Chiranewala, Marketing Head, Fastrack, says that the brand is betting big with the new collections lined up in the festive season and is optimistic of spiralling upward to the growth ladder While the world was locked down physically, brands travelled horizons through their creativity and innovations. Though the pandemic hit businesses across categories, sectors under the non-essential segment had to somewhere bear greater brunt than the essential ones. The lull, however, has not stopped Fastrack from creating engaging conversations through their digital channels to keep the brand alive in the minds of the customer base. The brand announced Ananya Pandey as its face last year and took the collaboration to the next level by co-creating a collection of watches with her earlier this year. Now, the brand has taken the association a notch higher with its new collection ‘Fastrack Ruffles’, which is also co-created by the actress. The collection was announced recently with a youthful campaign showing what it means to be a diva. exchange4media caught up with Ayushman Chiranewala, Marketing Head, Fastrack, for more insights on the new campaign, brand’s revised plans for the festive season and more.

Fastrack has been immensely popular among the youth since long. What has been the brand’s vision and journey in the youth segment? The youth is changing and evolving with time and the definition of fashion is changing with them. Gen Z is more fluid in their fashion choices, keen on minimalism and looks up to tech products in a new light as a coveted fashion accessory. Fastrack always stays on the move, keeping up with the newer trends and rolling out unconventional styles, thus establishing itself as the FashTech brand. The journey for us has already begun by entering into new categories like perfumes. All the collections that we have launched in the recent times like Fit Outs and Ruffles, in collaboration with Ananya Panday, are in sync with the newer, evolving trends.   How did the past six months go for the brand? What were the challenges faced and your key learnings? Like any non-essential category, for us, the path to recovery has been gradual during the lockdown. From the time the market started opening up, the signs have been encouraging with the consumer sentiment coming back amongst the youth. And our sales figures are currently aligned with that sentiment.

1. Our strategy has been to be to be relevant in the need of the hour and reconnect with our audience in such times. We have been considerate of the new reality and the changing times and strongly believe in customizing the offerings for the audience. Captured below are some of the recent brand conversations that we would like to highlight here -

• Taking a note of our audience’s new ways and styles of working out, we rolled out a marketing communication paired with Fastrack Reflex, our fitness band. A #Reflexing challenge - talking about how fitness is best enjoyed in pairs and working out with your buddy who is now your virtual workout partner.
• To reconnect with them and to capture what they have been up to during this gloomy lockdown, we released an exciting video portraying their true-selves and how they have made staying indoors fun and happening. Encouraging them to continue doing what they are passionate about and to heart it. For some, gaming was another realm they created for themselves, a very popular hobby during the lockdown. Keeping this thought in mind we marketed our new Tees Arcade collection – gaming as an inspiration here.

2. As a youth brand, we have always made it our business in tracking their every move. When they transitioned through different mediums on digital, from Facebook to Snapchat to Instagram – we leveraged our conversations on relevant platforms to stay in tune with them. Now with a much stronger and sharper focus on e-commerce as a channel, given the shift in consumer shopping behaviour.
3. With markets opening up, we are also focusing on ensuring consumers feel safe to shop and encouraging appointment based shopping, video calls, sanitization at stores every hour, etc.

About ‘Fastrack Ruffles’ collection Today, girls believe in owing a range of styles and creating a look for every moment. From casual to sporty for everyday looks, bling for a party and a minimal yet elegant look for that sophisticated diva demeanour. Our idea was to create something for every girl out there. Ruffles collection is for a diva who follows a very unconventional approach. For someone who believes in making a bold statement elegantly. While Fit outs, the first collection was for the girl who likes to have fun and add a quirk to her look. The collections under the FT x AP collaboration will build a new unique story in the Gen Z’s minds for Fastrack and act as another building block for us in the fashion world.   How will Ananya Panday’s association with the brand help in creating the buzz around the collection and ensure better ROI? Ananya Panday is known for being a style icon with an amazing sense of fashion and is now becoming a popular youth icon. She is an aspirational personality for all the girls out there. Considering Fastrack’s task in hand of building Fastrack’s fashion credentials, she was the perfect match. The young girls of today have a fashion repertoire that ranges from a casual, sporty for everyday looks,  a bling look to make a fashion statement at a party and even an elegant look for that sophisticated diva demeanour. This very thought led to the idea of a creative collaboration with Ananya Panday. The first collection called fit outs was meant for the fun and quirk loving young girl while the Ruffles collection will touch a chord with those unconventional divas who want to make a bold statement with a sophisticated and elegant flavour to it. The collections in the pipeline of watches and bags, will without doubt appeal to the Gen Z girls and aid in turning a new page in the fashion credential for Fastrack. How did the online retail perform for the brand during the lockdown? How adaptive is the brand when it comes to online? As a youth brand, we have always made it our business to track every move of the Youth. Given the lockdown and the consumer shift in shopping behaviour, our focus has only increased with more focus on digital as a medium to speak to our consumers and as a platform for encouraging purchase. It has been the channel that has seen the best recovery rate and will continue to keep showing results. With the gradual unlocking of the country, what are the safety measure and precautions being practised at the physical stores? Consumers are more cautious today regarding their spending power and safety measures taken by stores. We are making sure to give them a holistic and hassle-free experience during this time. Some of the measures we have taken across our stores are:

• Sanitisation of all surfaces – From door handles to swipe machines, to our products, we sanitise them every hour.
• We make sure to have temperature checks and sanitisation when the customer walks in.
• Restricted entry to maintain social distance
• We have standardised a process for UPI enabled payments
• Our staff are wearing gloves and masks at all times
• We even set up a UV sanitiser in some of our stores to sanitise products with ease, and will be taking this across stores shortly.

  What is the marketing strategy for the festive season? How much is the brand investing in advertising and marketing? A primary shift for us is moving our medium of promotion and communication with our audience from mainline to Digital. When they transitioned through different mediums on digital, from Facebook to Snapchat to Instagram – we leveraged our conversations on relevant platforms to stay in tune with them. Now we have a much stronger and sharper focus on e-commerce as a channel, given the shift in their shopping behaviour. For the upcoming festive season, we are betting big with the collections lined up and we are confident it will touch a chord with our audience. We have some exciting collections in the pipeline like the FT x AP – Ruffles Collection, Mettle, Animal Print, etc.and we are looking at ways to talk to the audience in way that will be relevant and appealing to them. What are the expectations by the brand with the extravagant sales coming up lately for the festive season? What would be the key growth drivers? Consumers are more cautious today regarding their spending power and safety measures taken by stores; we want to give them a holistic and hassle-free experience during this time. We are providing facilities like omni & video call shopping through our retail stores to make their shopping safe. We are also bringing alive the festive mood inside the store with our new launches –Ruffles collection, an all girl’s watches which is co-created with Ananya Panday and a brand new collection for the year- Mettle.