The comeback brands

For about 18 months now, Maurizio Bonas, an Italian designer, has been visiting India to teach select tailors the secrets of Italian style and tailoring. So far, the 54-year-old Bonas, considered an “ambassador of the traditional suit craftsmanship”, has conducted 25 workshops in cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore, and taught about 35 tailors. It isn’t the Ministry of Textiles that has hired Bonas for the workshops, but Reliance Industries. Just why is the petrochemicals giant playing host to the Italian designer? Well, it’s part of Reliance’s plans to reinvent its textiles brand, Vimal, into a snazzy new vendor of high-quality, but mass market ready-to-wear clothes. The idea: offer Italian styling at Indian prices.

The first of the revamped Vimal stores opened in Ahmedabad in November last year, followed in quick succession by Bangalore and Mumbai—all within a space of a fortnight. By the end of 2008, Vimal, which was first launched by Reliance founder Dhirubhai Ambani in 1966 (and named after his elder brother’s son), will have 25 stores across 15 cities. Says Anand Parekh, President (Textiles Division), Reliance Industries: “Apart from the shift into the ready-to-wear segment, Vimal is now sharply focussed on young men in the 25-40 age group compared to earlier when there was no clearly defined target segment.”

Guess what? Vimal isn’t the only consumer brand of yore working on a comeback. Other marketers such as Arvind Mills (read: Flying Machine), Garden Silk Mills, Dixon Technologies (Weston), Hakoba and Safari Industries are dusting the cobwebs off their brands, revamping their content and packaging to make them contemporary, and sending them back into the battle for consumer rupees. “Flying Machine is being repositioned as a cuttingedge fashion brand and it is now pitted against the Diesels of the world,” says J. Suresh, CEO (Brands and Retail Division), Arvind Mills. “The idea is to create an iconic home-grown brand for the youth.”

High tide

What’s prompted the marketers to resurrect their brands? Blame it on the booming economy. With incomes rising and modern retail spreading, the opportunities for marketers have exploded. Take Reliance, for example. It has mammoth retail plans (under Reliance Retail) that entail selling everything from fruits and vegetables to apparel to consumer electronics. There are tremendous back-end synergies that the new Vimal and Reliance Retail’s apparel business can share. That apart, Vimal itself has 160 exclusive showrooms across the country that can be revamped to attract younger customers.

Also, importantly, Reliance’s textile unit in Naroda, which has been underutilised over the years due to the company’s focus on petrochemicals, will get a chance to revive itself. Says Anand Halve, Co-founder, Chlorophyll, a brand consultancy firm: “From Reliance’s perspective, it was a straightforward business decision to revitalise Vimal given the growth projections for the industry.”

Sanjay Lalbhai’s Arvind Mills has also sensed that shift, and sees the potential to grow its own brands. “The company’s own brands were not given their due and Flying Machine lost out towards the mid-1990s when Arvind got the franchise rights for Lee,” explains Suresh. As for Garden, its Chairman and Managing Director Praful Shah says that margins in the business had become so thin that the textile maker (best known for its polyester sarees) had no choice but to hunker down.

“In textiles worldwide, it’s survival at a very rudimentary level since margins are modest,” says Shah. But with the domestic market booming, he wants the Garden brand to regain its former glory. In the case of Dixon Technologies, better known for its Weston brand, it’s the growth in consumerism in smaller towns that is prompting it to attempt a comeback.

Will they fly again?

Having burnt their fingers once, these brands are approaching their comeback carefully. Weston, for example, is focussing on selling 14-inch and 21-inch televisions in B and C class towns of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab—segments and markets not adequately serviced by the bigger players. “A good 40 per cent of the television market is still made up of these models,” says Sunil Vachani, Chairman & MD, Dixon Technologies. Just because these are small-town consumers, Dixon isn’t trying to hawk plain vanilla TV sets. Among the product innovations it offers its consumers are builtin FM radio and DTH facility.

Safari, which once had a market share of nearly 18 per cent in the branded luggage segment, is lumbering back into the reckoning, but with a realistic plan. “Safari, as a brand, cannot really bite into the premium segment, so except for that, we will be present in all the segments—low end to economy—with focus on soft luggage,” says Amul Mehta, CMD, Safari Industries. That said, Safari will also launch in April the British luggage brand Antler in India.

In contrast to Safari, Hakoba is gunning for the top end of the market and plans to retail through exclusive outlets. “The aim is to dissociate ourselves from being a low- to mediumsegment brand and be known as a medium- to high-segment brand,” says Madhup Dokania, CEO, Hakoba Lifestyle. Accordingly, while its Clubwear collections— in tie-up with leading couturiers— are priced between Rs 600 and Rs 3,500, the menswear label, Born Rich, is to be retailed between Rs 600 and Rs 1,200. At the top end will be its occasional and bridal wear, starting from Rs 25,000 and going up to Rs 3 lakh. “In March, we will be launching a lingerie collection (branded About You), while another six months to one year down the road, we will be introducing home furnishings,” says Dokania. Surprisingly, the one brand that plans no change in its strategy is Garden, which built up its equity as a discounted brand for sarees. “We’ll sell directly to the customer, who remains the India woman,” says Shah.

Coming back after a hiatus is not without its challenges. “For one, the residual brand equity decays very fast,” says Halve of Chlorophyll. For another, taking on well-entrenched competition will not just take time, but money. Ergo, Flying Machine is talking of spending Rs 10 crore on advertising and endorsements (Abhishek Bachchan is the brand ambassador), Hakoba has set aside 10 per cent of its revenues this year for advertising, Dixon will invest Rs 5 crore in promoting the Weston brand, and even Safari plans to plough in Rs 4 crore on advertising in 2008-09.

Clawing back into the popular market won’t be easy, but these brands have one thing going for them: They’ve made their fair share of mistakes in the past and possibly are wiser for it.