- Beauty, wellness and fashion brand Nykaa will host a two-day beauty and lifestyle event, Nykaaland, in November in partnership with BookMyShow. The event promises to bring together more than 50 brands from around the globe and will be held in Mumbai on November 5 and 6 at the Royal Western India Turf Club in Mahalaxmi Racecourse.
- Kicked off in 2017, Myntra’s Beauty Edit is an annual fixture now and has grown to become a platform for new brand launches and exclusive products.
- Started in 2022, Amazon Beauty, in its latest edition, had lined up over 8,000 deals from both homegrown and international brands, besides expert interactions and masterclasses.
Let’s face it: Wide internet access and the world’s largest population of young people have fuellled an explosion in India’s beauty market, which has grown from about $12.3 billion in 2018 to $15.6 billion in 2022, according to Euromonitor International. But while brick-and-mortar chemist outlets and mass-market and grocery stores still contribute a huge chunk to cosmetics products sales in India, their customer traffic and revenues have plummeted since the Covid years. On the other hand, there is this growing trend of self-improvement, in terms of beauty and wellness, with cosmetics products flying off virtual shelves like never before.
A byproduct of these two concurrent trends is the growing number of beauty events, à la Myntra Beauty Edit. The reason Nykaaland hopes to stand out among them is that while other retailers are dabbling with festivals online, Nykaaland will be the first on-ground event and will go beyond the makeup and skincare staples to include the experts — dermatologists and content creators.
Live events like these have become an important part of the marketing mix for many brands. Take Zomaland hosted by Zomato, where the average ticket price ranges between 500 and 800, and covers multiple cities. In its 2019 edition, the event registered over 150,000 visitors, hosted 300-plus restaurants, and served about four lakh dishes. The event is said to have helped strengthen engagement with its customers.
“These festivals have solidified their status as a crucial promotional tactic,” notes Pankaj Renjhen, COO & joint MD, Anarock Retail. “Both online and physical establishments see an increase in the number of visitors as a result of the hype and anticipation they build up and retailers can also shift inventory, cross-sell products, get new consumers, and collect information on consumer behaviour at these festivals.” Online beauty stores say their sales volume tends to jump three- to four-fold during festivals, with over 70% of the orders coming from tier 2 and tier 3 cities.
These events also offer consumers great bargains. Take Amazon Beauty’s online shopping event. The whole event is pitched on the discounts it offers — “beauty devices and products, with discounts of up to 70%”. But that might not be the most sustainable way to consumer salience for brands that do not have deep pockets. “Consumers end up going to the platform that offers them a large discount. But this trend is not sustainable for marketplaces of every hue and the need to distinguish is mandatory,” says Kosal Malladi, VP, Madison Loop.
Making a difference
To stand out, Nykaaland is offering an ensemble of events. It will have live events with food and beverages, brand partnership options, and merchandise too. “It will be an interesting mix and will add heft to the larger live entertainment vertical, where one can collaborate with partners across industries and build on experience marketing. As a single experience — whether a concert, performance, or festival — it has the potential to generate direct and indirect employment for 1,500-3,000 people,” says Kunal Khambhati, head, live events & IPs, BookMyShow.
Nykaa targets the high/upper mid-income group of consumers that constitute 133 million households. It leads the online BPC (beauty & personal care) category with its first-mover advantage, deeper discounts backed by a huge marketing budget (11% of FY23 revenue).
If it takes off, a property like Nykaaland will build a very strong brand recall for the retailer and open the doors to many other allied categories and events, say experts.
That said, Karan Taurani, senior VP & research analyst, Elara Securities, warns it might not be a good idea to assess the performance of such festivals in terms of the sheer sales volumes they generate. “Such events help create a better and positive perception of the brand in the mind of the customer, because in beauty as a category, there is a lot of product innovation happening all the time and one has to nudge consumers to try out new products. These events also give smaller brands that don’t get many opportunities to showcase their products on a big platform to reach out to customers.”