Chumbak creates waves among the youth with its quirky ‘desi’ appeal

0
10561
chum-bak

Company Profile

Travelling and collecting souvenirs can be an engaging hobby but the marketing professional husband-wife duo of Vivek Prabhakar and Subhra Chadda  wanted to convert their passion of collecting handicrafts from different parts of the world, into their career. They realised that in India there were very few souvenirs on offer which epitomised the true essence of our vibrant nation. Deciding to bring India on a palette of vibrant colours, they sold off their apartment to use the resources as a seed investment for launching their initial range of product line – unconventional fridge magnets engraved with desi motifs. Thus, began the novel, quirky, out of the box venture of ‘Chumbak’ (meaning magnet in Hindi) in 2010. Starting with fridge magnets, they expanded their Indian souvenir market to home decor, keychains, bags, diaries, notepads  and recently in October 2015 they went big. They launched their fashion apparel range “Collection One.” It is Chumbak which has heightened the ‘desi’ trend of the now popular Indian motifs of the moustache, the owl, the elephant, the auto-wallah, the rickshaw-wallah etc.

chumbak-(2)Extending product range and marketing presence

When Chumbak launched its design house of colourful knick-knacks in 2010, it was an online enterprise. Gradually they got a feedback from online customers expressing a desire to get a feel of their product range and “to see all of Chumbak under one roof”. That’s when Chumbak’s first kiosk was opened in Forum Mall, Bengaluru in 2012. From then on, they have been expanding their offline presence on a massive scale, having opened around 32 kiosks and thirteen stores in eight cities, funded majorly by Seedfund. Also, they have effectively developed their website to stimulate the user interface. Thus, they began to follow a hybrid business model managing both offline and online presence and entered the fashion apparel and home decor line

Reaching out to the relevant target group

Chumbak was able to grow in leaps and bounds and establish a connect with people mainly on the account of effectively establishing a rapport with the target group to which it was catering, the young trendy students or office goers belonging to the age group of 15-26, who would be attracted to its unusual and unconventional designs. To initiate a dialogue with this young gang of souvenir and handicraft lovers, Chumbak started off as an online marketplace. This is because they knew that the tech savvy youth can be tapped easily on the internet. But with changing needs of their customer base and a nationwide buzz created around their vibrant range of goods, they altered their business model to expand their presence from online to offline. Thus, beginning an youth address, Chumbak grew to become the nation’s favourite. They redesigned their language, “from the old India themed designs which were more character driven, to ‘India-inspired’ which showcases different colours and design sensibility of India”.

Advertising became a necessity to sustain the kaleidoscope product range of Chumbak and it needed a media partner that would understand the needs of this young startup and act accordingly. releaseMyAd, being a six-year-old venture itself, understood the pangs of bolstering a startup. This was not lost to the Chumbak bosses  and a fruitful partnership began.

Advertising effectively in the radio and newspaper through releaseMyAdChumbak-3

By the time Chumbak decided to align with releaseMyAd in December 2015 for advertising themselves, they were already quite a big name. However, up till now, they had constructed their media presence to ad campaigns online, mainly in social networking sites like Facebook. Though this did make them big, they wished to tap a larger target group, drawing to their folds not only the youth but the middle-aged as well. With releaseMyAd’s instant smart media buying assistance, Chumbak came on air for the first time in two radio stations

The key to effective radio advertising is to go for the prime time slot in order to widen your reach. Also, because ads aired on radio stations are hard to miss. They do not lead the target audience’s intent of ‘going back’ to anywhere thus, the short duration jingles need to be spaced out cleverly and repeatedly, ensuring to catch the listener’s ears.

With a total of 225 spots played in two leading radio stations of the country, over a long span of 4 weeks, we ensured that Chumbak’s 20-second ad was spaced out smartly. Both radio stations were chosen on account of their audience base which Chumbak was trying to target.

We also decided to engage newspaper ads in Bangalore too. We picked up the Kormangala Plus, Downtown Plus and Indiranagar Plus editions of Times of India on four occasions. Another leading newspaper, Hindustan Times was chosen at the same time to advertise in the national capital region of South Delhi. We ensured to keep the ad creative close to Chumbak’s ‘desi’ style and ensured to buy the best spots for the display ads.

Results achieved by the radio and newspaper media campaigns

With releaseMyAd, Chumbak was able to extend its media presence from digital media space to the media platforms of newspapers and radio. This has popularised their new line of fashion apparel, “Collection One” and have amplified and accentuated their mass appeal.

Their sales have increased by leaps and bounds owing to extending their presence across varied media podiums. Now, they cater to a larger and more heterogeneous target group than they could have ever imagined. With releaseMyAd, they have explored an effective conglomerate of media podiums to advertise in

For your successful ad campaigns contact us at 09830688443 or send your queries via email to enquiry@releasemyad.com. You could also visit our website www.releasemyad.com for further details.