As per Rakshit, Marketing Head, Mia by Tanishq, while AI tech integrations do help in gaining substantial consumer mindspace and stickiness, certain limitations such as the kicking in of certain biases due to AI’s slightly backward-looking nature can only be minimised via human consciousness and creativity
Born a little more than 10 years back, as a collection within Tanishq, owing to the increasing number of Indian women who had started working in corporates for the first time and therefore needed jewellery that went along with the western workwear, Mia by Tanishq has strengthened in not just metros but also Tier II and III markets.
In recent times, the fine jewellery brand has come up with AI tech-integrated social media posts not just in terms of creative conceptualisation but also for media serving, banking on the brand’s USP of differentiated inspirational designs which came to life with AI tools such as Midjourney.
Caught up in an interaction with us, Sampurna Rakshit, Marketing Head, Mia by Tanishq (Titan Company), shared that when Mia came up with the AI tech integration on social media, it was not just about getting onto the AI bandwagon and doing AI just for the sake of it, but actually coming up with a relevant use case because Mia is a very trend-forward brand with very differentiated and inspired designs.
“For us, the inspiration behind specific collections is not generic but very differentiated and that precisely is a big part of what we communicate to consumers. There’s a huge design process that goes behind them- lots of trend studies and inspirations until we finally land on the product. Therefore, in the case of AI too, we came up with the relevant use case of bringing alive the inspirations behind the collections- nature, oceans and blossoms,” she added.
She also went on to add that the brand also felt that as compared to a normal shoot or a regular production, AI would be more effective in bringing alive the richness in the inspiration as well as the look and feel because it doesn’t have the constraints of a regular physical shoot.
“Separately, we have also used AI on both Google and Meta who have various AI-operated ad-serving platforms now as compared to the earlier times when these platforms were run manually by marketers. In cases where the ROI falls short, these AI-led platforms suggest not only which ad format should be served to which consumer, but also who is more likely to convert and therefore it has not just saved the man-hours put into these areas but has made it all more effective,” she pointed out.
She further emphasised that there is a very fast learning curve with regards to AI because AI output is a function of the input and depending on the clarity and quality of the input, the output will vary, but the way AI itself is developing and stabilising is very fast.
“Because AI is something that learns from existing human knowledge library, there are certain limitations such as certain biases that need to be worked on consciously by the human being who is interacting with it along with AI not being able to imagine everything, unlike human creativity and forward-looking innovativeness. AI is slightly more backward-looking,” she opined.
With this, she also suggested that going forward, the brand will also use AI tech integrations on other mediums of its media mix, just as they used it on social media this time, during different peaks such as Akshayatritiya and the festive period consisting of Dhanteras and Diwali.
Highlighting that Mia by Tanishq primarily targets the older Gen Zs and the younger millennials (22-35 years old) as a broad cohort, which to many marketers don’t seem to be a very loyal TA, Rakshit pointed out that Mia’s experience has been quite different as the brand has a very loyal clientele.
“In the recently conducted in-depth study of our loyalists, we figured out that one of the reasons why consumers keep coming back to us is that whenever they buy or wear a Mia product, it always stands out from their normal jewellery, because of the design edge that the brand has,” she said.
Unlike other categories, wherein the brand’s logo is used front right and centre and operating in the jewellery category, it is Mia by Tanishq’s design differentiation that becomes the brand identity, in her viewpoint.
“When you layer this design differentiation with very unique looking communication like that of using AI generated imagery that is both vibrant and different from other jewellery brands in the market, it instantly cuts through the clutter and there is a certain stickiness to it which helps in acquiring new consumers as well as gaining consumer mindshare substantiately,” she stated.
Apart from this, Mia by Tanishq also saw a much higher engagement on the AI-generated design inspiration posts than the normal benchmark along with a spike in the number of followers and media attention owing to the newly adopted approach.
“We are currently at the stage where we are exploring ways to make the story come alive through AI, but AI is just an option or one of the many creative approaches that we look at, but its not the only thing that the brand sees out there,” she said.
Upon being questioned as to how are the brand’s ad spends changing on a YoY basis, Rakshit replied that since ad spends is usually a function of the revenue, which in Mia’s case has been doubling YoY for the past few years, the ad budgets have witnessed significant growth.
“The majority of our sales still come from metros such as Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai, Hyderabad, etc. However, the highest growing markets for us are our tier II markets which include Indore, Lucknow, Patna, Ranchi, etc. We’re also expanding our footprint to more and more tier II and tier III markets this year which is why our short-term brand objective is to increase our in-store sales and strengthen drive-ins in terms of the store footfalls,” she stated.
In the long run, Mia’s objective is to become India’s leading fine jewellery brand, which is why telling the stories of the brand’s differentiated and inspired collections is extremely important.
