What Smita Murarka teaches about brand purpose

We really positioned around what the woman wants and we talked to her from a more of a confidence play and our tagline is dare to be. Marketing a lingerie brand comes with its own set of challenges. What has been your experience? It's a very interesting category as a marketer, obviously as a woman very close to my heart so it's easier to understand the consumer. Of course it comes with its own challenges in all forms. So right from a consumer who's not evolved enough to really understand, you know, even 80% of the women wear the wrong fit.

So as basic as that, it needs a lot of education. So consumer evolution is something that we really work on. From a communication point of view, there's a lot of restrictions on the kind of imagery we can put at a large scale level. So there's really no rules that say it but then everybody has their own interpretation. So for example, couple of malls allow us to put it and couple of malls don't. So there are these self society driven restrictions around the category. However, having said that, it's a category which has the highest growth today.

So it's something that a lot of brands are coming to understand that this is where the future of women consumption is. And we are glad to be at the forefront of it. So again, marketing is very critical here. So how should a brand talk to females without stereotyping them in the communication? How do you go about it? So when I came into this brand five years back, there were clearly two distinctive parameters of communication that brands had adopted. One was at the extreme of comfort, which is very basic and value driven.

And the other was around sexuality. So a lot of brands played around sexuality, which was talking to the man and from his point of view. Luckily, we understood that pretty early on. And our products or our marketing communication don't really talk to them. We are very introverted, more from a woman's point of view brand. So we really positioned around what the woman wants and we talked to her from a more of a confidence play. And our tagline is dare to be, which is really befriending her and talking to her to be the next level of herself.

Today, we are putting content at the forefront of a lot of our communication, really understanding where she is, what she is consuming and talking to her accordingly. So not having one single play of communication. Also not talking to the woman as somebody who is propagating. So we are not a brand that propagates. We are really talking to her as a friend, as a soul sister and engaging with her in that space, which is again very intimate.

So all talks of women empowerment and, you know, we are going to change your world and all those things are also becoming redundant. Something that was happening five years back. So luckily we are already in the space that we are choosing. But you are not associating with them. Because it's not the conversation that the woman wants to do today. You know, so when we launched our tagline was love yourself because that this was in 2007. At that point, even being a working woman is a big revolution.

And the woman was not confident and loving herself was a big deal to say. So we did connect with her at that point. Right. Though you are an offline first brand, but what has been your experience with digital? I think digital has been amazing even for our category, more so for our category because this category in India was dominated by a lot of multi brand outlets.

So while that still continue to stay and that's a very important part of our business, the consumer there was compromised for choice for experience and for really putting her voice of what she wants really understanding and going beyond what she was used to buying. So digital has given her a whole new experience to read a lot of information, really understand the product, take it, experience it, maybe return it. Also, it has given us as brands a lot of distribution strength. So there were a lot of pockets which we couldn't reach.

Today we are able to reach all those pin codes, all those pockets very easily. So how can a brand like yours utilize branded content and especially in your segment where the awareness or the information is so limited about the category? So our narrative is more about educating the consumer, not really very transactional. We really intend to make sure that every consumer wears a better product because consumers really compromise that and as a woman, somebody would understand that it really affects the confidence and the way she presents herself.

So we are more concerned about educating her about the category and whether she chooses to buy us or not is almost secondary. So we are looking at this as more of a category leadership on conversations and education. Physically making them more aware of why they should upgrade or why they should wear a better product, what the choices of products they should make, stuff like that. You work in the industry where there aren't too many female leaders. So how has your experience been climbing up the ladder?

It's been over 15 years of work experience and I have seen the industry changing from being a male dominated not only in terms of the employees but also in terms of consumption where the focus was the male. It's been very enriching in that sense and I think the timing is right for me to be part of a women centric brand where the conversation can be a lot more authentic from my side as well. And it's a great time to be part of this sort of a brand. Marketing is a very exhausting job. How do you unwind after work?

I don't think it's exhausting. I think it's something I enjoy and unlike probably other departments marketing is something that's all about your personality too. So being part of a brand like Amantya as I was saying it gives me to get a lot of my personality. That's one. The second part is I love coming back home and you know getting a round of fitness activity done. I'm a big foodie so obviously socializing and eating out is a part of what I do. Apart from that I love traveling so some quick travels a couple of months. I love months.