Kashyap Vadapalli, Chief Marketing Officer, Pepperfry talks about the latest round of funding the company has got, its brand campaign, 300% increase in marketing budget and promise to deliver ‘Happy Furniture’ to customers
By SALONI DUTTA
Q] What is the objective of the latest Pepperfry campaign? How does it aim to amplify the brand’s proposition of ‘Happy Furniture to you’?
We did some research and spoke to consumers as well as people who have considered shopping online but haven’t actually done it and one of the things that we found was that a lot of shoppers are wary of shopping online because they think it is too expensive, which in reality it is not. Once we got that structured feedback about this perception among offline shoppers, we decided to build a series of advertisements which in a subtle fashion talk about the fact that you can get a lot of value while shopping online. This is the storyline in a couple of commercials that are on air right now. A third film continues to break down barriers around shopping online for furniture, which is basically the easy returns message, that we have taken to the market in the past. We are reinforcing it in this campaign.
Q] Why did you feel the need for celebrities at this point in the brand’s journey and what have been the investments in the campaign?
The starting point for this was really the script, and the creative methodology that we used, where one of the actors has to speak on behalf of both the protagonists in the film. That requires a much higher level of acting and emoting capabilities. So we looked at actors and ended up with the cast that we currently have. This campaign is predominantly on Television, Outdoor and Digital. It is also supported a little bit by Print. The chunk of the campaign is on Television where one of the big differences from our earlier campaigns is that we have gone into both regional media and extensively into local languages. Earlier, we were English-focussed, and only on English language programming; now we are doing a lot of Hindi GECs as well as regional in the four Southern States. We have supported TV with a five city outdoor campaign, which is high impact and high visibility. Digital is a key medium for us and we are on YouTube and Facebook. In Print, we are focussed on publications about home and décor. There is at least a 300% growth in our marketing budget.
Q] What is the brand’s strategy to use Digital for its marketing and communications?
The role for Digital is really two-pronged, the fundamental role being performance marketing. When you look at the consumer’s journey from awareness to action, Digital plays an important role in the action segment. So whether it is search engine marketing, social media, using digital video like YouTube, those are places where you can influence a consumer’s action by being present at the time when they are taking the decisions and looking for information. The other media play a role higher up in the funnel. Digital is also where we track performance metrics or ROI closely, constantly optimizing on it.
Q] How does Pepperfry differentiate itself from other players in the category?
We want to be India’s absolute largest marketplace led furniture and home-shopping destination. So the way we build our supply, the number of merchants that are there on our platform is all very differentiated from the kind of players that are out there, offline or online. We have everything from a mass functional range going up to the mass premium and further up to the premium range. We deal with a wide range of designs, materials, price points and this approach of ours which is marketplace-led and to be the one-stop furniture destination for all consumers is not the approach that any of our competitors really have because none of them are delivering to this proposition.
Q] How are you planning to further leverage m-commerce? How does augmented reality help in your app?
Our app is about three months old and our mobile website has been around for more than a year. Today we see almost 40% of our traffic coming through mobile devices and so it is a very important channel. Given the nature of products that we are dealing with, all of the channels are important for Pepperfry and so we will continue to focus on our website along with building more features into our app. It is going to be two-pronged, and not an app-only kind of approach. Our app has a couple of features which are in the realm of augmented reality where people can use the camera feature on their phone and use it through the app to take snapshots of their own spaces, (living room or bedroom) and they could choose products from our catalogue and place it in that room and play around with it in terms of sizing it and orienting it to get an idea of how the particular item would look in their own environment. Another feature is the ability to place a particular item - a sofa, bed or dining table, etc - in their environment and change the background colours to see which of the pieces of furniture would suit their wall colours or accents that they might have. These features help consumers to be confident about the decision they are taking. We are looking at introducing additional features in the area of augmented reality, 3-D models etc. Our aim is to improve on the information that the consumer has and the consumer’s ability to take the best decision.
Q] With the recent round of funding, what is the brand’s strategy to jump the brand positioning in the consumer’s mind?
We will utilize the funds to build infrastructure – in terms of logistics, which includes our fulfilment centres, delivery capabilities, and assembly capabilities; and also technology capabilities such as building more skillsets around specific areas like visual design, 3D-modelling, etc. And as far as marketing goes, we will be using funds as and when needed.
Q] Can you tell us about the objective behind opening pop-up stores in partnership with HomeStop?
A lot of Indian consumers are ready to buy furniture online and we have seen that happen in the last three years. But there are many more people out there who require touch and feel to take that decision and we realize that the consumers are at different spectrums of evolution in terms of sophistication in the online medium. Towards that end, we have something called Pepperfry studios in some of our top cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Gurgaon, etc. The studios serve as places where consumers can come for reassurance and also get design inspiration by interacting with our designers. We will be expanding to 20 such studios over the next six months. The tie-up with HomeStop is really an extension of that.
Q] After-sales service is still an issue. What are your strategies to get that in line with the brand’s expansion plans?
One of the things that we strongly believe in is that we should get feedback very promptly and easily from consumers. On our website, there are several options like chat, email, telephone, writing to senior management – multiple ways in which the consumer can reach out to us. Apart from that, consumers do reach out to us through social media and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. A dedicated team monitors all these channels and we are very prompt in reaching out to customers and taking corrective action.
Q] What is the brand’s expansion plans in terms of products and geographies in the next six months? Also how do you plan to leverage the upcoming festive season?
Over the last one year, a lot of consumers have become comfortable with the idea of buying home products online and as we go into this festive season, we will see a lot more people making that shift from being offline buyers to online buyers. What we are looking at is a marketing campaign that helps us reach out to many more people and amplifying our core message around quality of service, delivery, assembly, and great value. Our marketing campaigns will be designed and executed to increase reach and we will also now move from Tier I to reaching out to Tier II and Tier III towns.
Product range expansion is an on-going process. We are constantly updating our catalogue and looking at which SPU has performed and which hasn’t. As we move into the festive season, the pace at which new designs and new brands come to the platform will pick up speed in the next two months.
ABOUT THE BRAND
Pepperfry.com opened for business on January 3, 2012 to give customers a wide selection of furniture and home merchandise with a consistently great shopping experience. Their managed online marketplace model is an ideal platform for small and medium businesses who wish to sell their merchandise to millions of discerning customers. It is vertically focused on the $32 billion furniture and home products market in India. The company operates in categories across furniture, home décor, furnishings, lamps and lighting, kitchen and dining, appliances, bath, housekeeping and pet supplies. The company’s key differentiators are built around the scale it has achieved in every aspect of the business. The website’s traffic of 4.5 milloi n monthly visits or 2.5 million unique monthly visitors is the largest in the category (Source: Comscore). Pepperfry reaches 300+ cities directly through its own network of 350 +delivery trucks and has more than a thousand merchantsw ho work with them on their marketplace. With more than two million registered users, the company has served more than a million customer orders.
CMO FILE
Kashyap Vadapalli plays a pivotal role as the Chief Marketing Officer at Pepperfry, leading the marketing function. He is responsible for marketing strategy, planning and implementation at Pepperfry, and has around 18 years of experience in Marketing and Brand Management. Prior to joining Pepperfry, he was the CMO at eBay India. Vadapalli is an MBA from IIM Calcutta and holds a BE in Electronics & Communication Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi. He started his career in Sales and Marketing with Cadbury and has also been associated with leading companies like Google and Tata Interactive Systems in the Marketing and Business Development functionality.
MARKETING TIP
For new people spending money, it’s better to go Digital as it offers very sharp targeting across all platforms especially with video (YouTube) and social (Facebook).
FACTS
CREATIVE AGENCY: L&K SAATCHI & SAATCHI
MEDIA AGENCY: MOTIVATOR
SOCIAL & DIGITAL MEDIA MARKETING AGENCY: IPROSPECT COMMUNICATE 2
PR AGENCY: 2020MSL
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