Atul Chand
Divisional Chief Executive ITC's Lifestyle Retailing Business Division
Wills Lifestyle has made great advances in bringing the best of fashion through craftsmanship
ITC's Lifestyle Retailing Business Division has established a nationwide retailing presence through Wills Lifestyle and John Players. Atul Chand, Divisional Chief Executive, ITC'S Lifestyle Retailing Division, shares branding strategies employed at the company and the expansion plans of its premium fashion brands.
What is the target for 2020 for ITC's Lifestyle Retailing Division?
The target for 2020 is to make John Players and Wills Lifestyle the foremost consumer experience brands in their own segments. To grow at a CAGR of 15-20 per cent and get to more markets and expand our footprint to make fashion accessible to the Tier II and III markets of the country. Some of the core focus areas would be footprint expansion, brand building initiatives and innovating on product portfolio offering best of products for our ever-evolving consumers.
What kind of brand engagement activities have you employed on digital ecosystems?
With the re-definition of the marketing paradigm and the arrival of the digital era, Wills Lifestyle and John Players have championed the digital movement as a game changer in the category. The brands have been consistently delivering greater buzz and engagement blending in fashion and technology for a greater connect with digitally savvy consumers of today. Both brands together have a vibrant social media community of 16 lakh followers which add to the brand's conversations on a daily basis.
Wills Lifestyle has been a pioneer in bringing New Age initiatives to consumers. The brand has leveraged the association of Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week exceedingly well on the digital front, from first-ever celeb tweets (by Gul Panag) live from the venue, to RFID technology at the event to drones capturing the moments on the ramp. Recently, the brand's #WillsRockTheRamp (360 selfie booth) campaign won Silver and Bronze at the Goafest'15 and #WillsFashionTag campaign at WIFW won Gold in the event-based PR category at The Times of India, Big Bang Awards 2014.
On the other hand, John Players with its slew of digital initiatives to bring celebrity content has been a front runner amongst youth brands. From Hrithik's new cool moves video, Ranbir's New Face of Cool campaign to owning recent Friendship Day on Twitter with #ThoseFriendsWho campaign and #Buddiez activation, John Players has been making waves across digital media platforms.
What kind of expansion has taken place in the past five years?
Wills Lifestyle, with its high fashion imagery and premium retailing ambience, has expanded to over 100 exclusive stores across 40 cities and more than 400 shop-in-shops in leading, large format stores and multibrand outlets. Wills Lifestyle also continues its group synergies with presence in ITC Hotel's premium properties that cater to high-end business and leisure travellers. The brand has boutique stores in ITC Maurya in New Delhi, ITC Gardenia in Bengaluru, ITC Mughal in Agra, ITC Grand Central and ITC Maratha in Mumbai and ITC Grand Chola in Chennai.
John Players, being a youth brand in the mid-priced segment, is available in 400+ exclusive stores and 1600+ multibrand outlets and large format stores. The brand has created multiple formats for John Players EBOs for a superior consumer experience over the years and has also launched John Players Jeans exclusive store with a denim-focused retail identity which is more edgy and contemporary, catering to younger customers.
What have been the achievements across retail brands at ITC in the last five years?
In the last five years, we have created new benchmarks towards bringing premium products to consumers, connecting with them through stronger brand initiatives, enhancing availability of our products through a wider retail and trade footprint. Listed below are key moments from this journey of the last few years.
Launched in 2000, Wills Lifestyle stands for the core values of elegance, sophistication and exclusivity. Wills Lifestyle became the title partner of the country's most premier fashion event - India Fashion Week - the largest business-to-business platform for the fashion design industry. Working with the best designers in India, it championed the ramp-to-rack initiative making exclusive designerwear available to its clients. For nearly a decade the Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week created benchmarks and remained the most revered fashion event in India and the largest in Asia.
The collaborative range of designerwear through this initiative is sold across our Wills Lifestyle stores as Wills Signature. The range offers an exquisite expression of styles created by India's leading designers - Rohit Bal, JJ Valaya, Pankaj & Nidhi, Ritu Kumar, Rohit Gandhi & Rahul Khanna and more.
Wills Lifestyle has made great advances in bringing the best of fashion delivered through top notch craftsmanship to customers over the years, be it luxurious formalwear, vibrant relaxedwear or chic eveningwear. The Luxuria range is the top-of-the-line formal offering from the brand along with Ecostyle range of pure linens and organic cottons. Wonder Press range has wrinkle-free shirts and special finishes of Coolmax and Thermolite.
The relaxedwear line of the brand, Wills Sport, has been revitalised with the launch of the new Wills Sport logo in 2014. The new logo has been put on all casual merchandise adding spiritedness and vibrancy to the fastest growing category of casuals and denims. Women's westernwear is a rapidly growing category for the brand encapsulating soft tailoring along with desk-to-dinner ensembles.
John Players was very sharply positioned as a brand for the young male who was desirous of vibrant, bold and contemporary fashion. Over these years, the brand has successfully created its loyal base of customers across a network of 400+ EBOs, 1600 MBOs and LFRs and e-commerce stores and has been rated as one of the Top 5 Most Exciting Apparel Brands for the last three years.
With John Player Jeans as a brand extension in denims, the brand offers experimental washes, contemporary fits and edgy styling in denim wear. The brand has innovated with limited edition range of knitted denims, laser-printed denims, summer denims and more. The entire range of denims from the brand, have 'stretch' in their fabric as a mandatory feature.
What has been the growth percentage in the last fiscal?
In 2015, across both brands we opened more than 100+ exclusive stores of John Players and Wills Lifestyle apart from penetrating more multibrand and large format retailers. These represent a refreshed and more contemporary retail identity for John Players, one that makes the shopping experience richer and more immersive. We are also opening John Players Jeans outlets/counters which are aiding further expansion, given great acceptance of the denim extension from younger audiences. Simultaneously, we are looking to rapidly expand our brand footprint across key accounts and large format retailers like Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Reliance Trends, Pantaloons etc. In the e-commerce ecosystem as well, John Players is making rapid progress, partnering with various key fashion apparel e-tailers like Myntra, Jabong, Flipkart and Snapdeal amongst others, besides driving its own e-commerce platform.
Published on: 04/10/2016
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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