It’s in the bag

BY IMPACT Staff

Adopting a youthful and energetic approach for marketing communication, Manish Vyas, Vice President – Marketing, VIP Industries Limited is not only trying to maintain VIP’s leadership position in the category but is also building his portfolio strength by upping the ante of other brands like Alfa and Skybags.

With your recent VIP commercial you seem to have tried to look younger and bring the fun element into your communication.

We’ve been highlighting product innovations since couple of years now. In 2009 we associated with Shahid Kapoor for highlighting water- and dust-resistant bags. Subsequently we launched lightweight bags with the help of a cartoon character so that we could look more young and energetic.

In our current commercial we wanted to highlight the benefit of four-wheeling, our new innovation, keeping in mind the convenience in airport travel. We wanted the commercial to shake up the consumer to look at the innovation light-heartedly.

O&M is your new creative partner with this 0commercial.

Yes. We had Lowe as our creative agency and Ambience Publicis for a short one year period. We had a new strategy business plan and therefore we moved all our brands to O&M which is now our category partner.

What was this strategic change and why this shift of agency?

We had decided to go out with a portfolio of brands with a clear and distinct positioning for each of them. VIP was already there with Publicis but we were looking for creative partners for our other brands. We found some synergy with O&M for our brands. Also, we wanted to maintain distinction between all our brands so that they can co-exist in the market and serve respective segments. So we thought it was far more meaningful to have one agency for all the brands and that is when we moved all our brands to O&M.

Skybags was launched at a lower segment, probably countering the brand American Tourister. Can you give an idea about the positioning of your other brands? How do they co-exist?

When we went ahead with our new marketing programme, we did a bit of segmentation in the category. We started with Carlton which is our international brand. We rolled it in April across India positioning at the premium end of the category. So it will basically be our lifestyle, international and fashion offering to our consumers in India with premium pricing and distribution. Carlton was owned by us internationally but we were not launching it in India as we were distributing Delsey here. We discontinued Delsey and saw far more potential in Carlton and it is giving us faster results than the earlier brand in the first few months itself.

As for VIP, it will remain our mass premium offering but focusing on the younger generation, especially in the age of 25-30 and we’ll try to keep it relevant for this segment. However, these consumers today are far more exposed to trends and fashion and they would not want to own a brand which their parents might have owned. So we also felt that we needed a distinct brand which would completely focus towards these consumers and later develop style consciousness in the category. We already had the brand Skybags and we positioned it as affordable style offering which has a big business opportunity. The purpose of the Skybags brand is to make style an important factor while selecting luggage and obviously keeping it affordable. As far as competition is concerned, yes, American Tourister has been trying to make its place for last three to four years. I think with more organised competition and more money being spent on establishing luggage brands in the category, the better it is for the overall category.

You also have Alfa, how is it placed?

Yes, Alfa is one of our old brands and it is now the size of Rs 100 crore plus. Our objective of this brand is quite different from the rest of the portfolio. It plays a critical role in converting the unorganised purchases to branded and quality purchases. Around 70 per cent of the category is unorganised where people buy unbranded, local or Chinese brands. Alfa offers hard luggage with upright trolleys which is a unique innovation in the category that too with seven years’ warranty at affordable price points. This is working very well; in fact the rest of the branded players are catching up with similar innovations. We are targeting the rural and semi-urban markets. It is not taking business away from VIP or other branded players, but is converting consumers from the lower end of the market and growing the overall pie.

What would be your share in the entire pie?

There is no syndicated data on the industry however, it should be around Rs 3000-4000 crore in size and as I mentioned anywhere between 60 – 70 per cent of this is unorganised. All brands put together we would have a share of 65 per cent of the organised market. Out of this, majority of share is of VIP followed by Alfa, Aristrocrat and then Sky bags. Carlton and Sky bags will cover the share at premium and metro end and even the Rs 2000-3000 price bracket as we call it.

Luggage brands also have to compete with lifestyle brands these days.

Yes, because at the premium end, except Samsonite, there are very few brands that are only into luggage. Samsonite is also getting into other lifestyle products. It is a kind of a logical extension of any lifestyle brand to be into luggage. There are brands like Reebok, Adidas, Nike, Fastrack, etc which are now included in this category. Also newer categories like backpacks and duffels have come in, increasing the size of the category.

There have also been many premium brands that entered the Indian luggage market but could not do really well for themselves. For example, Giordano had to exit the luggage category as it did not do well. We are more than happy if more competition comes and develops this premium end of the market because we can always benefit over a period of time from that.

When you took charge of VIP in 2010, what brand positioning did you want to solidify?

When I joined, VIP had a distinct positioning of an innovation led product enabling happy journeys. However what we were struggling at that time was to get a consistent format, an interesting communication highlighting our benefits and building youthfulness around the brand. We tried to do that through a cartoon animated film with the aim of making the brand more happening, trendy and youthful.

The rest of our brands were under-nurtured and were not being utilised to take care of the competition and growing opportunities of the Indian market. For example, Skybags was only sold in supermarkets, it was not sold through other distribution channels; Alfa was not advertised since 2003. We were selling Delsey as distribution partners and as we did not have longterm commitment we did not make investments in building that brand, and competition gained from it. We had Carlton, which was ironically an international brand owned by an Indian but not rolled out in India. Brand Footlose which was targeted towards youth was also not being promoted. So, all these issues needed to be addressed. Fortunately when I joined, we were doing well and had the financial support to invest in resources and brand building. So I think a combination of good strategy and right resources at the right time has put our brand print in place. And I’m sure this will go a long way in deciding the future of not only our company but the entire category.

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Tags : CMO Interview