Orient Electric Limited is part of USD 1.6 billion diversified CK Birla Group. Orient Electric has been a household name in the Indian fan Industry for over 60 years. With state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in India and operations spanning over 35 countries, the brand has earned the trust of millions of customers worldwide by providing high-quality, innovative products. Orient Electric has established itself in the market as one-stop solution provider of lifestyle electrical solutions including fans, home appliances, lighting and switchgears. Anshuman Chakravarty, Head Brand & Corporate Communication, Orient Electric speaks to tvnews4u.com’s Swaminathan Balasubramanian, on the communication roadmap for Orient fans for this financial year.
- What are the key communication strategy abopted by Orient fans with justification on your choices..?
The marketing landscape has evolved drastically over the years with the influx of new mediums and formats for distribution and consumption of content. The rapid growth of digital communication has completely redefined marketing and communication strategies for the brands.While we are regularly doing ATL and BTL activities, we have also embraced the power of digitisation holistically and are focusing strongly on online mediums, including SEO, SEM, PPC, Display advertising, social media, digital PR, blogging and influencer activities, to increase the amplification of our activation campaigns.
Being a consumer-facing brand, we carry out BTL activities using different mediums throughout the year to improve retail visibility, support sales and create brand awareness. For select product launches, we opt for comprehensive 360-degrees marketing campaigns covering TV, print, radio, PR, digital, dealer level activities and OOH.
The intent with all our marketing strategies is to build a strong brand reputation and recall while improving ROIs in communication costs, and to achieve the same, we are exploiting the best of both the online and offline worlds.
- What are the challenges Orient faces while positioning itself as a brand and How you manage to overcome the same.?
One of the key challenges for any brand today is to stay relevant in the rapidly-changing business environment. Digital revolution has been driving the societal and behavioral trends for quite some time now and will continue to do so. In this new world of informed and empowered consumers, it is extremely important that we continuously map their preferences, understand their exact needs and give them what they want. We at Orient Electric see this ongoing change as an opportunity to create the differentiation that the new age consumers expect, using technology-led innovation.
We have always believed in raising the bar for ourselves, in delivering innovation, efficiency, performance and design. As always, we will continue disrupting the market with breakthrough innovation in fans category. One of the recent innovations From the house of Orient Electric is the aerodynamically designed Aero Series range of premium fans which has helped us capture No. 1 position in the premium fans segment with over 35% market share in a period of just 18 months.We have successfully run a series of comprehensive marketing campaigns to raise awareness about Aero Series fans which focus on three defining aspects, which include noise reduction, increased air delivery and stunning aesthetics.
The key to successful marketing communications plan is to understand the target consumers and to reach them at the right moment and at the right place. These are what we always keep in mind and choose the right medium mixto get the most out of our communication. While TV, print and radio still remain relevant; we are constantly looking for innovations in these mediums. We are also attentively looking at new television and radio channels,digital platforms and print publications that cater to niche regions, topics and audience, so as to create more focused and impactful marketing communication plans.
- What are the marketing and communications roadmap for Orient fans in this fiscal?
A lot of emphasis will be on increasing the retail visibility with the use of relevant and innovative POS material including but not limited to, display walls, product display stands, posters, danglers, banners and standees.As part of our retail visibility drive, we have also started setting up exclusive Orient Display Zones with an aim to grab dedicated retail space in premium outlets across the country. Orient Zones are not only improving retailers’ confidence but also creating great consumer experiences. We are also strengthening our offline channel by opening up exclusive, franchised stores known as “Orient Electric Smart Shops” across the country.
Premium fans are doing good business for us and we plan to introduce new variants in this category very soon.The new launches will be supported with an appropriate marketing media mix, so there will be quite some action in the coming months. We are also aggressively working towards increasing our market share in the online space. We are today selling fans through our own e-commerce portal as well as through leading marketplaces to ensure maximum visibility.
