The Hindu Business Line : `To own sport in India, one has to own cricket'

When Reebok entered the rather untouched sportswear market in India in 1995, it changed the way people perceived the category. It took sportswear out of gyms and stadia into restaurants and drawing rooms. BrandLine met up with the Managing Director of its Indian business, Subhinder Prem, to talk about the evolution of the brand in the country and also about its `Fish Fry' collection, making it the first international sportswear brand to tie up with a top-notch Indian designer to create a sports-based lifestyle range.

What was the sportswear market like when Reebok came to India?

Reebok was launched in India in 1995. When we came into the Indian market, sportswear as a segment had not really evolved. It was at a nascent stage. Actually, none of the current national and international brands were present in the market in 1995. Other big players like Nike and adidas entered the Indian market sometime after us.

In fact, the very idea that different sports require different types of shoes was not established here. For example, people didn't know that a specific kind of shoe to be used while playing football could not be used while playing cricket or running a marathon. And it was with us that the concept gained momentum in India.

What did Reebok do to educate the Indian consumers?

Well, for beginners, we introduced specialised shoes for specialised sporting requirements. We also created the awareness amongst our Indian consumers that sportswear can couple performance with great looks and fashion. It was Reebok that brought fashion and technology together. We created technologies like the Premiere Running, DMX and pump in the footwear segments, and for apparel we created the extremely popular Play Dry technology. What these innovations did was tell customers that one could get high-performance sportswear that looks great and fashionable.

While we opened our first store in 1995, we had 100 by 2000. In fact, it was in 2005 that the business really took off. Between 2005 and 2006, we opened a total of 435 stores across the country. One can get a fair taste of the rate at which the Indian sportswear market is growing from our performance.

What followed?

Well, keeping with our pace and our motto of innovation by coupling fashion with technology and performance, we started launching a fresh collection every six months. Besides introducing the current sports fashion from the international markets, we introduced a lot of ranges specifically for India. As a matter of fact, our USP — bringing in the best technology that fit consumers in the best manner along with the latest fashion trends — is what sets us apart from the rest of the brigade. Not to forget that we pioneered the idea of taking sportswear beyond the playground, where it could be used as a casual style statement. Today, we are the market leaders in the category, with 51 per cent market share.

What kind of an association do you have with sports in India? What are the initiatives you have taken to associate yourself closely with sporting activities in India?

Well, for starters, we associated ourselves at various levels with cricket. In fact, as the saying goes, if one wants to own sports in India, one has to own cricket. So, besides making cricketing shoes and apparel, we made and sold a lot of cricketing equipment, sports equipment being a significant part of our Indian venture in the country.

We are also credited with the Reebok Instructor Alliance Programme, where we train people to become fitness instructors. The surprising thing is that with this programme we ushered in the era of aerobics. Also, out of the 900 trainers that we have under the programme, most are women, a fact which compelled us to expand in the women's sportswear category, beginning 2004.

We plan to have more than 10 exclusive outlets catering to ladies' sportswear by the year-end. We are also the official sponsors of national football teams such as Mohan Bagan, East Bengal and Mohammedan Sporting. In tennis, the company also sponsors the Indian Davis Cup Team.

Apart from these on-the-ground initiatives, what other form of advertising did you use?

Consumers today are getting younger by the day. Unlike yesteryear, the average Indian consumer is exposed to more than 200 television channels today. Companies are constantly fighting to grab the consumer's attention in the allotted 10-20 second ad slots. As a result, advertisements have to be edgy, entertaining and constantly pushing the bar.

When we started out in 1995, our advertisements were more about the features and the benefits of our various products as we were in the process of educating the consumers and creating a place for ourselves. Now the focus is more on attitude-based ads. The ads today have a much more consumer-centric and extremely personalised approach. An excellent example of this would be our latest ad for our `Fish Fry' range that has the tagline `I am what I am'.

A sample of Manish Arora's designer range, Fish Fry

What is the uniqueness of the Fish Fry range? What prompted you to enter the lifestyle segment with this collection?

Designer Manish Arora has done a collection for us, which he has decided to call Fish Fry. Priced between Rs 6,000 and Rs 60,000, the range blends colours, patterns and trends with a strong individualistic character.

Reebok has always pushed the frontiers of design and style. Entering the lifestyle section was just an addition to our vision of providing an increased sense of fashion with great performance ability. We had already taken sportswear a step ahead by converting it into something that people can use as smart casualwear. Now we have taken it a notch further and created a sportswear collection that can be used as lifestyle products.

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