Nykaa mailers zoom in on skincare, healthcare and fitness during WFH

During lockdown, these mailers have steered away from brands, focussing on topics, like nutrition, WFH skincare, self-care and mental health.

With the Coronavirus pandemic and the resultant lockdown, work from home (WFH) has become a way of life for some. There is no proven cure for the disease, or a vaccine to stop its spread. So, many companies continue to work from home until then.

Work from home offers flexibilities, such as working in your pyjamas, without any makeup. The only exception to the luxury this flexibility offers is when there is a video conference, and one needs to look presentable on camera. This has been the subject of the last few mailers sent out by Nykaa, a cosmetics and personal care-led e-commerce platform.Using the (hashtag) #GroomFromYourRoom, Nykaa has been sending out mailers that cover various aspects of grooming that normally required stepping out of the house to visit a salon. This includes hair colouring, waxing, and facials and skincare treatments.

The mailers focus on self-care, with an underlying theme of self-love. They contain prompts that take users to different parts of Nykaa (website) to buy the products they need to complete the grooming procedures.

Using the (hashtag) #GroomFromYourRoom, Nykaa has been sending out mailers that cover various aspects of grooming that normally required stepping out of the house to visit a salon. This includes hair colouring, waxing, and facials and skincare treatments.

The mailers also contain broader safety messages, such as to stay home and practice social distancing. They offer self-care tips, including anti-anxiety meditation tips, nutrition-based content to boost immunity, and things to do at home. It’s a mandatory section in every mailer that the company has been sending out, ever since lockdown began.

Some mailers do not talk about the products that can be purchased from the app – choosing, instead, to give wellness tips, and focus on the bigger picture. The mailers seem to contain a message of solidarity - reminding viewers that they are part of a bigger community and, even in isolation, we're in this together.

In early April, when the government restricted e-commerce platforms from delivering goods, the mailers chose to focus on content. It served as a distraction to viewers – giving them relatable content to read and consume when they could not shop for products from the platform.

By the end of April, e-commerce platforms had resumed delivery. And, to mix things up, some mailers, like the one below, focused on the ingredients in products that can be used to keep one’s skin healthy.

Some mailers also focused on COVID-related content in a way to ply readers with information that is specifically related to the things we go through while doing things, like washing hands and cleaning our homes.

Most mailers did not focus on a specific brand, but rather on skincare and makeup concerns. This includes working from home, looking good on video calls with the right makeup, and so on.

However, a mailer sent out in early May focused exclusively on the different products that brand Nykaa itself has to offer. This included handwashes (a product heavily in demand since the pandemic began) and shower gels, masks and hand creams, and hair oil and lip balm, too. Most mailers focus more on skincare, than they do on makeup, to improve the quality of skin from within, instead of making a superficial tweak in a person’s appearance with makeup.