Orient Electric – Asia’s Most Promising Consumer Electricals Brand

The One stop brand for consumer electrical lifestyle solutions.

Company: Orient Electric Limited

Brand: Orient Electric

Industry: Consumer Electricals

Country: India

Name of MD & CEO: Rakesh Khanna

Name of CMO/Director Marketing/ President Marketing: Anshuman Chakravarty

The brand proposition

SWITCH TO SMART

The current touch-points undertaken by the brand

What is the brand image that the company wants to portray to its target group?

One stop brand for consumer electrical lifestyle solutions.

What according to you are the five competitive brands in the country and in Asia in your category?

The competition today does not come from peers but from challenging and raising the bar for ourselves, in delivering innovation, efficiency, performance and design. Orient Electric is into four business verticals – Fans, Lighting, Home Appliances & Switchgears – and the competition varies accordingly.

What is the consumer perception of your brand?

Trusted brand with a rich legacy of 60 years that has evolved with time, embracing new frontiers in technology and innovation, to deliver the best of products and services.

In the past 12 months what branding and marketing activities has been undertaken by your company to enhance the visibility, recall and acceptability of the brand?

The intent with all our marketing strategies is to build a strong brand reputation and to achieve the same, we are exploiting the best of both the online and offline worlds.

Being a consumer facing brand, trade marketing and BTL activities form an integral part of our marketing strategy. With an aim to consolidate the brand at the retail level, Orient Electric launched several initiatives upscaling our retail visibility and enhanced engagement at retail points. It consciously increased the spends at retail touch points in the trade marketing segment and started the concept of Orient demo and display zones, securing dedicated retail space in premium outlets.

A lot of emphasis has been 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. Aggressive retailer & electrician contact and training program has helped the brand to present and launch several products this year with premium positioning. 

Our first integrated marketing campaign of the year came out in August 2018 when we became the first Indian lighting brand to get BEE 5-star rating for its LED bulbs. The campaign covering TV, print and digital was aimed at increasing awareness about the benefits of switching to BEE 5-star rated LED bulbs which deliver 120 lumens per watt and are 30% brighter than BEE 3-star rated bulbs. The campaign was well received by the trade as well consumers and we were able to gain the first-mover advantage.

We rolled out another 360-degree campaign in January 2019 for Aeroslim, India’s first IoT-enabled fan which can be controlled via Orient Smart mobile app and voice assists including Alexa and Google Assistant. The TVC featuring MS Dhoni followed the theme of turning the world upside down with the Aeroslim fan which flaunts a unique slim cylindrical design, telescopic adjustable mounting, IoT controls and inverter technology. Flanked heavily by print and digital, the campaign created a stir in the market leading to soaring demand for Aeroslim fan.

In line with our marketing strategy for the summer season, we rolled out our first-ever TV commercial for Appliances business promoting IoT-enabled air coolers. The new TV commercial brings out the characteristic features of our air cooler range by means of a witty dialogue between MS Dhoni and his on-screen niece Chikki. The air coolers campaign covered TV and print along with an active engagement through digital touchpoints.

Both these campaigns featuring our longstanding brand ambassador MS Dhoni were well received by the media, trade and consumers.

What has been the achievement of your brand in the last 3 years?

As a trusted brand, Orient Electric strives to bring competence and technology to the table in form of fresh and innovative products. It has been continuously capitalizing on consumer insights to improve its product offerings. We at Orient have been investing heavily over the years to map the societal and behavioral changes and predict the emerging trends that will shape the future. As a trusted brand, our endeavor is not just to adapt but to unravel and surface the latent consumer needs and meet them with apt solutions which makes life simpler and experiences better. We have expanded our fans portfolio with a complete lineup of aerodynamically designed Aero Series fans that focuses on three defining aspects, i.e. reduction of sound, increase in air delivery and aesthetics. Under this series, we have introduced India’s first IoT-enabled fan which can be controlled via Orient Smart mobile app and voice assistants like Alexa and google Assistant. We have also recently introduced a complete range of IoT-enabled air coolers and India’s first modular outdoor cooler which one can assemble and dismantle in just three minutes. Our Home Appliances business has recently entered into a strategic partnership with the Italy-based De’Longhi Group, bringing three international premium small appliances brands to India – De’Longhi, Kenwood and Braun.  Orient also helped in spurring consumption in the segment of LED battens, and it also became the first Indian lighting brand to receive BEE 5-star rating for its LED bulbs. In switchgears category, we have introduced modular switches with 3AB technology. We are spearheading our Switchgears business on SDB (Snap Disc Bi-Metal) technology which is far safer and superior technology than what is currently available in the Indian market. There are many such instances where Orient has made substantial headway as far as innovation is concerned.

Orient Electric has a well-organised distribution network driven by over 3500 dealers, 1,00,000 retail outlets and a strong service network covering more than 300 cities.

What is the current digital strategy?

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. We have also been consistently working to improve brand’s online reputation through information spread and content promotion and prompt redressal of consumer complaints and grievances online

What innovative measures the brand has taken to reach consumer digitally?

Keeping up with the ever-changing digital landscape, we have successfully diversified our digital marketing efforts with an aim to engage better with the target audience. It is the result of our engaging content mix with distinct visual language across channels that we are today way ahead of the competition in the segment in terms of fan base and engagement rate. We have successfully executed a number of online campaigns in the last year wherein we used different mediums to increase our online SOV.

What makes it Asia’s Most Promising Brands 2018-2019? 

With the ever-evolving business landscape and consumer preferences, change is the only constant. We at Orient Electric have always focused on building sustainable competitive advantage through a culture of innovation, whilst keeping our consumers at its core. We have consistently invested in technology, in people and in building a collaborative culture. We continuously work on improving quality and performance, increasing service reach and keeping our eyes on the market and ears around our consumers.

The digital and technical invasion has drastically changed how consumers think, research, buy and act. To remain ahead of the curve, one needs to continuously innovate and provide smarter solutions. At Orient, we see this ongoing change as an opportunity to up our game. As a trusted brand, our endeavor is not just to adapt but to unravel and surface the latent consumer needs and meet them with apt solutions which makes life simpler and experiences better.

Our continuous investments in building up Competence and Innovation centers have helped not only to bring differentiation but also bring down costs.  We have a huge acceptability of our products in the international markets. We are today the largest manufacturer and exporter of fans from India with more than 60% share in exports and a presence in over 35 international markets.

We are not only are we technologically ready to address the global demand, but we are equally competitive globally in terms of cost and quality. So, I would say “Make in India” as a philosophy is engrained in our DNA

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