Today’s consumers have many choices, we’ve to reach out to them differently: Marketers –

The fashion and apparel industry is one of the most volatile ones, especially in a world ruled by Gen Z & Alpha, who are constantly on social media. Apparel brands have to be on their toes to keep up with every new fashion trend, launching a new collection every time to keep up. 

One of the most recent launches was by Pepe Jeans, which tapped into the increasing trend of travelling or as the MD & CEO Manish Kapoor says, ‘going out’. The brand has increasingly been working to ensure that it is on the consumers’ minds when they choose to travel or go out for any sort of experience.

Kapoor also shared how the industry has seen a massive shift in consumer behaviour, where marriage once was an ‘ethnic only’ occasion, but it is now seeing indo-western, as well as denim with blazers as highly preferred options.

“The consumer is evolving, and what they’re realising is that for the same pair of apparel, there could be multiple uses. We as marketers, we as brands have also understood that psyche and we have expanded our portfolios,” he said in a recent interview with Exchange4media.

Edited excerpts:

Your most recent ‘Spring Summer Collection 2024’ has been stirring great conversations, especially with the word ‘Wanderlust’ being a key part of it. What birthed this idea?

I think for this, you have to go back to what the campaign is all about. We have been noticing this trend among our customers, wherein we saw that people today are looking at experiences. And when we are talking of experiences effectively, it’s majorly about travelling, it’s about going out.

And when we were thinking about this: How do you ensure that you come into the consumers’ consideration while they’re thinking about all these experiences?

And we have seen it, especially during the last twelve-odd months, apparel or fashion shopping per se, has taken a backseat. So the idea was to figure out how you get into their mind while they’re thinking about all this. Hence we came up with a tagline, which was simple – “Take Me Somewhere.”

What’s further in store for ‘Take Me Somewhere’, in terms of the media plan?

We’ll be taking the concept beyond the cliche digital media. So rather than being just on social or YouTube, we are getting into newer spaces. So if you make a travel booking, you will see us on MakeMyTrip.

If you are going to book, let’s say, a dine-out experience on Zomato, you will see us on Zomato.

So those are some newer avenues that we are exploring since we need to be where our consumer is. For us, social media is not limited to Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. All these other apps are also an expression of being social and we want to be present there.

Going further, for Autumn Winter ‘24, our big focus will be on the Women’s category, and you will see some great marketing action there in terms of celebrity and a lot of other things happening on that side.

With travel taking up a huge part of consumers’ lives and terms like discretionary spending becoming more and more common, what has the shift in consumer behaviour been like over the years, considering you have spent a large part of your career in the fashion & apparel industry?

The premium fashion space is more of a want than a need. Initially, if you looked at branded apparel, you would buy it more for the occasion rather than day-to-day wear. And then, you would have different brands for different sorts of occasions. 

It has evolved in a way that when you look at marriage as an occasion, everything had to be ethnic; it was not restricted to just the bride or the groom, but everybody around them. And then slowly, it started changing, because marriage is not a single function. It’s like a three to five-day affair.

There are multiple functions, where now you could do Indo western at someplace. And it came down to a point wherein even denim with a blazer started becoming acceptable.

The consumer is evolving and realising that for the same pair of apparel, there could be multiple uses. We as marketers and brands have also understood that psyche, and we have expanded our portfolios in terms of how we can offer you wardrobe solutions that are not limited to one single occasion or category.

The term ‘athleisure’ has been picking up pace in the fashion industry over the past couple of years. What is the consumer demanding?

Athleisure has been a trend which has been there for almost five, or seven years. It started much before Covid gained a lot of traction during Covid. And now it’s moving towards what we call utility. Very clearly, athleisure was a trend, now it is becoming a part of the wardrobe.

For example, sports started becoming acceptable as an area wherein people were looking at being fitter and they were embracing sports. And that’s where sports apparel gained traction. But then people were looking at it as ‘I have a sporty lifestyle, and then how can I carry it outside of sports?’

So think of it like ‘I want to be sporty, but I want to go to a coffee shop’.

We have been doing athleisure for almost five odd years. It’s a small line, and cannot become 50-60% of our business. But we do exceedingly well on that particular line. We have a line called Jim Indigo on denim, which is primarily knitted denim and a big proportion of our sales today comes from Jim Indigo. 35-36% of our denim sales come from Jim Indigo.

Overall, what demographic of people are your biggest customers?

If I look at the age group, the majority of our sales come from the age segment of 28 to 35. It’s close to almost half of our sales. Another big chunk comes in from the age group of primarily 18 to 27, which has Gen Z also. Those are the guys who are shopping more online or interacting with us more digitally.

When I look at it from a geographic point of view, clearly the north contributes to almost 40-42% of our sales. This is because, the north is the only region which actually gets a pretty decent two and a half, three months of winter. So the higher proportion is also attributable to our strength in winter wear.

What share of your ad budget is digital media going to take up going forward this year?

The reality is that if I were to look at pure spends, it’s going to become more like 60% digital and 40% traditional. But if I look at overall marketing, our spending on content will increase multifold. So out of a marketing dollar, if we were spending something like 4 or 5% on content, I think that will increase to 16-18%. So it will be an 11-12% jump.

Why the increased inclination to content?

Traditionally, a fashion business does a seasonal campaign, and that’s about it. You put all your money onto it and run it probably for 45-60 days for the season. You start during the peak shopping time and then end it off. After that effectively, you are not speaking to the consumer much.

Today, the consumer wants to be spoken to effectively every day. A lot of it also needs to get personalised.

So let’s say you are a female customer, you would always want inputs on what’s new in women’s wear, rather than athleisure or menswear. Effectively, if I am doing 800 options in a season, and I need to talk and create content for all the 800.

And then I say, okay, these hundred appeal to A, these 150 appeal to B, and then I start personalising these options. So I think that’s the whole realisation wherein this change is happening.

You also have a presence across retail, marketplaces and D2C. How is the revenue split between the platforms?

Our revenue split is pretty even. 23-24% comes in from retail, 25% from e-commerce, 26% from the large format stores, and the balance 23% from regional departmental stores and multi-brand stores. D2C contributes to around 14% of our e-commerce revenue.

Where do you see your D2C business going in the next couple of years?

For us, retail is also D2C since we own that retail; I get real-time information. It is as good as any other D2C media. D2C is anything that helps to influence or control the consumer experience. That’s where our focus is.

We are at almost 36% D2C at the moment. We want the business to be more like 55% D2C in the next three years.