Rumi Ambastha on marketing Swiss Beauty as the affordable yet quality-oriented brand

Swiss Beauty’s Rumi Ambastha shares the brand’s journey created through word of mouth and how it has paved the way for their online success.

Make-up lovers worldwide know the best way to get great recommendations and find dupes of internationally famous beauty brands is through Reels and TikToks. The organic reviews and the traction brought in through these reels have further given beauty brands in India an easier way to spread the word - through influencer marketing.

Swiss Beauty’s AVP - Brand Marketing, Rumi Ambastha, however, points out a problem with onboarding influencers or brand ambassadors and relying on them to make a brand. 

“The problem comes when brands onboard a celebrity or an influencer, thinking they (the influencer) will build their brand. If that celebrity falters, your brand falters with it. Great partnerships are built when a celebrity sees themselves in the brand.”

Rumi Ambastha

This is probably why, the beauty brand has waited 10 years to establish their name in the industry and onboard their brand ambassador, Tapsee Pannu. Ambastha, sharing a snippet of a conversation with Pannu said that the latter shared the brand’s sentiments of making her own path and being fearless along the way. This sentiment is reflected in the brand’s latest campaign with the celebrity. 

Omni-channel Presence & Word-of-mouth

The journey of forging their own path came through the power of word-of-mouth and the products themselves. In 2013, founders Amit and Mohit Goyal saw a need gap in the beauty industry wherein finding quality and affordable makeup was difficult for Tier 2 and Tier 3 consumers. 

Ambastha is of the opinion that a brand which is long-lasting can only be built if it starts from a very honest space of getting your product right. With the thought of making their product talk for them, they started spreading the word to their target audience in the tier segments.

“As a brand, the idea always was to be present at every life stage of a woman. Every woman’s requirement from makeup is different depending on the age group they belong to. Which is why, our target audience is from 18 to 35 years,” says Ambastha. 

While the brand is offline-heavy, its power has been noted through online channels as well. Interestingly, Ambastha mentions that word-of-mouth has been fueling on Reddit, where consumers have been having conversations about the brand and their different products and activities.

Swiss Beauty Haul and Review.
by u/Annual_Paint9736 in IndianMakeupAddicts

Their traditional marketing approach, including outdoor campaigns with Tapsee Pannu, has created visibility for them and Ambastha states that there has been a jump in the revenue. Alongside this, they have their marquee events and Below-the-line (BTL) activations in the pipeline. 

Today, the brand has an omnichannel presence in online retail stores as well as on platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa, and BlinkIt where they provide a unified shopping experience. They also have an exclusive brand outlet (EBO) in Elante, Chandigarh. 

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Social Media & D2C Journey

Beauty brands in today’s age take on the online journey before entering the retail segment. Swiss Beauty recently took the D2C route with their own website. Their strong connect with the consumer base offline has only enhanced their presence online.

As per SimilarWeb, their page has received 92.1k visits in last month with gender demographic making up 58.28% women and 41.72% men.

They also have a presence on Facebook with 49k followers and Pinterest receiving 5.9k monthly views. However, Instagram and YouTube take up the larger social media presence and caters to all genders who generally love makeup. Swiss Beauty’s Instagram page has 256k followers while YouTube has 4.65K subscribers. 

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A post shared by Swiss Beauty Cosmetics (@officialswissbeauty)

In terms of the online space, Ambastha mentions that content creators take up space, no matter whether they are nano or macro. 

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A post shared by Swiss Beauty Cosmetics (@officialswissbeauty)

With make-up tips, promotional events to encourage engagement, recreating celebrity looks, and celebration of special occasions, the influencers on their page are up for it.

The brand has focused on being a part of the consumers’ makeup discovery and aiding them in their journey through their content. 

“Whether it is social media or content creators or YouTube or ads or blogs that you read, and emails you're subscribed to, the main objective is to consumers more aware,” continues Ambastha and mentions that their marketing budget makes for 60% offline and 40% online presence.