“The reverse of 'reverse migration' is a big trend": Naveen Murali, vice president and head of marketing, Pepperfry

It’s not every day that you consider buying a piece of furniture. But the day you decide to buy one, you pray for a smooth experience at the showroom, and not a stressful one.

Naveen Murali, Pepperfry’s new vice president and head of marketing, wants to make your furniture buying experience as stress-free as possible. He joined the Mumbai-based direct-to-consumer (D2C) furniture brand in December last year (2021) from Asian Paints, where he spent a decade.

Founded in 2011, Pepperfry was initially an online marketplace for furniture and home decor. Today, it has an offline presence too, in the form of ‘Pepperfry Studio’.

“We are an omni-channel company. Today, contributions from offline and online are in a head-to-head battle,” Murali remarks on his new employer.

Like most companies, COVID, which first struck in March 2020, and the subsequent lockdowns affected Pepperfry too. Its business-to-business, or B2B (office furniture) revenue source disappeared. The home became everyone’s office, and ‘home office’ furniture and decor took the market by storm.

Today, “the reverse of reverse migration is a big trend,” Murali tells afaqs!. He is talking about the folks who’re coming back to the cities now from their hometowns, to rejoin their offices. People had moved back to their hometowns due to COVID-induced lockdowns and continued to work from home. It is a win-win situation for the company.

Murali’s previous employer Asian Paints is an Indian multinational paints company which, even today, is quite dependent on its offline presence, unlike Pepperfry. What, however, is common between the two companies is the fact that their customers don’t think of them every day.

"Asian Paints has largely been a retail-led network," remarks Murali. Talking about the experience that the consumers are looking for in a store, he says, "A lot of it comes from seeking validation... they want to know what works, they are looking for support for that journey and need expert advice." Pepperfry Studio offers this experience.

Both Asian Paints and Pepperfry are different from impulse-led categories. “People think about the decision they make and, hence, look up to those who can guide them in their journey, or show them various options, or something they won't find elsewhere. That's all we're trying to provide here,” mentions Murali.

Unlike Asian Paints, which is a legacy brand, Pepperfry is on its way to make a name for itself. So, what made Murali switch to Pepperfry? “It is a brand I was excited about, as a consumer.”

He is in awe of the company’s journey in a category “where the consumers are used to buying from anyone in the market, even the carpenters. The change Pepperfry has been able to bring out in the category, is fascinating.”

To build a brand in a category that is mostly unorganised, requires serious marketing and advertising. Asian Paints has built quite a legacy of ads. Murali was part of this legacy for a decade, how does he plan to take it forward at Pepperfry?

“Furniture is not the flashiest of categories and, at Pepperfry, our communication will focus on making this journey, of furniture, furnishing, home decor shopping, exciting for the consumers.” Murali asserts that the aim is to lure the consumers away from the unorganised space.

Murali will be speaking to various agencies now more than ever. But it will be a challenge because the consumers have changed a lot over the last few years. Also, the marketing and advertising world is no longer the one it was in 2019. It’s one of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and metaverse.

Murali feels that you need to have an honest relationship with your agency. That is when the most successful campaigns happen.

Speaking about the consumers, he feels that both the brands and agencies need to learn about them together. “That helps because you don't need to brief your agency on what you want, or are looking for. Sometimes, they know it better than you.”

Murali says that it is important for the agencies to have clarity about your business. Clarity is important because an unclear decision can put your career back by years or, sometimes, a decade or even decades.

Murali is one of the few individuals who went back to college (IIM Kozhikode) after having worked for two years at Oracle. Most Indians tend to first complete their education, and then start working.

“I wanted to get inside the business side of things, I really wanted to be at the front end of strategy, figuring out what is done and why it is done... MBA was a journey towards that,” reveals Murali.

He reminisces about his great learnings, professors and peers over the years… “I exposed myself to different fields. When you dip your fingers, you realise what you're passionate about. I figured out that sales and marketing is something I am passionate about.”

During his summer internship at Idea Cellular between the two years at IIM K, he “specifically tried for something in sales and marketing, and figured out this is something he'd like to do over the long-term.”

Murali feels that one of the most important things today is to “get back to meetings. The human interactions are something that make a lot of difference.”

Murali also stresses on the importance of influencers these days. More and more people are interacting with influencers, but it is not necessarily online.

“We have architects and interior designers, who're big business influencers on the ground. We have brand ambassadors at the top level. Nano and micro-influencers on social media come in the middle. As a community, they are really going to make a lot of difference as far as decision-making goes,” he signs off.