Arrowaims for a wider brand footprint
After a 25-year journey in the country, the urban lifestyle shirt label from Arvind Fashions targets a bigger slice of the market outside the metros
“If the shirt is not right, a handshake can go terribly wrong,” proclaimed an early, tongue-incheek ad designed for Arrow Shirts, when launched in India in 1993. The accompanying visuals professed sartorial advice for gentlemen with detailed instructions on how many inches a shirt sleeve should extend out from under a jacket and so on. Twenty five years later, the brand, which has grown beyond being the mainstay of only the premium is taking a different tack. With an 82-year old model who reinvented his life after retiring 25 years ago, the brand is offering up a new narrative—one that hints at success being an intangible that does not reside in style and flash alone.
The new campaign, expected to continue through the festive season runs with a tag line that says ‘The best is yet to come’. It features an octogenarian corporate executive, who post-retirement founded an NGO that helps fund heart surgeries among the underprivileged in the country. There is more to come says the company around the same theme, featuring similar role models. But that is not to say that the brand has centered around a mature audience. On the contrary there’s been a conscious drive to target younger buyers.
An expanded lens
Brand Arrow has extended itself under different labels over the years. There are now three categories that include classic shirts under Arrow Mainline, shirts for younger professionals under Arrow New York, and Arrow Sport for after-office wear, says Sumit Dhingra, CEO Heritage Brands Division, Arvind Fashions. Prices range between ~1,399 and go up to ~6,000 placing Arrow squarely in a segment that straddles the affordable and mass-premium categories.
Alok Nanda, CEO at Alok Nanda Communications who was creative head at Trikaya Advertising, which designed the original ad campaign for the company, says that Arrow was uniquely positioned when it hit the market. Apart from being one of the first international consumer brands to enter the country, it’s “premium pull positioning” was clearly designed for the Indian market, despite the fact that it was not marketed the same way in its home market in the US.
While it was the everyday man’s shirt in the USA which could be bought at Sears or any other neighbourhood department store, it was another story in the subcontinent. “The positioning was that Arrow was a shirt designed for the suit,” Nanda says which automatically thrust it into a high income category in the corporate scene.
However with changing times, it was imperative that the brand looked for a wider audience. Today Arrow covers several price points and functions. The Arrow Mainline sells for (~1799-~6000), Arrow New York (~1399-~2199) and Arrow Sport (~1799-~2799) and as is the norm today, prices come down further on sale days and via special discounted offers.
Out of the metros
Arvind wants to take the brand deeper into the country. While Arrow is retailed in most cities today, Dhingra is keen to hit a wider trail. He says that today’s challenges are setting up an efficient network in smaller towns and cities to push sales, which are at 2.5 million shirts annually.
Brand Arrow is growing at close to 12 per cent a year, the company said. To grow faster the company will need to create more occasions for purchase in its established urban markets, while offering up more points of purchase in small towns and other cities. In addition to the 230 stores it has, Dhingra says the firm will set up 50 more mini stores across Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns.
How does that affect the brand’s positioning? Will Arrow now become a fixture on the budget-mass racks in retail stores?
“It is still a premium positioning for the brand, but the increasing per capita income over the years has ensured that the brand is becoming affordable to a much bigger consumer base,” says Dhingra.
Finding the right fit
Arrow’s premium positioning in the early years stemmed from its global lineage and also because it catered to a seasoned customer. The first factory where Arvind started its production of shirts was remarkable not just for its technical sophistry at the time, but also the working conditions for employees. Wide benches, bright lighting, large spaces, the workspace was a leap ahead compared to many factories at the time, which were little more than sweatshops.
To produce shirts with 2 ply 140’s and 3 ply 100’s cotton fabrics using as many as 18 stitches per inch was uncommon, in addition to instituting over 20 quality checkpoints. All that also helped the company price itself accordingly. Dhingra says that at the time it was launched, an Arrow shirt was almost three times more expensive than what a tailored one could cost.
However, it wasn’t just price that separated Arrow from the rest. With other apparel brands such as Van Heusen, Louis Phillipe, and Zodiac all jostling for mindspace, Arrow built technology into its repertoire with the first detachable collar. Such innovations continue even today.
Even so, the biggest advantage that Arrow has, is that it embedded itself in consumer memory at a time when there wasn’t very much else international on the rack. As Nanda points out, the positioning and the shirts value proposition gave it a successful run that lasted for several years and gave the brand the lift-off it needed to come as far as it has. Now as it reinvents itself for the new age consumer, the challenge will be to leverage the past without being burdened by its legacy.