Aditya Birla’s Indriya jewellers scales offline, steps up digital push

As Indriya prepares to open its 50th store this week, the bigger story may not be its retail expansion but how it is building the brand.

“This is a special occasion for us. We are very proud and happy because we are opening our 50th store on Friday,” said Shantiswarup Panda, head of marketing and visual merchandising at Indriya, Aditya Birla’s 19-month-old jewellery brand.

Scaling in jewellery, he told afaqs!, is fundamentally different from other retail categories. “In a retail network, it's not easy to open 50 stores in such a short span of time. Less so in jewellery, because jewellery needs a lot of intense, right-in-the-catchment sort of store presence. It also has certain requirements in terms of the floor plan.”

He also pointed out that the capital investment is also pretty high to cater to all the inventory that is needed in the stores.

The brand, backed by Aditya Birla Group, started operations on July 24, 2024, with four stores across Jaipur, Delhi, and Indore. “In a month, which is the end of March, we should be crossing the 75th store as well. That's our endeavour.”

Yet, despite this aggressive offline expansion, Indriya is placing a disproportionate bet on digital media, without enabling online transactions.

“Till December 2025, we were dedicating 55-60% of our ad spend on digital media. So, possibly we would be the first retailer to put so much money on digital when we are not even commerce-enabled on our website,” Panda said.

If a customer needs to purchase Indriya jewellery, they can browse it online, but they must make the purchase in-store.

Connected TV over satellite

A significant chunk of Indriya’s digital ad spend is going into connected TV, according to Panda.

“When I quote that digital media, part of it is also connected TV, which I think Indriya has been a pioneer of,” he said. “Our awareness and consideration number is led by large screen viewership, which is through TV.”

He, however, noted that "till now, we haven't spent a single rupee on satellite television, and still we have such viewership and such recall”.

The rationale, he explained, is footprint efficiency.

“We have used an integrated approach to advertising on large-screen TVs through the internet and not through satellite television. It allows us to curtail our reach to a city level and not go for a full state.”

Indriya makes this exception since it's not present in all cities across every state yet, and advertising in cities without a store presence may be wasteful.

That may change as the network expands. “As we expand our footprint to 50 stores now and 75 by year's end and many more stores in the future, I think what will be more judicious in terms of cost per reach and recall would be satellite TV. So, we will also shift gears.”

Indriya's target audience is affluent women between the ages of 20 and 60 across India.

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Entertainment-led festive push

During the festive period, the brand leaned into music-led storytelling.

“We took a song (Abhi na jao chod kar), and we recreated it. The entire composition of the song was done by our director herself. It was composed by Sneha Khan Vilkar,” Panda said.

The festive campaign Panda referred to is Indriya’s Alka collection launch, a music-led branded film built around a reimagined version of the classic song Dil Abhi Bhara Nahin, featuring actors Aditi Rao Hydari and Siddharth.

The music video was released with Saregama. “On Instagram alone, we had 200 million+ views.”

Panda said that campaigns like these, which involve content creation, fall under the non-media spend category of the brand’s ad spends.

“The entire advertising and promotion money is divided into media and non-media spends. The part of content creation is a non-media spend for me," he added.

Adding to its content-led non-media marketing initiatives, Indriya has also partnered with Filtercopy, an Indian digital entertainment platform, to launch a micro-drama on its social media channels.

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Measurement beyond followers

For a brand allocating 60% of its ad spend to digital media, measurement is multi-layered.

“Every media plan will start with a reach and frequency or OTS (Opportunity To See) numbers,” he said. “Secondly, we also do dipsticks across our cities with our partner Kantar to measure awareness and then consideration.”

On social platforms, engagement is prioritised over vanity metrics. “On Instagram, we have 955k followers. Very soon, in the next 10 days, we are going to cross 1 million. My engagement is still 3x that of the industry. And 5x that of most players out there.”

Performance marketing currently plays a smaller role for Indriya, as per Panda. “Performance is less, is all I can say because today, for me, performance is click-through rates for map directions for our store. I don't do commerce on the website.”

Evolving influencer strategy

Panda claimed that Indriya’s influencer approach has shifted over time, referencing lessons from Nykaa, the beauty retail brand.

“Initially, our strategy was to sign up a set of influencers for one year. We realised that it's not a great strategy. Now, we have made it a little more fluid strategy.” Indriya now collaborates with influencers from campaign to campaign.

As the brand enters new cities, it is leaning into regional creators. “We are focusing a lot more on micro and smaller influencers. It helps us when we are talking about regionalisation and language-led content.”

Multi-funnel marketing approach 

“For a visual category, cinema advertising works,” Panda said, referring to the upper-funnel visibility. He added that the impact of advertising in movie theatres is the strongest when they have a store presence in the same mall in which the cinema is located.

The brand has also experimented with immersive activations, including lighting up cinema rooftops to simulate the Aurora Borealis during its Aasmanit collection launch.

Then comes the mid- and lower-funnel infrastructure.

On the backend, the brand has integrated its systems with a loyalty and marketing automation platform. This means every customer touchpoint, from store entry to billing, is captured in one system. That enables data-led targeting and personalised communication.

Its loyalty programme, Bejewelled, has been live since the brand's launch. “There are no blackout periods for us. Our redemption rates are extremely high. Our referral rate is also very high in the loyalty programme compared to industry benchmarks.”

Commerce enablement is imminent but deliberate. “Our platform already is commerce-enabled; sooner rather than later, we are planning to launch it.

According to Panda, 80-85% of the initiation of a purchase already happens online. "You may not buy, but that leads to store purchase.”

For a brand that is only 19 months old, Panda summed up the mandate: “The brand has to spend a lot more to ensure that, one, we create impact. Two, we create memorability. And third is brand love.”