The Aditya Birla Group textile brands: This is the category that I have probably had the longest association with (about 20 yrs) , starting with developing branding for Birla Cellulosic at Quadra Advisory, when Shunu Sen was called in to provide strategic assistance. Then at mConsult, my team worked on the Linen Club brand of men’s pure linen fabrics and onward to my work as an independent consultant with acrylic fibre and yarn. 

 

The category of men’s wear and luxury is clearly booming and getting more complex with many new brands chasing the boom. It is no longer as simple as using price bands to distinguish brands and relying upon smart sourcing to turn a profit. 
 
The Linen Club Brand Strategy project was a comprehensive development of the Branding Strategy and Marketing Plan. While the business had grown organically through its EBO partners, the brand team wanted to have a clear Brand Strategy to drive higher growth and prepare for emerging competition from other Indian and Chinese brands. They wanted to know what the central marketing team should invest in to create brand preference and equity. 

 

Along with Mr. Thomas Varghese’s marketing team, we dived into learning how men shop! We rummaged through their wardrobes and stared at them in-store. In-depth qualitative assessment gave exciting insight into the consumer purchase journey. It was interesting to see the interaction with the spouse vs. the interaction with friends during the shopping experience. We found out how a man chooses what to wear! To a corporate presentation/ a press meet/ family function…… In addition to the in-depth qualitative understanding across markets, we carried out an extensive quantitative habits & practices study which helped answer the question “How many types of Indian men are there?” We, of course, then found what the key attributes were that drove their brand choices. Just the interplay of demographics, i.e. SEC , city type and region, threw up very different attitudes to dressing. Bringing in psychographic parameters added additional layers. 

 

All the learning was taken into the intensive Brand Visioning Workshop which was among the most fun ones I have run. With the able support of Abhinav and Shruti, we had a large cross-functional group in the session, including external partners. The wide variety of participants added to the richness of output as well as the experience. We had multiple apparel segments represented amongst the participants themselves. 

 

The Linen Club target consumer pen portrait emerged from all this, as did the brand positioning statement. This sat at the heart of the strategy. The “emerging affluent male who is waking up to the finer things in life and seeking advice on the same” is a segment that throws up varied activation platforms.
 
How to ensure every guy in the target segment here has at least one Linen Club white in his wardrobe? 

How can the brand assist in developing socialising skills for these men? 

How should the store interior be designed to drive camaraderie?

What other category partnerships will help surround this consumer?

 

Of course, we went on to define the business nuts and bolts: the store performance metrics (EBO vs. MBO), the overall Communication plan, Consumer Initiatives and Budgets. 

 

I am sure today, with the 15+ apparel and luxury brands the group has acquired, they must have now developed a much more layered segmentation of the Indian male to map all of them. But the first one is always such great fun.