Q]What was the idea behind the #HomesDon’tJudge campaign?
Our new campaign #HomesDon’tJudge challenges the conventional notion of a ‘perfect home’. We do not want to say that our homes are just beautiful because they are both ‘beautiful and fun’. At home, you’re your true self. You take a few liberties because your home is where you let your guard down and have fun. Home is your comfort zone. The whole point of using the spandex man in the campaign images was to convey that you can be whoever you want to be in your home.
The campaign was born of the idea that after you have had an argument with your boss, it lingers in your mind. But now you are having a very different conversation in your mind where you keep thinking about all that you could have said. The only ‘people’ who are privy to all the amazing points you’ve made is your furniture. Imagine the secrets they hold, and it would be funny if they were to blurt it all out to your boss, but thankfully, ‘Homes Don’t Judge’. That’s how we have tried to spike up the fun and quirk quotient of the brand through a campaign video and a series of static posts.
As Sleepyhead and as a jester brand archetype, we wanted to take an anti-category stand. We wanted to own this space and convey that any time you see some communication from Sleepyhead, you should expect a little bit of quirk. And quirk can also be a prank, or it can also be savage, sarcastic, self-deprecating humour. We stand for fun and fabulous, that’s also in our tagline - ‘Fabulous Living’.
Q] Please tell us more about your approach to communication. What are some of the insights it draws upon?
Last year, when we launched our campaign with Ranveer Singh, we called it ‘Fabulous Living’. The videos featured Ranveer playing the Jester while we called the consumers, ‘Happy Smarts’.
As a brand, we have noticed that at times smart people are unhappy. We took these two variables - happiness and smartness - and pitted them against each other to arrive at ‘Happy Smarts’. We want to tell people not be so smart that they forgo happiness. We are talking about people who are always over-analysing their choices, and ending up with buyer’s remorse. But we believe that our consumers will do due diligence before buying a piece of furniture or a mattress, and they will stop analysing. So those are the psychographics that we are targeting.
Q] What is your demographic?
We are targeting 25 to 34-year-olds, who reside not just in the metros, but also in other tier I and II towns. These are young executives, people whose homes are not just places for friends and relatives to visit, but a place where you are always taking pictures. So, our idea of home is that every corner has to be Insta-worthy. You can’t have a boring Western or Nordic look with those whites, greys, and browns. Consumers are experimenting with more colourful, vibrant furniture, which also represents India. As Indians, we love colours, our expression of happiness is colour. Even our clothes are very colourful. Sleepyhead has used that insight and has come up with a lot of yellow, light green, pastel green, olive green, pink, and bright orange furniture in the portfolio.
Demographically, we believe that this is an audience that’s going to decorate the house, and take pictures in every corner, and therefore every corner of the house needs to be Insta-worthy and a representation of who they are as personalities. So, we create something for everyone.
Q] How are you reaching out to this audience?
We are a D2C brand, so our channels of communication are largely digital. We use Google (YouTube), and Meta (Instagram and Facebook) to communicate with our audience. We are a 40k-strong community on Instagram and growing by leaps and bounds. Digital is going to be the key medium to reach out to our consumers because our communication is also slightly elevated. It’s something that will strike a chord with people, whether it’s in Tier I, Tier II, and Tier III. Another reason is, we want to attract a somewhat homogeneous crowd, and digital helps us cut segment data in a way that we are able to meet that requirement of targeting people in all geographies who are psychographically aligned to our brand values.
Q] What are the content formats that resonate most with your consumers?
The first reel we did for our recliner had 15,000 non-follower views on the first day, and those were all organic reaches. That’s when we realised that we are onto a key insight. So, we are definitely over-indexing on Insta reels as a format because it helps us get higher reach, and we are also looking at gaining traction on YouTube Shorts. That being said, we believe that communication is what consumers connect with, more than the format.
Q] How soon do you plan to be on TV?
We are not on TV yet because we believe we are not a brand that is relevant for mass media at present. There’s still a lot of room to grow digitally, and our kind of communication is better suited for Digital. However, in a couple of years, we believe we’ll be there on TV when we’ve reached the end of that funnel of addressable market where it does not make sense for us to scale digitally any longer. As the macroeconomic situation gets better, and that could be as soon as next year, we do believe that we’ll be evaluating ways to scale the business even further.
Q] Yours is a brand that is catering to GenZ and millennials. What factors do they consider before making a purchase decision, and how are you addressing the same?
I think as Gen Z and millennials, you are not necessarily looking at a mattress as something for more than five to eight years, and furniture, even less. Let’s say you are a young executive who has just moved into a new home with a roommate. You know that you are going to have friends visit you, so you want to be presentable. You want to do this on your own, but you do not have a high disposable income. Therefore, budget-friendliness is important for you. Moreover, you also want the home to match your personality, style, colour, etc. So, these are some of the factors that we think our consumers look at. They neither want to compromise on quality, nor break the bank. We have a fine balance of style and budget-friendliness that our consumers find relevant.
PROFILE
Deepti Karthik is a marketing leader with 12+ years of experience in the industry. After graduating from NMIMS in 2009, she began her career in FMCG sales, working for Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting, and later moved to Unilever. Prior to joining Sleepyhead, she was Vice President - Marketing at DaMensch. At Sleepyhead, she works closely with the leadership to grow the brand in the D2C segment, while also helping with offline expansion.
ABOUT THE BRAND
Sleepyhead is a D2C lifestyle and home decor brand designed for the digitally native Indian millennials and Gen Z. Headquartered in Bengaluru, the brand was established in 2017 and introduced the innovative Bed-In-A-Box concept to India, breaking category norms. Sleepyhead has since expanded into furniture and claims to have become the fastest-growing furniture startup brand in India.
FACTS
PR Agency - PR Pundit
Digital Agency - Unigage
Creative Agency - That Production House
