Hello 👋 !

Hope you made good use of your weekend and are all charged up for the 3-day work week 😂

We apologize to subscribers who received our last newsletter twice due to some tech glitch at Substack’s end. We didn’t intend to spam your inbox more than we already do.

Over the weekend, we came across an interesting take on advertising, especially relevant for brands focusing on millennials and the Gen Z:

Rather than just focusing on the model of ads made popular by Mad Men i.e. emotional inception (seeding positive memories and feelings that influence audience’s behavior over time to encourage it to buy something), brands should focus on cultural imprinting (how a consumer is perceived by others when she uses the product. Does use of the Product "say" something about her.) Even household products send cultural signals, insofar as they'll be noticed when she invites friends over to her home. Curious to execute this principle? Read here.

We agree, everyone wants to talk about how woke they are.

Let’s now jump to the D2C updates in India.

What’s in the news? 🗞️

🚀 India’s super-app is live

Tata Neu (Think of a digital mall  -  A place where you can buy anything you want, make payments, entertain and educate yourself), India’s counterpart to China’s WeChat (🤔) is finally live. With Tata being the title sponsor of the IPL 2022, Neu has already received much traction, reaching 1 mn+ downloads already on the Play Store.

For Tata Neu, Tata Digital had acquired several companies, including 1mg, BigBasket, CureFit, etc. We can only wait and watch how Neu competes with highly specialized apps catering to very specific verticals e.g. Amazon/Flipkart for e-comm, Zomato/Swiggy for food delivery, GPay/PayTM for payments.

More importantly, how will Neu drive a unified experience across all categories it has aggregated. Toughest product UX design job in India IMO.

🌸Showering Phool with money

Alia-Bhatt backed Phool.co raised USD 8 mn in funding (INR 60 cr.) from Sixth Sense Ventures, with existing investors also participating in the round. India’s first biomaterial brand Phool, focuses on under-penetrated home fragrances industry. Phool uses floral waste collected from dumped temple waste in rivers, to make free luxury incense products. It is now working on leather made from flowers.

As per Forbes, Phool is India’s first D2C wellness brand to obtain the coveted Fair for Life-Fairtrade, and Ecocert Organic & Natural certifications.

Want to explore the scope of business in Circular Economy. Read this article.

🥂Make a clink to Jimmy’s success

Jimmy’s Cocktails, offering ready-to-drink cocktail mixers, raised USD 1.8 mn (INR 14 cr.) in a funding round led by Roots Ventures, and others including Shiprocket’s Vishesh Khurana & Mamaearth’s Varun Alagh. The startup plans to use the funding to expand via an omnichannel approach, including on-premise, QSR touchpoints. Jimmy has already cracked the quick delivery with Zepto and Blinkit.

According to a Statista report, the market for non-alcoholic drinks is USD 11 bn in 2022.

PS: Did you check out Bira’s new limited collection of beers meant for desi taste buds?

👩‍🎤 Celebrity brands

• Cricketer KL Rahul invests in Men’s innerwear and loungewear brand XYXX.

• Actor Varun Dhawan invests in Cloud-kitchen operator Curefoods. Curefoods’ competitor Rebel Foods, might be bummed with the news and is trying some luxury chocolate SMOOR, in which it acquired a majority stake.

🍪 D2C Bites

• A brand we have been stalking for long for its social media game- WickedGud a clean label guilt-free comfort food brand raised USD 1 mn as seed funding .

• Good news on National Pet Day, Pet-care WAGR raised INR 4.2 cr. funding.

• Micro VC fund 100X.VC unveiled 10 startups that are part of its 7th cohort Class. The list includes D2C brands Pilk and Papa Pawsome.

• E-commerce platforms Rozana, NE Origins, Dyte got funding.

Brands that caught our eye! 🧿

🍝 Mamma Mia….They’re not joking

WickedGud (same brand mentioned twice the newsletter?) un-junks pasta by making the raw pasta from natural ingredients like Chickpea, Lentils, Buckwheat etc. The pasta is claimed to be gluten-free, vegan and high in protein fibre. Pasta has just been made healthy!

🐪 Gateway to the Indian Decor

LalHaveli is a handicraft company bringing the best of Rajasthani decor products made by expert craftspersons in Villages of India. Check out their lamps, Chowki, trays etc. Awesome stuff!

Trend: Personal care appliances 🪒

The increasing influence of beauty industry trends on millennials to maintain their overall appearance is driving the expansion of Personal Care Appliances Market in India. It was valued at over USD 20 bn in 2020 and is anticipated to register a CAGR of more than 5.5% between 2021 and 2027.

Personal care appliances include electric devices used for grooming, beautification and personal hygiene such as hair dryer, hair straightener, hair styler, trimmer, power shaver, epilator, massagers and powered toothbrush. Here’re few Indian D2C brands leading this category:

Reads & Recommendations 🤓

1. Finding the language/market fit for your brand.

2. Bad v. good marketing copy.

3. How to make your marketing copy less complicated.

4. Need visuals for your ad creative/social game?

   Sachin Ramje 🚢 @SachinRamje

   THREAD: The 13 Best Sites for Royalty Free Images in 2022:

   March 1st 2022

   736 Retweets3,629 Likes

That’s all for this week!

Hope your up-coming long weekend plans are ready! Really looking forward to this 3 day work week (did we mention that twice too?).

Also, Happy National Pet Day! Here’s our pet, yawning on a Monday Morning…

Stay tuned for more insights about the D2C ecosystem in India.

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