It's been a month since my first footfall in the apparel and textile sector as a serious industry watcher. My eyes more keen than ever as I now as much as glance at any shop or store or mall, terms like VM, CRM, POP, POS, brands, power brands, retailing … trip all over my mind in the true spirit of business as I critically appraise each product I touch, feel, and observe. After one such visit to a mall, following earnest discussions with a non-industry journalist friend I was slightly surprised at the vehemence with which he pronounced "branding is a hoax". His contention was that the hype that went with the brands and the price factor that was tagged along did not match up with the quality of products that were displayed. "There is not much of a difference in the quality of wares sold in these glitzy malls and those peddled in say Delhi's Sarojini Nagar market or Kolkata's New Market. Only the prices are steep and the name is one that might have lingered on in the mind. Branding comes across as mere hard-sell; it fails to stand up to me as quality," he concluded.
Is it?
Have our brands lived up to the promises made? What is our brand worth? The "hoax" word reminded me of a presentation that Martin Raymond, editor, Viewpoint, a Europewide trends, brands, futures, and lifestyle periodical, had to make at a recent seminar on branding strategies in New Delhi. He spoke of brand fatigue, and how expectations of consumers today far exceeds than what a product or brand is able to deliver. I quote Raymond: "It's no longer about what brands can do for you, but what you can do for them." This is the scenario in the West. But, in the Indian context where does the question of brand fatigue come in and has it already set in?
The TV explosion has also made the Indian consumer increasingly aware of the wares being hurled at her/him day in and out. The choice is aplenty. But, why doesn't any one brand stick out in any mind as being the brand of the nation? Why haven't we yet got a brand called 'Made in India'? We have just a couple of brands that hover around the Rs 100 crore figure in terms of turnover. And, even companies with multiple brands have not as yet reached the Rs 500 crore mark. The question that really nags me as a neutral observor is why have we as a nation of over one billion not been able to produce a single mass brand? Why not a single exclusive, top-of-the-line brand? The forces of globalisation and liberalisation have acquainted we the people with quality foreign brands, and we are now increasingly choosy and enormously demanding – demanding value for money. Will our home-grown brands live up to the expectations of the burgeoning consumer needs? Post 2005 the influx of foreign brands is expected to multiply. Are we geared to meet the challenges the lifting of the quota regime will deal us with?
Yes, 2003 had been an unbelievable year for India. India is shining. How much has our industry, the apparel segment, contributed to this sheen? What steps can it take to add lustre to the India-shining sheen? There's many a door of opportunities opening up for industry. In the first brand boom, retail space had come as a crunch. Now that we are talking of 35-40 million sq ft of quality retail space, the scope for branding as also for sales is huge. Then there are big international players looking askance at India as a buying house. Will we be able to meet the demands of quality, timelines? Are our back-end logistics in place?
We are a nation that prides itself on its intellectual strength. Can this positivity be reharnessed in the apparel sector too? China has worked like an automaton over the last so many years to take fullest advantage of the dismantling of quotas under the Global Agreement on Textile and Clothing post 2005. India has definitely lagged behind, though it is beginning to gird up its loins a tad late better late, I guess, than never.
We now more or less know the demands of 2004 – the challenge of facing head-on the competition from foreign brands, the challenge of not trying to beat China but learn and implement in our own frontyard the lessons it has failed, or at best is struggling in, the challenge of being able to be competitive resource providers of top international guns would necessarily entail quality control, streamlining back-end operations, using the latest manufacturing technology, etc, etc.
But, we also need to set our eyes farther than 2005; to look for markets beyond the existing markets but very much contained therein. For instance, there is the youth and then there is the 'rainbow youth' the gradually-being-ignored generation of 60+ boomers, the transgenerationals who will increasingly tap into the very brands we twenty, thirty, or forty somethings go for. At the other end of this spectrum is the generation born post 1984 or the 'sunshine teens', the forebearers of the 'I', 'me', 'we' brands.
Trendsters, forecasters predict the rise of a stronger individuality. Celebrities may well cease to enthrall us as much as say an Aamir Khan or a Shahrukh Khan. At the cost of being biased, may I say Amitabh Bachchan might to some extent continue to do so. The transgenerational, you see. The reason, forecasters ascribe, as to why celebrities might not be too successful at pushing a brand is because of the limelight syndrome that will give us the Me-brands or the I-brands that one will hear from one's friend and pass a word about it to the other, and so on and so forth. The shift from tinsel town has already occurred. It will only get stronger. Remember Lalitaji? She was the long-time-back precursor.
If the 'I' or 'me' is around, can 'we' be far behind? The mass class or in India today's term the mall class is revolutionising the middle market by driving it up, up and only up. This aspiring, discerning, affluent class seeks both exclusivity and quality, and thus lush luxuries will be available at two-third the price.
But, the trickiest question of all is: have we adequately equipped ourselves to track the rapidly changing consumer needs? Do we know what the consumer wants? Do we want to know what the consumer wants? Or, do we simply go out and dangle those tempting orange-red carrots, – remember they must be a rich, rich orange, grown in the best of soil with the latest technology and a humane harnessing of resources – sit back and watch how a brand plays on like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Simplistic this may sound, but perhaps the best ways to deal with increasing sophistication are neat, simple truths.
These are just random thoughts, but perhaps some thought will be given to the questions articulated. In the first of the series we present for you the brand visions of leading players in the business of fashion.
