CMO at Vega, Eiti Singhal shares insights into the successful launch of SmartOne Beard Trimmers and the impactful GIY campaign.

After a successful launch of SmartOne Beard Trimmers during the recently concluded Flipkart “The Big Billion Days”, Eiti Singhal, CMO of Vega, in an interview, said Vega is focused on making deeper inroads into Men’s Grooming appliance category while maintaining leadership in the Women’s grooming appliance and accessories with fresh thinking, more confidence, and style in brand visual and verbal identity.

As a marketing leader, how did Brand leap to GIY Campaign?

There has been a fundamental change in the way our consumers particularly the millennials and Gen-Z interact with brands. In an era where time has become incredibly valuable and so is convenience, brands now have to entertain and engage at a much deeper level to earn attention, particularly through short yet rich digital experiences with meaningful content which resonates across diverse geographies, demographies, and cultures of our audience. GIY (Groom it yourself) Campaign is a movement to further instill and contemporize DIY as a concept in personal grooming.

Can you throw light on marketing playbook for the SmartOne beard trimmer and GIY campaign?

Our marketing strategy relied on a sharply targeted media mix, a very Gen-Z and Millennial relevant imagery heightened by the presence of Indian Cricket Team Captain Rohit Sharma featuring in quirky yet youthy content. Our brand outreach encompassed all important touchpoints of the sales funnel, driving awareness during the pre-buzz phase through social amplification and digital publishers. Discoverability and consideration of the product were bolstered through top tech vlogger community, publisher collaborations, and display marketing across passion platforms like tech, sports, and gaming leading to a high visibility and conversion campaign on the platform. Choice and type of content was reflective of the consumer mindset to experiment, seek new adventures and try new styling depending on the occasions like office, travel, and party which I feel has helped us strike a chord with modern consumers of today. Our marketing efforts stand vindicated as we witnessed up to 35% growth of male demography on our social platforms.

How do you reflect on the performance of the GIY campaign?

From a campaign standpoint, our new GIY Campaign, leans heavily into the brand’s heritage, having spent the last 20 years as grooming and styling partner to most Indians. Vega has taken a giant leap in Men’s Personal Care category with the successful launch of Vega SmartOne beard trimmers as we’ve witnessed multifold market share growth of our trimmers on Flipkart and we aspire to be amongst top trimmer brands in India. At the brand level, the campaign has achieved the objective of connecting with Gen-Z across the country, reflecting on upskilling their self-styling and ultimately self-focus. This is in congruence with the brand’s new visual and verbal identity which reflects fresh thinking, more confidence and more style.

How is the newly launched Vega SmartOne Beard Trimmer different from other existing products in the market and how does it uniquely address your audience’s pain points?
With evolving consumer behavior towards DIY products, we spent a lot of time understanding the consumer grooming and styling process to offer meaningful innovation at an affordable price point. This has led us to introduce 3 unique speed modes designed for varying beard types of men across the country. For the first time ever in India, we introduced the game-changing Smart Memory function which remembers your last used Speed mode, which makes Vega SmartOne S1 and S2 to further add convenience to our consumers.

SmartOne series of Beard Trimmers also come with best-in-class features like titanium coated blades with round tips for skin-friendly trimming, digital display, IPX7 protection, 160 min of runtime, 40 length settings, low noise operation, and rubberized grip, all in one device at an attractive price point so that it is accessible to all.

Our marketing strategy has been validated with the impactful launch of Vega SmartOne S1 and S2 on Flipkart as we witnessed the first lot launched and sold out in just 3 days. The product has garnered close to ~5K ratings and reviews in just 3 weeks with overwhelmingly positive reviews. This marks a key milestone in the brand’s transformation into one of the most trusted and inclusive brands in the personal care and styling category as a whole. We aim to further strengthen our insights and offer more futuristic products for the next generation in the near future.

What is your long-term strategy for the brand?

Being a nostalgia brand, our constant endeavor is to further expand and deepen the brand experience dabbling in new-age immersive platforms like metaverse and Web3 while staying invested in digital and scaled mediums with snappy yet impactful campaigns with great story-telling across the existing and diverse categories we are venturing into. With Rohit Sharma and Ananya Pandey championing Male and Female grooming categories respectively, we will further amplify our brand communication through the influencer community and local opinion leaders. After having changed the brand logo recently, we are already riding the wave of transformation to fuel the wings of styling and grooming lovers with nothing but the best.

(Above mentioned article is a Consumer connect initiative, This article is a paid publication and does not have journalistic/editorial involvement of IDPL, and IDPL claims no responsibility whatsoever.)