Content gives a sniper effect to marketing, says Bhavishya Kelappan of Mia

Mia, the nine-year-old low-priced contemporary brand from Tata group's Tanishq, has realised early in its marketing journey that it is important to stay connected with consumers throughout the year and not just in the festival season. The brand believes that content marketing ‘gives a sniper effect’ to its efforts in building affinity throughout the year.

In an interaction with BuzzInContent.com, Bhavishya Kelappan, Business Head, Mia, said, “The most incredible thing about content marketing is that a brand can check whether the content is reaching to its targeted consumers or not. Another advantage is that one can see how many people have consumed your content and what effect it has on consumers. The learning for brands in content marketing is very fast as compared to any other traditional formats.”

Kelappan said the brand focuses more on short-format content versus long-form content as one can easily consume short content on the go. She suggested that to stand out in the cluttered digital content space, it’s important to find the right content partner, who understands the brand’s ethos and can create content that is unique to the brand. “There is a lot of clutter in the digital content these days; we are working with content partners who give us content that has relevance to the brand ideology and not cliché,” she added.

According to Kelappan, brands such as Titan Raga and Fastrack are producing exceptional content marketing initiatives.

The brand has in the past collaborated with Filter Copy for one of the brand’s video content initiatives called ‘Types of girls in every bridal crew’ and this tie-up helped the brand to increase the popularity of their product range.

In order to engage with their target audience further, Mia started sharing small stories on their website called ‘Mia Stories’. The vertical talks all about fashion, work, trends and life. The stories have helped Mia to revamp their website.

"Mia Stories was created to provide useful content to the browsers of our website and to engage with the brand beyond just transactional activities. It is also amplified through promotions on Facebook and Instagram, which act as the ideal tools for maximum reach. We are into making relevant, relatable content for the consumers so the textual space is working out quite well on our website,” said Kelappan.

In continuation of last year’s campaign theme #MeInAction, Mia will soon launch a set of 20 new short digital films this year.

The brand plans to spend 65% of its marketing budget in digital campaigns and the remaining on retail and OOH in FY 19-20.

Kelappan said, “Being a fashion jewellery brand, a major learning that we analysed is that a jewellery brand should focus on marketing, building and maintaining the connection to its consumers throughout the year and not only during festive seasons. Today, our TG is looking at digital far more than any other medium, and that’s the reason our marketing spends are more on digital.”

Mia has shifted from only work-wear jewellery to an all-occasion wear jewellery positioning.

Speaking on the shift in positioning, Kelappan said, “We used to categorise ourselves as work-wear jewellery but somehow we felt we were restricting ourselves from the perspective of TG and product design. Last year we moved from calling ourselves only work-wear jewellery and opened up the brand from consumer, communication and product design perspectives. We brought in a range of colourful stones, larger products. We got into silver as a brand.”

Mia, which runs 31 stores, plans to add 20 more in the current year.