The Hindu Business Line : For a complete brand

After all these years ‘The Complete Man’ is getting a chance to enhance his wardrobe. Textile and apparel major Raymond’s decision to extend its fabric brand to garments will ensure this happens with the launch of Raymond Finely Crafted Garments. Bringing in a slew of shirts, suits and trousers under the new label, Raymond is now aggressively segmenting its menswear and enhancing its retail presence to beat back increasing competition in the readymade segment.

Having nurtured its Park Avenue brand so far, Raymond is now extending the equity of its own corporate brand. However, differentiating between its menswear brands will be difficult though price, target audience and quality are being touted as the key differentiators.far, Raymond is now extending the equity of its own corporate brand. However, differentiating between its menswear brands will be difficult though price, target audience and quality are being touted as the key differentiators.

Gautam Hari Singhania, Chairman & Managing Director, Raymond, admits, "Yes, it will be a challenge to keep Park Avenue and Raymond as distinctly different brands and there is going to be some amount of cannibalisation. However, Park Avenue is meant for a younger audience and comprises daily wear while Raymond would have a different quality and address a higher age group.''

Taking advantage of its strong distribution network (170 Raymond stores and 16,000 points of retail), Raymond will ensure its new readymade brand reaches consumers. Besides, 30 new dedicated Finely Crafted stores will give the brand the added distribution muscle in the market.

Estimating the menswear market at Rs 37,000 crore, comprising 35 per cent of the apparel segment, Shreyas Joshi, President, Raymond Apparel, says, "We are targeting the 30-plus `Complete Man' who has an eye for detail and has arrived in life. We are segmenting our brands by age groups and Raymond is meant for the elegant and `classical man' unlike Park Avenue which is meant for the `contemporary man'.''

Sporting a range of suits (Rs 8,000 to Rs 20,000), shirts (Rs 1,400 to Rs 2,000) and trousers (Rs 1,200 to Rs 3,200), Finely Crafted will be available at 125 points of sale in the first year of operations. Adds Singhania, "We will see how the market reacts to Raymond Finely Crafted Garments. Our targets are going to be conservative for the brand.''

At the same time garments can never have the kind of range which Raymond currently offers in fabric. As Singhania points out, "There can never be 100 per cent convertability between the suits and garments. We will never be able to bring out the full range of fabrics under the suits that we would launch. At best we would have 50-60 designs for suits in a particular season.''

A new campaign created by ad agency RK Swamy BBDO is already on the anvil. Explaining the strategy, Sangeetha Shetty, Executive Creative Director, RK Swamy BBDO, says, "It is going to be a natural transition for the Raymond brand. At the moment the category for readymade garments has become crowded and so we have to show what we have got in terms of the quality of the offerings. We are now starting the campaign based on the Complete Man who has an eye for detail and can associate with the kind of quality products from Raymond Finely Crafted Garments.''

As Park Avenue and Raymond create their own segments in the menswear market, the textile company has made sure it has other brands to cater to the remaining segments. Manzoni has been catering to the super premium end while Notting Hill will continue to address the popular price segment. According to Anand Parekh, President - Textile Business, Reliance Industries, "Raymond already has readymade brands under Park Avenue and Notting Hill. To have another brand under Raymond would lead to confusion as brands already exist in the ready-towear category. Adding one more label will not make sense unless it is different. However, there is an overall movement towards the ready-to-wear segment and there needs to be a value proposition for any new label that enters the market.''

Maintaining fabric and garments as separate brands so far has been sensible strategy, say competitors, as consumers perceive them as two different segments. As Vikram Rao, Business Director (Textiles & Apparel), Aditya Birla Group, says, "For consumers there is a difference in perception between garment and fabric brands. Raymond all these years has kept the two segments under separate brands and has created brands such as Park Avenue to represent the readymade segment while keeping its fabric brand under Raymond.''

A foray into the growing readymade segment with the brand Raymond makes longterm business sense. "There will come a time when fabrics will no longer be relevant to consumers as the shift to readymade gathers momentum. Raymond has had the foresight to extend its mother brand into this segment keeping in mind that there will come a time when people will stop buying fabric,'' claims a senior official from Bombay Dyeing.

In fact, Raymond has been hedging its risks by creating brands and entering new segments by expanding its non-fabric portfolio through Raymond Apparel in recent times. Last year it entered the kids' segment with Zapp and now it is extending Color Plus to the same segment. Vineesh Chadha, CEO, Color Plus Fashion, says, "Kidswear is a category that we are actively looking at. We believe the super premium kidswear segment is non-existent, a market where international brands have yet to come in and that is the segment we would like to tap into.'' While there are Gini & Jony, Lilliput and even Raymond's own brand Zapp, none of these brands are at a super-premium positioning. Nor has any international brand made its mark in this segment.

"The branded kidswear market is huge. It is pegged at Rs 3,000 crore and is growing at 20 per cent. We would be creating a subbrand in this segment, leveraging the premium positioning of Color Plus, the mother brand,'' states Chadha. The textile company intends manufacturing its kidswear range at it own facilities based in Chennai.

In womenswear too, after extending Park Avenue and Color Plus into the segment, Raymond has decided to make a comeback with its first designer brand Be:. "We have yet to decide what to do with it,'' states Joshi.

There are chances that Raymond will withdraw its designer-led Be: stores to re-launch it without the `niche' tag. The textile company is in the process of evaluating its prˆt-aporter brand and reviewing its association with designers. "The company has already shut down its stores across cities such as Mumbai and Delhi and there are plans to take the brand on a larger scale across the country,'' said a top Raymond official.

With intentions of a pan-India presence for Be:, Raymond plans to have a different target audience for the brand and is currently undertaking a re-positioning exercise.

"Be: will be made more relevant and address a wider population. There are plans to bring the brand a few notches down the price and audience strata that it previously stood for. Be: is not going to be a mass brand and at the same time we are evaluating whether we would like to have designers associated with it,'' said the official.

Nabankar Gupta, the former Group President of Raymond, says, "In my view there was nothing wrong with the Be: brand but there are a number of womenswear brands that Raymond already has, such as Color Plus and Park Avenue today which could now well become a part of Be:. After all, Raymond already has learnings from this category for the past five-odd years.''

Meanwhile, there has been talk of Raymond preparing for yet another joint venture (it already has three) to strengthen its position further in readymades. Analysts claim that branded retailing in fabrics and garments has ensured that Raymond's share price quotes at a premium to the rest of the textile companies and that the company may look at more joint ventures. But for the moment the textile major seems content with the performance of its apparel brands. "This financial year we are looking at growing in excess of 40 per cent and garments for the group have recorded a Rs 600-crore turnover,'' states Joshi who is ensuring that Raymond becomes a `complete' brand in every segment.

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