Party is going to be over soon for influencers pushing content, says Samsonite's Anushree Tainwala

Brands are now frequently taking influencers’ help to distribute and push content. But American premium luggage manufacturer and retailer Samsonite feels the influencer route is something that may not last long even though it recognises the role of influencers for its recent content marketing initiative, #Pushthelimit.

“While at some point, for any kind of marketing, you reach the threshold where everyone is doing so much of it that the consumer starts ignoring it. I don’t know if we have reached that stage yet for the influencer-related post or content. I think consumers have started realising that a lot of it is paid for, doesn’t really gel well with the brand ethos and not as authentic as they thought it was. I am sure the party is going to be over soon, it is just a matter of when and what would be the next thing in promoting content,” said Anushree Tainwala, Executive Director, Marketing, Samsonite India.

#Pushthelimit was the first time when Samsonite invested heavily on the digital space and it was the first time that it looked at content seriously.

“The reason why #Pushthelimit worked so well for us was because the product itself and the activity were so unique. The whole digital celebrity angle also worked well for us. You can have the best content out there, but if you don’t have the right people talking, it is not going to give you that kind of leverage as well,” conceded Tainwala.

The brand that spends its entire digital budget on content marketing now has adopted a digital-first approach for its campaigns in last one year.

“Earlier we used to make creative for traditional media and then we looked at ways for extending it on digital. In the last year or so, our approach has become digital-first. #Keralaisopen also started out as a digital campaign. Similarly, for #Pushthelimit campaign, the genesis of the idea was digital but we took it on TV. That piece of content was created for digital media first and then used on TV and OOH as the secondary medium,” said Tainwala.

Samsonite also owns American Tourister and both the brands serve different TG. While Samsonite is priced at the top of the spectrum, American Tourister is a mass brand at the bottom end of the luggage spectrum.

Talking about the growth of content marketing in the travel and luggage category, Tainwala said, “In our category, we are definitely the leaders when it comes to digital spends and content marketing for both Samsonite and American Tourister. It has not really become a focus yet, but I think it takes one or two successful campaigns for everyone to jump on the bandwagon. After #Keralaisopen, I’m sure we are going to see a lot more activities from other brands as well.”

Acknowledging that Samsonite is not at the top of mind when it comes to consumers seeking content on travel, Tainwala said it requires huge money to invest in the travel space to become a go-to destination and with the kind of marketing budget that they have, they will never reach there.

Sharing the brand’s content strategy, Tainwala said, “Our focus has been on doing shorter burst of campaigns on what’s relevant for us. For an example, we did a campaign in the beginning of the year, which was around Indian weddings. So, our strategy will be to pick up what is relevant to the consumers’ life as well as to the brand rather than keeping an always-on kind of approach with content.”