Sunder Balasubramaniam on Myntra’s synergistic relationship with the creator ecosystem

Adgully’s AG Talk brings unfiltered insights and thoughts of CEOs, MDs, and CMOs, who have been leading the marketing landscape, and in fact, also laying the ground rules to keep up with the transformative times.

Myntra, the e-commerce fashion brand, hosted the third edition of Myntra FWD Creator Fest on November 15, 2024 at the Jio Convention Center in Mumbai, bringing together more than 500 creators from the fashion and lifestyle space. The Myntra FWD Creator Fest 2024 was a celebration of the contributions made by the creator ecosystem, honoring the creators and trendsetters who are driving the creator industry today. It led to conversations resonating with the GenZ audiences, setting newer trends, shaping new perspectives and more.

This edition also witnessed the comeback of Myntra Glammys, which is powered by Grazia. It saw the presence of influencers such as Orry, Urfi Javed, Vedang Raina, Zakir Khan, Saba Azad, Lisa Mishra, Munawar Faruqui, Bhumi Pednekar, Jacqueline Fernandez, Rhea Chakraborty, Arjun Kapoor and others. For the Creator Fest 2024, Myntra FWD collaborated with brands such as Viktor & Rolf, YouTube, CMF by Nothing, Fujifilm, Lakmē, Freakins, Schwarzkopf, etc.

The Myntra FWD Creator Fest provided a glimpse of the style trends dominating the Gen Z fashion space in 2025. The Myntra FWD initiative offers an immersive fashion experience targeted towards the GenZs on its platform.

In an exclusive AG talk interaction with Adgully, Sunder Balasubramaniam, CMO, Myntra, delves into the strategies employed by Myntra for enhancing engagement with GenZs, how brand collaborations and partnerships are shaping Myntra’s offerings, amplifying its reach among GenZ consumers, the trends that Myntra foresees in the future of GenZ fashion, how it is preparing to meet those demands and more.

How is Myntra tailoring its strategies to enhance engagement with GenZ and what unique approaches are being implemented to resonate with this audience?

I think GenZ as an audience base looks for very clearly tailored benefits from brands that are customized to what they look for. We learned that very early, which is why we launched FWD as a separate app for GenZ within the Myntra app so that we know what they want out of selection, out of experience, is very different.

We did not want to mix that with everything on Myntra, which is more millennial-focused. So, we created FWD and that was done middle of last year. Within FWD, our understanding of GenZ gave us three points of where things are different. The first one is the kind of fashion that they look for – GenZ looks for trends more than they look for brands or anything else. For them, wearing what is trending today is very important.

If you look at millennials, they would look at brands, especially international brands and D2C brands as markers of quality and then within them make choices for trends, whereas GenZ looks at trends first. So, that for us was the first and most important thing in how we showcase and curate the selection that we have. Thus, everything on FWD is trend first. Secondly, we know that GenZs are at a stage of life where their average order value or disposable income tends to be about 25% to 30% less than millennials. Therefore, price points are a little more important for them. For example, in women’s western wear, the average price point on the Myntra app would be around Rs 900-2,000, however, on FWD it would be closer to Rs 500. So, that’s the second part of how things would look different. The third one is the shopping experience itself.

GenZs prefer everything that is much more visual and a more video-based experience, with very strong creator influencer interface. So, three things are factored in as we look at everything GenZ. I think the good part of it is when we launched it last year, we had about 8 million GenZ customers, today that number has gone up to 16 million, doubling the GenZ consumer base within a year. So, that part has been interesting and exciting. Of course, there is huge headroom to grow among the GenZs. So, for us over the next few years, that’s a really big focus area.

What are the strategies that you have implemented to double the number of consumers?

We have customized the brand offerings to GenZ through trendy selections and value-based shopping experience, which is more visual and video-led. We basically took the offering of what we had and customized it for GenZ and, therefore, saw better traction with them.

What can be expected from the Myntra FWD Creator Fest 2024?

FWD Creator Fest 2024 is the third edition that we are doing. Myntra has always had a very strong synergistic relationship with the creator ecosystem, because it is about fashion, beauty and lifestyle. It lends these categories very well to the creator ecosystem. Creators are the ones who talk about everything new – from a trend perspective to their audiences across the country. So, we’ve always had strong relationships with creators. When we launched the first Creator Fest three years back, it was to celebrate this association between the brand and the creator ecosystem. This is the third year and I have been part of it all three years, thus it’s quite exciting for me.

This year, the slant is a little more different. As we are focusing on GenZs, we have made the Creator Fest also focus on GenZ, and that’s why it is called the FWD Creator Fest this time around. We have over 500 influencers, creators, and GenZ icons who will be coming together to celebrate everything GenZs, celebrate the relationship between Myntra and them.

With the constantly evolving preferences of GenZs, what trends does Myntra foresee in the future of fashion? And how is the platform preparing to meet these demands?

I think the interesting part about trends and GenZ is that it is ever-evolving. So, we get a sense of certain trends which will be there over time. But they believe a lot in pop culture trends, so that part of it will keep evolving. One of the trends that we are calling out as larger trends for next year is ‘Back to the Future’, which is everything with a little more nostalgia, with the 80s-90s vibe.

The second one, which is again GenZ-focused, everything from gaming related, from an OTT content consumption perspective is, what is called, a ‘Whimsical Fantasy’. That is important. The third one trend, which is much more sharply focused, is what we call ‘Alpha Feminine’, which is kind of questioning what the idea of feminism should be and how you explore the different facets of it. With GenZ, the reality is it will keep changing, that is an ever-evolving process that we will see next year.