Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Oxemberg : Body Music

Brand : Oxemberg
Company : Siyaram

Brand Analysis Count : 457

Whenever my wife purchases a shirt for me , 80% chances are that the brand will be Oxemberg. Although she knows my brand preferences which does not include this brand, Oxemberg will finally make it into her choice list.

The reason is that she looks for design/patterns and often other brands
fails to impress her.

Oxemberg is one of the pioneers of readymade branding in India. The brand which was launched in 1995 rightly envisioned the trend towards readymade clothing in the Indian market.
The brand has been in existence for more than 15 years and is worth over Rs 80 crore. In this highly cluttered and fragmented market, being existing itself is a big achievement for Oxemberg.

However I wonder whether the brand was able to realize its true potential ? Was it left out in the sidelines by the aggressive competitors ?

Oxemberg is a brand targeting the higher middleclass segment. The brand is priced little higher than the brands like Peter England , John Players etc.

One of the factors that has slowed the brand's growth was the limited distribution and the low brand promotion. The brand is being retailed only through select MBOs and is not highly promoted across the media as compared to the competitors. The lack of brand promotion together with the high price may have caused many customers to opt for value brands like Peter England.

One of the reason for low brand promotion may be because the brand chose to grow very slowly. The brand never went for a high profile national launch but moving slowly from one geographical market to another. Despite being in existence for 15 years, I don't remember any memorable campaign run by this brand through any national media . Despite these constraints, the brand sustained itself all these years.

It seems that Oxemberg is now aiming for a much higher play. The brand is now very visible across the print media with the new campaign featuring the celebrity Niel Nitin Mukesh. The brand has adopted the tagline " Body Music " which contains the brand message : Clothes that Move to my Rhythm.
" Body Music " is a very good tagline and positioning of Oxemberg fits to the body like Music is a remarkable idea. The tagline perfectly conveys the message of " perfect fit " property of the brand . The use of word " Music "also gives a sense of coolness to the brand.
The print ads are well made and catches the attention of the readers very well. It is also nice to see the brand taking the positioning based on "body fit ".

As a brand user, I feel that the real strength of Oxemberg is the design. Its patterns have some quality which is not seen in other brands. Even though the cloth quality may not be the best, Oxemberg scores high in the design which should be highlighted in the marketing communication. The current positioning platform is flexible enough to talk about design also.

It is good to see aggressive marketing activity for Oxemberg at the national level. The brand commands fair share of brand awareness because of its long existence. The new communication thrust will take the brand to the next level of growth.

Twilight is Like Soccer...

Via

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The BabyKeeper

Behold, the BabyKeeper. Need to poop, but don't want to hold your child on your lap when you do it? Need to pee, and the baby won't balance on your head? Well then the BabyKeeper is for you. As a bonus, your baby will look like a cute little paratrooper, ready to storm the enemy. I know what you are thinking, why not just hang them from the coat hook on the inside of the door? I have no problem

Bad blogger but Good soaps!!

I have been such a bad blogger lately and I am very sorry!  No really I am, life has been so hectic, we finally made it to Portugal in the plane as you know and then came back to lots of orders and full on work mayhem.

The gallery I manage the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton had its official opening on 29th May which was great, it went really well with over 200 people attending, Peter Randal-Page the brilliant international sculpture and Graham Liverton Chairman of East Devon District Council officially opened the newly refurbished building and it looked spectacular.
Since then its been all hands to the pump, working round the clock to keep up with everything and settle in to the new offices, shop and cafe. My team have been great, I am so lucky to have such a wonderful bunch and we have 35 new volunteers who have signed up too!

Soap is going well too, I have signed up with a company called "It's Cold Outside" who specialise in Google adwords and they have helped me to put together a new campaign which seems to be going well.  I will keep you all informed as to their/my progress regularly, if they are good I will be sure to let you know.  In the meantime, you can find out more about their work by following this link http://www.itscoldoutside.com/

And finally.... for the moment anyway, I have been working on a fantastic wedding cupcake commission, the theme of the wedding is the mad hatters tea party and I was asked to design 12 special guest soaps using the theme as inspiration.  These are the samples I sent off to the bride- tiny cupcakes on a plate with jam tarts, on a table cloth on a mini cupcake, all made out of soap!!



Monday, June 28, 2010

55 Story High Infinity Pool


55 storeys up, this infinity pool could glide you straight over the edge of Singapore, if not the world. It's part of the $6 billion Marina Bay Sands Skypark hotel, which just opened this week.Ok, so if you were really to propel yourself over the edge, you'd fall into a catchment-area which sends the excess water straight back into the pool. But where's the fun in that? The pool itself is three

Putty Nuggets - Silly Putty ingredient found in McNuggets

My wife hasn't eaten McDonalds since I posted about the year old Kid's Meal that looked brand new. The recent CNN investigation found that the same chemicals found in Silly Putty can be found in McNuggets certainly won't help: American McNuggets (190 calories, 12 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat for 4 pieces) contain the chemical preservative tBHQ, tertiary butylhydroquinone, a

Because Rock, Paper, Scissors is Old

Monkey
* Monkey fools Ninja

* Monkey unplugs Robot

Suggested noise: ee-ee-eek!

Robot

* Robot chokes Ninja

* Robot crushes Zombie

Suggested noise: ex-ter-min-ate!

Pirate

* Pirate drowns Robot

* Pirate skewers Monkey
Suggested noise: arrrrr!
Ninja
* Ninja karate chops Pirate
* Ninja decapitates Zombie
Suggested noise: keeee-ah!
Zombie
* Zombie eats Pirate
* Zombie savages Monkey
Suggested