Legacy brands improvising to stay relevant with changing consumer preferences: Singer India MD

Talking to ANI, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Rakesh Khanna touched upon how his company has shifted its strategies to cater to the evolving consumer habits.

The company, once seen as traditional, are now making efforts to connect with the modern generation and their consumption needs. With new designs, updated technology, and a fresh way of talking to customers, they want to become more appealing to today's consumers.

Incorporated in 1977, Singer India Limited, which is essentially into home appliances, is one such legacy company which is changing its marketing strategy with the shift in consumer preferences and to remain relevant amidst the cut-throat competition with new-age brands.

With a booming e-commerce ecosystem, the brand, which has been around for over 175 years, is fast adapting to the new realities and listing its products on such platforms.

Singer India, which is known for its traditional sewing machine, is crafting its product line as per the evolving changes. The legacy company is also using top and middle-level funnel marketing strategies and a combination of digital marketing and influencers to spread awareness of its products.

After ushering in the smart cloud cooling segment, Rakesh Khanna, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Singer India Limited said that the brand wants to connect with the new urban consumers as well as provide them with products of the quality that matches the Western standard.

"The way this has been designed, if you see, the brief was that it should be a product for international markets. It competes with the products globally and non-nationally. Not just with India," said Khanna, describing the company's new launch of the smart cloud cooler.

He says that since the company wants to free up its old image in the minds of consumers, they instruct their design team to build the product to international standards.

The company is also working on innovating its products meant for industrial use.

"So in this case, the brief was that it should be able to compete with products in Europe and in the US. And I'm glad that it has come that kind. That it's a product which you can safely say will stand on its own amongst all the best-designed European products or American products," he said.

"I think initially we are going to be focusing more on the urban class. And gradually it will move into the rural areas because it's very apt for them," Khanna asserted.

The company is focusing more on the products that align with modern needs and match the highest quality.

"Although we focused on products which are future growth, like industrial machines, which are future growth products, so we focused on that in appliances. We are focusing on redoing our portfolio, cutting down the products which we were not convinced were of good quality. We are cutting them down. And we are actually bringing our products, which are high quality," he said.

India is on track to become the fourth-largest market for consumer durables by 2030, potentially creating 500,000 new jobs, according to a recent report by EY-Parthenon and CII.

The report, titled Vision 2030: India's Rise as a Global Force in Consumer Electronics and Durables, projects the sector will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11 per cent, reaching a market size of Rs 3 lakh crore by 2029.