Myntra is reeling in the Gen Zs with a creator hook

By casting Khushi Kapoor and Vedang Raina as the faces of its Fashion Forward (FWD) offering, Myntra openly declared its allegiance to the Gen Z consumer cohort.

The two recently made their on-screen debut in Netflix India’s The Archies, a movie which is aimed at and whose main star cast is Gen Z. Myntra cast them even before they made their debuts.

Born between 1995 and the early '00s, this particular cohort is in vogue in boardrooms and on the slides of marketing strategy presentations nowadays. 

“Gen Z is a clear cohort we are going after,” states Sunder Balasubramanian, chief marketing officer, Myntra, on the day of the e-commerce giant’s Creator Fest and a day before the 19th edition of its annual End of Reason Sale.

Back in June 2023, he told afaqs! that the app has around eight million Gen Z users, and that they “want to scale the app with 10 million more. For this, we're using influencers and creators, as they are the source of inspiration for the Gen Zs.”

In its second year, the Myntra Creator Fest is a strategic move to bring together the Walmart-owned e-commerce brand’s in-focus user base close to its biggest influencers.

“Creators are purveyors and gatekeepers of fashion trends in the country, and Myntra brings those trends to consumers at large,” states Balasubramanian. 

250 creators attended the event in 2022 and it “created 3X the digital impressions compared to business as usual (BAU),” he states and goes on to reveal that over 350 creators are expected to attend the creator fest this year.

He mentions that they have kept fashion shows that will showcas the reigning trends of the year and will live-stream the entire thing on the Myntra app, allowing viewers to shop in real-time. Another first at the creator fest was the Glammys; think fashion awards for the creators like the Grammys for musicians.  

Myntra also invited brands to visit and collaborate with creators at the festival. Nothing, FCUK, and L'Oréal Paris were some of the brands that made their presence felt at the festival.

All this is to further attract Gen Z shoppers to the Myntra app. “They have a sharp and clear sense of their identity and what they want to showcase to the world, and they communicate this to the world through fashion,” says the CMO describing his brand’s core audience. 

He further says monthly and even weekly trends influence Gen Z shoppers more than yearly fashion trends.

What is a noteworthy aspect of Myntra’s marketing strategy is its attempts to balance creators with mainstream celebrities. It has the likes of Virat Kohli, Anushka Sharma, Kiara Advani, and Sidharth Malhotra on its roster.

“We use celebrities from cricket and Bollywood for scale on television,” reveals Balasubramanian and says this approach is useful to “move top-of-mind and consideration measures” amongst a good part of the millennial audience.

However, it is all creators when it comes to Gen Z and that too on digital. “Creators can own trends and can talk in an authentic tone which TV ads cannot.”

The Gen Z cohort shares a high degree of affinity to any offering which eases and personalises its shopping experience. 

For instance, a research report from Havas Media in July 2023 said 79% of Indian respondents (Gen Z and millennials) deemed virtual try-on features as crucial. 

The Myntra CMO counts it as one of the technology-driven experiences his app provides along with the likes of a skin analyser “which has customised solutions to your skin care needs.”

There is MyFashionGPT that, as per the brand’s blog, enables shoppers to search for specific outfit needs by typing text in a manner that closely resembles natural speech. 

And then there is Maya, the ecomm brand’s virtual influencer who has only recently moved to the app to help users with their queries.  

Myntra competes with the likes of Amazon which recently launched the Next Gen Store to catch the eyes and open the wallets of Gen Z shoppers. Only time will tell what will emerge as their go-to shopping destination.