India has witnessed huge growth in the retail sector. Indian markets have opened up and welcomed all kinds of brands- from clothing to beauty. While catching up with the Pitch team, Srinivasa Rao, Senior Vice President Marketing, Lifestyle, shed light on modern day marketing practices and spoke about how lifestyle has been able to connect with and serve their audiences through various campaigns and digital activities. ‘Lifestyle is awell-known fashion retailer, and as a brand we have positioned ourselves as a useful vibrant and a friendly brand. Our objective is to constantly remind ourselves of these and to make sure the brand always reflects these attributes. As the brand has evolved so have our consumers, they are multi-channel consumers because they are consuming fashion and content from different sources as compared to what they were doing 10years back.’ Talking about the current digital campaign for their denimwear brand Forca, #TigerForForca, Srinivas said, ‘The consumer today is largely influenced by the social media. How they dress, shop and interact with others is largely dictated by social media.  Today people want to appear instagrammableat any given point of time. Our campaign has taken clues from that aspect and we have tried to craft a campaign which is relatable for the new multi and omni channeled consumers who are driven by online content.’ ‘Our previous campaign was anInstagram inspired campaign, which was called the Insta glam and then there was one about trends.Consumers today are very good at creating their own stories and we as a brand try to be a part of their story.’ added Srinivas. #TigerForForca got 36 MN+ impressions and 7.4 MN+ views and was trending on Twitter, nationally, on the first day of launch.   INFLUENCER MARKETING Gone are the days when brands relied solely on celebrity endorsement. Nowadays, Influencer marketing has over taken celebrity endorsement. ‘Ten years ago, we use to have a mega star who used to endorse a particular brand and was considered the face of the brand. But now, we don’t have a single face for that, we have multiple celebrities. These days influencers have taken over,you can call them mega celebrities.’ ‘The credit for bringing influencer marketing in to our lives goes to social media as it has enabled everybody to express their point of view. There are quite a few fashion bloggers who have afar-reaching influence on their followers. As a brand it really helps us grow because we can use their platform to test out our marketing techniques and see whether our reach is up to the mark or not.’ Inputs by- Anam Khan