Signature, the five-year-old brand from jeans maker Levi Strauss is being re-launched as Denizen, and is expected to take on the in-store private label brands of modern trade retailers more than the branded players such as Killer and Numero Uno in the mass denim segment.

However, changing the brand name of its mass market denim brand will pose its own set of challenges for Levi's.

“There are 35 million pairs of denims sold a year and out of that 40 per cent comprises the mass market. Today, there are strong denim brands from retailers like Reliance, Max and Big Bazaar, and in the last five years, we have been facing competition mainly from these brands,'' says Mr Sanjay Purohit, Managing Director, Levi Strauss India.

Fighter brand

But, industry insiders claim that Levi Strauss will also be treating Denizen as its fighter brand to combat the more premium players like Lee, Wrangler, Pepe and Flying Machine as most of them have been discounting prices, in spite of their premium positioning.

Denizen has been pegged in a price range between Rs 799 and Rs 1,599, while the premium Levi's brand is in the price range Rs 1,799 to Rs 6,000. “We have been increasing prices for the Signature brand which is now Denizen but it has more to do with external factors like cotton prices and excise duties.

“But the entire denim category has also moved up due to the market structure changing,” claims Mr Purohit.

Biggest challenge

However, the biggest challenge for the new Denizen brand would be to convert the existing Signature customers to walk into the re-branded Denizen stores apart from clearing the inventory of the Signature brand.

“We have converted the 250 franchise-owned Signature stores into Denizen and now our concerns are about the transition to this brand and to have more consumers come into the stores,'' claims Mr Purohit.

Patent cases

In fact, the decision to change the name of Signature to Denizen came about after Levi's started fighting patent cases across markets for the brand name of Signature (in India, the UB Group too has a Signature brand of whisky).

Signature was initially introduced as a private label brand for Wal-Mart stores in the US and has now been launched across emerging markets such as China, South Korea, Singapore and India.

However, Levi's, which has been in India for 15 years, has yet to make money on the mass Signature brand although its premium Levi's brand has reaped profits, according to industry insiders.

Apart from denim, both Levi's and Denizen would continue to straddle all segments of the casualwear market as the American jeans maker has discarded its casualwear brand of Dockers and restricted it to the US and European markets.

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW