Mensa builds global digital-first brands from India by partnering with the right entrepreneurs, investing in the business, and bringing the team’s expertise and technology to scale the brands. The company aims to leverage its extensive knowledge of the retail and e-commerce space to identify promising consumer brands and help them achieve their full potential. In an interview with Fibre2Fashion, Mensa Brands’ Chief of Staff Manvi Aggarwal explains how the company aims to build a portfolio of successful, sustainable, and profitable consumer brands.
What do you think are the biggest challenges facing the e-commerce industry today, and how do you see these challenges being addressed in the future?
E-commerce faces critical challenges in the future, including slowing demand, intensified competition, and a strong push on profitability. We at Mensa tackle these challenges by leveraging our in-house tech platform, data-science capabilities, and adopting an omnichannel strategy. Our tech platform enables our brands with new product design, supply chain planning, pricing, and marketing and allows Mensa to deliver a seamless customer experience across online marketplaces, direct-to-consumer websites and apps, and at offline stores.
With the rise of social media and influencer marketing, how do you think the role of traditional advertising will evolve in the coming years?
The rise of social media and influencer marketing has disrupted traditional advertising, leading to a shift in its role in the coming years. While traditional channels such as television and print media are still relevant, we need to adopt new channels to reach younger audiences.
To effectively reach target audiences, companies like ours are creating authentic and lasting relationships with consumers by leveraging social media and influencers. Our social media footprint has grown 2-3x in the past year across brands and we have closely collaborated with more than 100 influencers across brands.
In your opinion, what are some emerging trends or technologies that will have a significant impact on the e-commerce industry in the next decade?
In the post pandemic world, more consumers are looking for strong purpose-driven brands, whether it is a real effort towards sustainability or focus on employment generation for marginal communities. We are also seeing a higher focus on brands that develop and manufacture their products in India. Consumers are looking for brands they can trust and for that it is important to invest behind content and creators that resonate with the TG (target group) and create a consistent strategy across all channels of distribution.
Online in India is underpenetrated compared to other large economies like China but is growing at an unprecedented rate. Another interesting trend is that irrespective of where consumers purchase, they will most likely search the brand/product online. Having said that, offline continues to be majority of the market in India and is an important channel for us as we build breakout brands. Villain, Pebble and MyFitness from our portfolio have significant offline presence that we power leveraging technology.
How do you see the relationship between online and offline retail evolving, and what role do you think physical stores will continue to play in the industry?
Mensa Brands envisions a future where the divide between online and offline retail will blur, resulting in a more unified and streamlined shopping experience for customers. The company acknowledges the significance of physical stores in both brand building and consumer experience (allowing customers to examine products before making a purchase in certain categories). However, it is important to leverage consumer data/insights as well as technology to better scale offline and integrate it with digital channels.
What was the inspiration behind starting Mensa Brands, and how has the company evolved since its founding?
The potential to create global fashion and beauty brands with technology from India was realised by Ananth Narayanan, the Founder and CEO of Mensa Brands. He identified a market gap in early-stage brands that lacked effective scaling methods. To address this, he developed a promising business plan by leveraging Mensa’s capabilities in inventory management, technology, e-commerce, supply chain, and marketing. As a result, Mensa Brands now has a portfolio of over 25 brands in fashion, home & garden, beauty & FMCG, including five breakout brands, with a run-rate of ₹1,500 crore. The sustainable model and market-leading technology platform have catered to over 10 million customers. It is worth mentioning that Mensa Brands achieved positive operating margins in its first year, which is a remarkable feat, setting it apart from the competition.
How do you identify potential acquisition targets, and what criteria do you use to evaluate them?
At Mensa Brands, we have a comprehensive criteria when evaluating brands for partnership, including 1) Customer love for the product 2) Unique moat of the brand (whether its product design or channel dominance) 3) Potential to grow brand 10x while being profitable. We test products ourselves to ensure they meet these requirements and leverage our growth playbook to help the brands achieve exponential growth. Our ultimate goal is to build a digital house of brands with a global presence. We will expand offline operations as part of this strategy as well as our international presence.
What steps do you take to ensure that the companies you acquire continue to operate in alignment with your values and mission?
At Mensa Brands, our vision is to build global digital-first brands by acquiring businesses that have established customer-loved brands and applying our tech-led growth strategy to scale them. By having several brands catering to similar customers, we create synergies on the demand side. Our technology playbook helps us execute growth hacks across various sales channels and online marketplaces. The growth of our brand portfolio is a testament to our performance. We offer expertise, people, and capital to support brand building and abide by our core values, which include ‘think big, fair, fast & founder friendly, customer delight, caring meritocracy and frugality’.
Can you discuss any recent or upcoming acquisitions that Mensa Brands has made, and how they fit into your overall strategy?
Our partnership with ILN, India's largest content-enabled digital media company, enables us to directly connect with over 30 million monthly active users on our owned platforms and 250 million monthly active users on social media. Building communities and collaborating with creators is essential for developing digital brands, and we are able to leverage these resources to create purpose-driven brands. We recently launched a campaign for Karagiri, titled ‘tied by six yards’, in collaboration with 20 influencers, which helped us connect with consumers and build a stronger community. Additionally, our Pebble x Tiger campaign reached 10 million people and encouraged discussions around the importance of ‘Zen mode’ in our fast-paced culture.
Interviewer: Shilpi Panjabi
Published on: 11/04/2023
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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