Story has to be bigger than product when it comes to content, says Siddarth Menon of Epigamia

Being present in a category that promotes itself through ad blitzkrieg, Epigamia, a manufacturer of healthy yogurt, is probably the only brand that doesn't have mainstream advertising as its mainstay and is driving both engagement and sales through content marketing and branded content.

Having launched two seasons of ‘What the Folks’ with Pocket Aces along with brands such as Zoomcar and Pepperfry, the brand is telling its own story with #YourHappyBalance on social media platforms.  

With a belief of the story being bigger than the product, the brand has made the product category pretty interesting with content, elevating the whole category.

Siddarth Menon

In an interaction with BuzzInContent.com, Siddarth Menon, CMO, Epigamia, explained how the brand is planning to revamp its budget for content marketing and the ROI achieved with its content pieces.

The brand is already planning to go digital-heavy in coming years. A strong believer of content, Menon thinks content is the future and spends 95% of its digital budget on the medium. 

While it does a lot of content on its own channels on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, it has invested a lot more with publishers such as Pocket Aces also.

The brand is currently focusing more on building awareness around the product with its #YourHappyBalance digital campaign on social media platforms.    

The brand first came up with its first web series along with Pocket Aces in 2017, and then again in 2018. Menon said branded content with publishers helps widen the reach among the engaged audience. 

“We believe in working with publishers that have an engaged audience and web series is something where we can integrate our product and call out some of the brand and category drivers in the story. It gives us an immense amount of reach since they have huge distribution. Also, they have an engaged audience. We get reach and frequency. We come up with different product stories at least five to 10 times a month. All products and categories come to life with these stories in an exciting storytelling format. The audience is exposed to the brand in a month at least five to six times,” he said.

This year, the brand will focus more on telling its own stories via its own channels.  He added, “This year we are doing a lot of advertising as we want to build awareness. We want to call out openly our brand story. But we are committed to do more content as we go forward.”

The brand has an internal team that manages the content along with creative agency Rasta, which drives execution. The brand has been working with the agency for four years to drive its digital content.

Asked how difficult it is to create content around a product category like Yogurt, Menon said, “I think it's a question of ambition. The space of content is so vast. You should not be bound by categories. Content is where you can drive your brand. And as long as you have a good brand story, you should not be bound by categories.  It is like piggy-backing on some hooks like culture. We have to realise the story has to be bigger than your product. The audience wants the story.”

Having worked with a lot of food influencers, Menon said it has become important to stay true to the platform and influencers. “If you are sharing something on Instagram, it has to be visually inspiring, whereas Facebook asks for more interesting stories. Brands need to be authentic to the platforms and should go for relevant influencers who can well represent the products.”