 2008, Myntra raised funding of $5 million from NEA-IndoUS Ventures, IDG Ventures and Accel Partners. In the second round of funding led by Tiger Global and participated by existing investors IDG Ventures and Indo-US Venture Partners, Myntra raised $14 million. Towards the end of 2011, Myntra.com raised $20 million in its third round of funding led by Tiger Global.

In April 2013, Myntra started looking for a new creative partner, but has apparently retained Taproot.