Collaboration with other brands the surefire way to get brand recognition

Arshdeep Khurana, CEO, Sham Jewellers, Chandigarh, has played a key role in shaking off the Covid pandemic-related blues, and helping her family business get back on track. A graduate in English Literature, she was in the middle of the post-graduate course in Advertising and Marketing Communication, when she decided to join the family-run jewellery business. She hopped on board in 2018 as part of the marketing team, and slowly took charge of the department, playing important roles in marketing campaigns, branding initiatives, and schemes and offers, including the famous Diwali Shopping Festival Arshdeep Khurana, CEO, Sham Jewellers, Chandigarh

Trigger

The social media presence of our company was somewhat latent at the time of my joining, but being well- acquainted with it, I took over this activity and expanded our digital footprint. When the Covid crisis hit the world, in a matter of days, much of the physical presence of our brand started disappearing. In addition to the stores being closed, courtesy the lockdown, our marketing initiatives, including our print ads, also bore the brunt of the situation. Businesses started to rely more and more on digital platforms. Fortunately, we had already increased our online presence, and this stood us in good stead during the worst of the lockdown.

Execution

We began reaching out to designers, photographers and other artists for collaborative photoshoots and campaigns. Starting from September 2020, we collaborated with several local and regional brands, and followed it up by partnering with celebrities of the Punjabi film industry. We reached out to several boutiques and influencers relevant to our brand, and those in congruence with our ethos. One of the first brands we collaborated with was a local boutique named ‘Label Japji Arora’. They had reached out to us for a photoshoot they were planning, and we provided them with diamonds that best suited the shoot.

Being promoted by both the brands, this campaign garnered a positive response, and resulted in a surge in our social media following. Similar collaborative photoshoots followed with other boutiques, including ‘Manat – The Design Co.’, based out of Chandigarh, ‘Khwaabeeda’, located in Punjab, and many others, to whom we provided a varied range of gold and kundan jewellery for one-day photoshoots. We then had the honour to bejewel actresses from the Punjabi film industry, such as Mandy Takhar and Shruti Sodhi, for their public appearances.

Result

A positive spin-off of these activities was that the followers of these brands began to get familiar with our brand as well, and they started following us. Eventually, it led to customer acquisition as the brand recall and brand awareness of our company started to go up. The Punjabi film industry also started responding positively to us. These activities brought in a whole lot of attention to our brand, and our online sales and physical walk-ins went up. Apart from bringing our brand into the limelight, these activities also helped us to showcase our all-new selection to our target audience.

Courtesy: Retail Jeweller India News Service