10 strategic design principles for launching a DTC brand in India

New Delhi: In India, brands have been cutting out the middleman for some time.

The DTC market is projected to be worth a whopping $300 bn by 2030: it’s dynamic, noisy and full of potential. Indian consumers have taken full advantage of improved digital connectivity and smartphone access, and are better connected to brands than ever before. Smart businesses are looking to capitalise.

But the scale of opportunity makes for a crowded and competitive market. Brands looking to make a name for themselves don’t just launch products: they design brand ecosystems that shape behaviours and resonate with audiences from day one.

Here’s how the most intentional founders and brand leaders can combine business strategy with design thinking to create brands that are loved by audiences and drive strong commercial growth as a result.

Consider brand a business imperative

Brand should be thought of as a business lever. It’s how your business behaves and how it’s perceived; it’s what you stand for, and it’s often the reputation that precedes you. In India’s saturated DTC market, thoughtful brand design inspires connection and trust, which in turn drives audience engagement. 

Take Dot & Key. It didn’t just design packaging: it made skincare feel playful and trustworthy by reinforcing a promise of science-led care through every detail and design cue. The lesson for DTC founders is to look at codifying your DNA across your brand voice, values and visual system; treat the brand as a way to express your business ambition, not just as a vehicle for decoration. 

Challenge, don’t clone

The most disruptive DTC brands provoke, polarise and punch above their weight, and feel differentiated as a result. boAt didn’t just timidly enter the audio space: it rewrote category codes with swagger and scale. Think about how you might design tension into your brand. Ask what conventions you’re breaking – and how you’re demonstrating that tension or friction at every touchpoint.

Make it personal 

Your origin story is a powerful way to humanise the business and create relatability. The Whole Truth made their founder’s personal journey integral to every narrative thread, from product through to packaging. Bake your ‘why’ into the user journey. Let founder-led storytelling guide your brand book, pitch decks and launch comms. Does the product you’re selling solve a challenge that your founder once faced? If so, dial it up. By putting your product in a real-life context, you’re more likely to forge a strong emotional connection with consumers.

Design for consumers tomorrow, not just today

India’s Gen Z audiences are cause-driven, digitally fluent and emotionally perceptive. But their thinking and preferences change quickly. They learn from and respond to their environment and situation quickly. Brands need to evolve in line with their thinking and values. Brands like Minimalist have always been one step ahead of the consumer, starting with ingredient transparency, and maturing into clinical, efficacy-led skincare as their audience aged.

Track behavioural shifts and design for lifestyle progression, rather than for a fixed persona.

Create communities, not just campaigns

In an increasingly disconnected world, a sense of community can be a powerful thing for brands. Take Slurrp Farm: it built a loyal tribe of health-conscious parents not through ads, but through shared education, storytelling and a foundation of peer-to-peer trust. 

Build opportunities for co-creation, UGC loops and community-driven brand rituals (those shared actions or moments that bring your brand to life within society) into your strategy, and turn customers into brand advocates as a result.

Let insights shape the idea, as well as the aesthetic

The best DTC ideas are born from unspoken truths – nuggets of insight that haven’t yet surfaced. Nua, for example, didn’t just launch a femcare line—it provided a solution for rash anxiety, subscription inconsistency and discomfort around the disposal of sanitary pads.

Nua’s team opted for insight-led innovation over intuition alone; they identified unspoken pain points and presented a novel solution. By putting ethnographic research at the heart of product design, messaging hierarchy and UX design, you’re likely to build a brand that feels distinctive and that really offers something new.

Design for an omnichannel world

As your audience shifts from Millennials to Gen Z and Gen Alpha, your brand needs to think like a digital native. That doesn’t mean just launching online. It means building with a digital-first mindset, where scroll-stopping content and UX are second nature. But remember: even digital natives live IRL.

Sugar launched with scroll-stopping social media content before expanding into retail with experience-led design. Glossier grew cult love online, then scaled with iconic, omnichannel-ready product packaging like Balm Dotcom. 

Both brands understood that omnichannel wasn’t about presence: it was about presence with intent. Stress-test your brand in multiple contexts. Does your visual identity flex across Instagram reels, shelves and kiosks? Where are there untapped opportunities to meet and engage with your target audience?

Omnichannel isn’t about being everywhere; it’s about showing up with intent, wherever your audience is.

Start with a hero product – and make it iconic

Great brands don’t launch portfolios. They launch statement pieces or products. Sleepy Owl started with a single cold brew SKU: smartly branded and crafted, with distinctive packaging. D’you did the same with Hustle, a multi-functional science-backed serum that’s marketed with conviction. Your hero product is critical. Nail the name, narrative and packaging; make it shareable before making it scalable.

Build for agility

In DTC, the ability to iterate will give you a strategic advantage. Anveshan quickly shifted from marketplaces to DTC, redesigning their packaging and embedding brand storytelling into the product journey. They didn’t wait for the perfect moment or product: they mastered the art of the pivot.

Create design systems that scale fast. Incorporate audience testing, quick pivots and feedback loops into your product and brand development plan.

Break category conventions.

The best DTC brands don’t just stand out: they stand for something. They take cues from outside the category and reframe them. 

Klarna made payments look like fashion; Zouk reimagined Indian craftsmanship as daily utility.  Hyphen stood apart by fusing self-care with science and social intelligence.

Borrow from culture, not just your competitors; the worlds of tech, fashion and media can be used to inspire your brand codes and set you apart.

In short, design isn’t decoration: it’s direction. The DTC brands that thrive in India aren’t merely beautiful and well-crafted. They’re built on insight and designed to scale. If you're building a DTC brand today, be strategic, be intentional and be memorable. Because while the market is crowded, the opportunity to cut through is immense.

About Conran Design Group

Conran Design Group is Havas’ global brand and design network, with studios in Mumbai, London, Paris, New York, Mexico City and Dubai.