Marketing designs across corporates visualize the life cycle of a product, create value and sustain market position, thus enhancing the product. Finding these revenue-making models for sales generally repetitive in nature, JCK India details the unique marketing strategies that Indian jewelry companies adopt. With so many jewelry brands in the market, each one is acquiring unconventional brand-building exercises to grab shelf space. As an average Indian looks upon jewelry as an investment, each of these brands is making a conscious effort to be in the consumers’ mind.
Marketing creates the need for the product, makes sure the customer base is made aware of the valuable quality of the product. It also creates a curious urgency so that sales personnel find it easy to sell.
Well-known marketing gurus, Al and Laura Ries in their book, ‘The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding: How to Build a Product or Service into a World-Class Brand’ write, “Marketing is building a brand in the mind of the prospect. If you can build a powerful brand, you will have a powerful marketing program. If you can’t, then all the advertising, fancy packaging, sales promotion and public relations in the world won’t help you achieve your objective.”
Indian jewelry brands like Tara, Sangini, Adora and Damas have unique and successful ways of marketing themselves. They have been able to influence the jewelry market and are known for their innovative ways. Tara has been sending printed flyers, Sangini has tied up with HPCL petrol pumps, Adora has launched a customer reward program and Damas is opening retail outlets at airports. With their unique marketing strategies, the corporates are aiming for goals not thought of before, not just celebrity endorsements and PR activities.
Tara
Asli Heera, Asli Daam
‘Tara — Asli Heera, Asli Daam,’ (TAHAD) is a marketing strategy of Tara Group of Companies. With an export turnover in excess of Rs 650 crore, the company launched its innovative marketing strategy a year ago.
Rajeev Sheth, CMD, Tara Group of Companies explains that, “TAHAD is a strategy where we use standard flyers or booklets to advertise our products. Distributed at exhibitions and outside cinema halls or multiplexes, these standard flyers have pictures of jewelry like rings, earrings, mangal sutras and bangles laid out on it”.
Each piece of jewelry has a corresponding code number and karat specifications along with the pricing. There are two numbers — a mobile and landline number. A customer can either send an SMS on the mobile number or call up at the company call centre with the code number. The SMSes and calls are received by the company’s call centre. An agent, trained to be a jeweler, then goes personally to the costumer’s home to deliver their desired piece of jewelry. A customer can also go to the factory or the distribution centre to pick up the jewelry.
The jewelry comes packed with a certificate of authenticity clearly stating the quality of diamonds and gold used. The diamonds are all white SI. The gold used is 18k. An international laboratory certifies this jewelry.
Key Features
The jewelry on sale is machine-made. Dyes of traditional jewelry designs exist and nothing is redesigned for the Indian market. All the jewelry as well as the diamonds are cut, polished and manufactured solely by Tara. A DTC sightholder, Tara manufactures the diamond jewelry at Navsari in Gujarat. The jewelry ranges from Rs 500 to a maximum of Rs 20,000.
When the agent comes to show the jewelry at a customer’s house, he/she has the option of not buying it. Even a week after the purchase, the jewelry can be returned with a 100 percent refund.
Everything is worked out in such a way that when the jewelry is given back even after two years and the gold prices have risen, the customer can get market value that may be more than what he actually paid. The company assures the customers that even if gold prices slide, they would pay the difference.
Sheth points out that “We do not use the standard marketing procedures nor do we use the media in any form to advertise our products. The flyers cost Rs 1.25 paisa per copy and around 50 lakh copies are distributed in a month. Organizing exhibitions cost Rs 5000 in Chandigarh for the time span of one week”. In Mumbai, it costs about Rs 3000 for a day. Jewelry here has a rough mark-up of around 25 percent. An agent gets around 10 percent of the sale. The company makes the balance 15 percent.
Far-Reaching idea
TAHAD was initiated with the intention of reaching into the interiors in rural India. Says Sheth: “People in the smallest village in our country should have the opportunity of buying jewelry even after possessing the capacity for the same.”
The 12 cities where TAHAD is available include Agartala, Agra, Chandigarh, Delhi, Vadodara, Surat, Pune, Mumbai, Goa, Guwahati, Kochi and Karnal. Business in the last two cities is catching up while business is brisk in Agartala, Chandigarh, Pune, Mumbai and Goa. “Though I don’t want to disclose the figures, we have sold far more jewelry in places like Goa and Chandigarh than we did in Mumbai. Chandigarh alone is almost 50 percent of the entire sale”, states Sheth.
Almost a year in operation now, ‘Tara-Asli Heera, Asli Daam’ has touched a volume of business way beyond its expectations.
Sangini
Markets diamond jewelry at petrol pumps
In February 2006, Spectrum Jewellery Pvt. Ltd—a 50:50 joint venture between Gitanjali Group and Sanghavi exports—was taken over by Sangini Diamond Jewellery, the brand initially launched in India by DTC in the year 2004.
Sangini has revolutionized the marketing of diamonds. Recently, the brand opted to market diamond jewelry at Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL) petrol pumps. Mehul Modh, CEO, Sangini states, “HPCL has a good distribution network and their outlets record some of the highest footfalls among all other petroleum outlets.” HPCL has a turnover in excess of Rs 60,000 crore and a pan-India presence with petrol pumps in each nook and corner of the country, which assures the corporate a good business reach.
Plan of Action
As part of the marketing program, Sangini will provide training to the franchisees, who are the owners of the participating petrol pumps. In accordance with this, the price of products will range from Rs 1000 to Rs 2 lakh.
The company already has a presence in HPCL pumps in Pune and Kolkata. The other cities where this program is to be implemented include Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bhubaneswar.
Over the next one year, some 40 exclusive Sangini stores will be rolled out across the country targeting about 30 percent of its sales through the HPCL network.
Just two months down the line and sales in Kolkata have already reached a whopping Rs 10 lakh, recording a gross profit of Rs 2 lakh. As far as the outlet in Pune is concerned, the sales are as high as Rs 3 lakh in one month.
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When it comes to your image, are you hitting hard or striking out?
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By Kim T. Gordon
1. Differentiate your brand. Branding is all about sending a strong and consistent message.
2. Promise value. Once you know what separates your product or service from its competitors, you can redefine your brand message so that it resonates with your best prospects.
3. Be a market leader. Delivering on this value proposition over the long term not only means your company will live up to its branding efforts, but it will also make you a marketplace leader.
4. Integrate your messages. Every customer interaction with your brand must be uniform.
Source: http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/marketing/market_research/5_easy_steps_to_create_a_marketing_plan.mspx
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Adora
Know Your Customer
Adora Diamond Jewellery has emerged as one of India’s fastest growing jewelry brands with a retail network of 130 outlets in 49 cities. M Suresh Company Pvt. Ltd, a DTC sightholder, promotes the brand.
“Marketing innovations have always been the key to Adora’s success,” says Prabir Chatterjee, managing director, Adora. The service orientation of Adora is centered on the ‘Know Your Customer’ approach. One of the key steps in this direction is Adora’s unique Customer Reward Programme (CRP).
Rewarding Consumers
The CRP entitles every customer of an authorized Adora retail outlet to a complimentary Adora Preferred Card (APC). Members of the Adora Preferred Plan (APP) are awarded points that can be redeemed against future purchases of Adora jewelry from any authorized outlet in India.
What makes the APC plan unique is that existing members are also awarded bonus points for referring their friends and relatives to the company. In fact, friends and relatives too are rewarded bonus points for coming in as referrals of existing members.
This kind of customer reward program is probably the first-ever in India’s retail industry. “We understand the necessity and the bottom-line advantage of broadening and deepening our customer focus,” says Chatterjee.
Adora has transformed the jewelry retail infrastructure through its novel vertical kiosk display. These Internet-enabled, interactive kiosks are installed at selected Adora locations. Through these kiosks, customers can window-shop, send enquiries, browse through the Adora catalogue, participate in customer reward programs and send suggestions. This unique concept has found its way into the Limca Book of Records.
Damas Flemingo
A Joint Venture between two conglomerates
Intro: Flemingo Jewellery India Pvt. Ltd is the JV between Damas Jewellery LLC and the Flemingo Group, with Damas owning a 51 percent in the company.
Several studies have indicated that marketing channels in Asia are different from those in the USA and European countries. Innovations in marketing strategies give visibility, sustenance and added value to
the product. Damas Jewellery LLC and Flemingo Group’s joint venture is an ideal example of following different policies to suit different geographical locations. The objective of this association is to jointly market jewelry and luxury-watch brands in duty free areas, like airports. The company plans to launch outlets at the Jaipur, Trivandrum and Chennai airports.
Accordingly, Damas will offer its in-house gold jewelry brands like ‘Harmony’ and ‘Legacy’ among its diamond brands at these international airports. These outlets will carry the brand name of Damas.
About the companies
Damas, the UAE-based conglomerate, has operations in six countries with 127 retail locations and one manufacturing and selling division. It also jointly controls companies in India, Dubai, Kuwait, Maldives and in the United Arab Emirates. Damas’ annual revenue in 2005 was more than Rs 3,200 crore.
Flemingo International is a UAE-based duty free trading company and operates 25 shops at the international arrival and departure terminals across 12 international airports in India.
In Africa, Flemingo has a marked presence with 15 outlets in Burundi, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania. Anaggh Desai, CEO, Damas India informs that “Commencement of business at Thiruvananthapuram airport will be followed by the launch of retail outlets at Chennai and Jaipur airports consecutively.”