Saatchi & Saatchi wins The Collective and Value Designbuild

Sumedha Srivastav - Televisionpoint.com | Bangalore
Saatchi & Saatchi - Bangalore has won the creative businesses for The Collective, the luxury retail format in the super-premium space under the Aditya Birla Nuvo's fashion retail business Madura Garments; and Value Designbuild, a design build and property development company.

Launched by Madura Garments, The Collective is a men's lifestyle store, offering apparel, accessories, made-to-measure and a host of product and lifestyle services. The collection includes brands such as Armani, Adriano Goldschmeid, Duchamp, Fred Perry, Hackett, Hugo Boss, Kenneth Cole, Ted Baker and Versace Collection.

Accessories include fashion watches, cufflinks, shoes, ties, belts, leather products and sunglasses by brands such as Church's shoes, Momo Design, Puma Black Station and Toy Watch; grooming products from Molton Brown and The Art of Shaving and home accessories and gifts from Culti, Christofle, Ercolano, Fornasetti and Votivo.

Shobana Nandkumar, marketing head, The Collective, says, "Catering to a niche segment means keeping marketing initiatives focused. We shall use direct marketing, below-the-line activities and events as the prominent media to communicate about the brand."

Recently, Madura Garments, India's largest apparel maker, has turned cash positive after battling losses for 15 months in the wake of slowing consumer spend. However, all of Madura's major brands are running profitable operations, except the luxury retail format The Collective, and street wear fashion store, People.

Moving to Value Designbuild as a brand, Koshy Varghese, managing director at the company, has always had a positive and honest approach in communication - dry humour, probably slightly cynical.

In terms of the media, print advertising comprises almost 50 per cent of the brand's spends - 40 per cent in newspapers and 10 per cent in magazines. Value Designbuild is active on radio as well, it accounts for about 25 per cent of the spends. Out-of-home takes up about 20 per cent, while online advertising is about five per cent.

Value Designbuild has offices in Mysore, Coorg and Bangalore, and has properties within Karnataka. The next destination for the company is Kerala, where it plans to be by the end of the year.