How the branding game has changed in Pakistan

By Saad Tanvir

There seems to have been a marked shift in the way that Pakistani companies are operating. Marketing strategies now have a greater emphasis on branding and brand equity, with grand old companies diversifying their products under a range of brands - developing both economical and luxury categories often in the same stores.

The change is a direct result of changing times over the past decade and a half. As international chains have made their way to Pakistan, imported products have resulted in thriving industries developing around them, and social media culture has altered how consumers perceive products companies are trying to shift from a sales-oriented approach to a market-oriented approach.

With more emphasis on brand building, numerous organizations are transforming their marketing strategies to rejuvenate their products and create a brand image that’s going to last much longer than their products. Brands are developing in a diverse range of industries including automobiles, restaurants, uncooked & cooked food products, apparels & footwear, home appliances, perfumes, and much more.

About 10 years ago, nobody would have thought that the importance of branding would grow at such a level. Well, some brands such as paradise (chocolate), Service shoes and perhaps Pakistan’s first locally manufactured car ‘Adam Revo’, could not sustain their consumers owing to the lack of branding that held them back. Hence, the new products are now more focused towards branding their products to create their image, rather than focusing solely on sales.

The world has changed, and so has the business landscape. The concept of integrated marketing strategy seems like a reality now more than ever, even in Pakistan. Gone are the days when consumers were attracted by pompous audio-visual extravaganza. It is a much more sophisticated game now.

Here are some Pakistani companies that are here to play that branding game, and what they’ve done to make sure it works out for them.

Servis shoes - Shifting towards brand development

Afew decades ago, the only competitor Service had was Bata. The concept of branding was futile back then. The most a company would do, was to launch adverts on mainstream media to raise awareness for a brand. The primary goal was to maximize sales and reap its fruits in the short term. There was no concept of brand profiling or brand development. The idea of consumer driven marketing strategy was rather abstract, and marketing was simply correlated with advertising. Targeting, segmentation, differentiation, and positioning, were all read, studied, and understood, but not implemented.

Now, with the advent of globalization, the competition has drastically increased, with an increase in both – local and international challenges. The world has witnessed a globalization of markets where the competition is no longer confined to a certain locality but has expanded to the world at large. The need for branding augmented when the accessibility of international consumer products accelerated.

‘Ndure’ ‘LIZA’

Ndure combines vogue statements with comfort. It offers a product that attract the youth and provides reliability for the trendy urban youth. Adding modern styling to the standard everyday footwear, Liza covers a wide variety that caters different occasions and lifestyles for women. For the young kids who fail to realize their needs. T.Z. offers both fashionable and comfortable shoes in engaging colorful designs that charm give them a charming appearance. Combining comfort and sturdiness, Skooz supply’s a holistic vary of faculty shoes that follow uniform needs and still offer styles that children will decide consistent with their own preference. Covering the normal everyday necessities for men, Calza offers a good selection that gives satisfaction fashionable.

‘TZ’ ‘SKOOZ’ ‘CALZA’

Servis shoes was one of the victims of conventional marketing and had not managed to build itself a long-lasting brand. Recently, with the launch of Ndure as its flagship brand, Servis has sought to transform this insufficiency and position itself as a prominent footwear brand for its target audience. With an increase in its marketing budget and a significant focus towards brand optimization, Servis seeks to give itself a separate identity and profile a brand that would create a greater impact on its consumers, create a point of difference, and hence enhance its competitiveness.

The evolution of Imtiaz and its pivot to branding

Imtiaz’s story begins from 1955 when Imtiaz was merely a Kiryani story in Bahadurabad. Inspired by one of the largest chains in Singapore - Al-Mustafa store - Imtiaz Abbasi, Imtiaz’s Managing Director, sought to apply a similar business model in Pakistan. With the production-oriented approach, Imtiaz focused on expanding its product portfolio targeting the middle class and witnessed a favorable response. Hence, the journey began.

Imtiaz witnessed a mushrooming growth in the 1980s onwards with the addition of more and more products to its product portfolio based on the ‘economic pricing strategy’. The core products were rice, flour, sugar, salt, cooking oil and spices, in essence, the ‘Maheenay ka Rashan’. Imtiaz then went on to establish in house manufacturing facilities for these core products – Rice & Flour Mills – as well as spice-grinding, cleaning, and packaging facility, to sustain its economic pricing strategy.

With the digital revolution and tech disruption, the importance of branding grew, and this caused Imtiaz to pivot from supplying non-branded low-budget products to high value branded products. Imtiaz realized that with such a massive product line, it could provide greater value to its target audience by providing them greater quality at much cheaper rates. With such a vast network of superstores, Imtiaz sought to exploit this by providing its customers with Imtiaz-made products rather than externally produced goods. It started this with the introduction of unbranded cooking oil, rice, spices, sugar, and flour. (The economy pricing strategy). Witnessing brand loyalty and brand consciousness to be a fundamental object in the retail market. Imtiaz introduced its own low-cost, high-value brands to further target its consumers and create brand awareness. Each brand would target a different segment of the market based on demographics, psychographics & cognitive behavioral patterns.

With the launch of Ponam as Imtiaz’s first brand for agricultural commodities and spices; Imtiaz gave its core products an identity. Ponam was a signature of quality and quantity both within the domain of a competitive pricing strategy. Proving to be a great success, Ponam provided a platform to Imtiaz to launch multitudes of brands including: Sabiha’s; Brios; Bakings; Fresh choice; and Home-sense. Each with a separate identity, targeting a diverse set of audience, with a distinct goal, and a discrete brand profile altogether.

Brands

Ponam

Bakings

Sabiha’s

Brios

Fresh choice

Home sense

Products

pulses (DAAL), rice, flour, spices, sugar, grains, and black salt

Freshly baked products such as cakes, sandwiches, and other things.

A wide variety of fashionable apparel, footwear, and jewelry for women

A high fiber & protein breakfast with packaging that protects nutritional values and taste following International Standard packaging

Packed food

Household products including Tissue box, Handwash, Toilet roll, Floor cleaner, Bathroom cleaner

Vision

“The taste of Nation!”

“The Oven Experts” “We bake goodness”

“Revive the intermix culture of Pakistan; its people, art & artisans.”

“Easy cooking oats“

Arsenal for a variety of delicious food including a wide range of exotic cuisines “Home sense takes care of all your household and cleaning needs.” “A brand you can trust”

Story of Warp – the Pakistani entrepreneur who made it to Paris

Ahigh value brand of leather handbags created and led by a Pakistani female entrepreneur Hirra Babar, has shown how brand equity can be used to maximize value. Launched in 2016, Warp has accomplished exponential growth after starting from a small niche in Lahore, to being appearing in the Paris Fashion week in 2019, 2020 and 2021, as well as being a part of Mipel (a prestigious leather handbag and accessories event) in Milan in 2018 being selected by the National Chamber of Italian Fashion to display its pieces at the event in the emerging brands category. The brand has been featured in numerous Publications including the Forbes magazine in the article “The Handbag from Lahore that made it to Paris Fashion Week’’ by Sonia Rehman, The Friday Times in the article “’Made in Pakistan’ line of handbags hits Fashion weeks in Milan, Paris and Beyond”, Fashion Times Magazine and many more. At present, Warp has its presence in Western Europe, South Asia, East Asia, North America, and many more, with expansion plans for the middle east as well. Warp sources handbags from Pakistan – primarily from Lahore – maintaining that the bags are completely ‘made in Pakistan’ and guaranteeing premium quality, in Hirra’s own words – “handcrafted in finest quality materials in Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan.”

Hirra Babar, who completed her MBA from Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in 2014, always “dreamt of creating a line of bags for the modern woman.” She sought to work for a renowned fashion company before taking off on her journey with Warp. Her goal was to comprehend the ins and outs of the fashion industry so she could create a brand of her own. While working in the fashion industry, she conducted an abundance of research, traveled to different markets, spoke to a plethora of people from diverse backgrounds and sought to understand their needs. Hirra had envisioned from the very launch that she is going to take her brand to the global markets and aligned her strategic objectives accordingly.

While on her visits to the European markets to conduct research, Hirra observed that much of the luxury European brands were produced by “small family-owned workshops.” She realized that with extra focus on quality and a certain ‘finesse,’ the same niche can be produced in Pakistan as well, with similar hand-crafting techniques and tools, however, at a lower cost. Hirra wanted to signify Warp as a perfect blend of good design and functionality targeting modern women, providing them value, and superior quality. Hirra lays great emphasis on Warp being a 100% Pakistani lebel and a home-grown brand, which sources its complete supplies from Pakistan. She believes that not only does this help Warp in maintaining an efficient & effective supply chain, it gives a chance to local Pakistani craftsmen to enhance their skills and compete on a global level.

Hirra maintains that installing the concept of brand quality, attention to detail and finesse was one of her biggest challenges pertaining to her brand; After getting her first international order for 50 bags for a concept store in Seoul, South Korea rejected by the client based on quality, she realized that the dearth of these three aspects in the Pakistani industry was one of the most crucial aspects to the plight of home-grown brands. She claims “Attitude towards work and understanding the concept of quality is definitely the biggest challenge we face. We as a nation have a very laissez-faire attitude towards work. We had to work really hard with the craftsmen-community to install the idea of finesse and attention to detail and that cutting corners and finding short-cuts will not get us anywhere.”

As per Hirra, Warp faced numerous obstacles initially including lack of skills, lack of funding, lack of marketing and customer acquisition, lack of quality maintenance, logistical issues, online payment issues and much more. With time, Hirra and her team continued to learn as they made mistakes. In Hirra’s words Warp has remained in a “Constant learning phase” and the more it explores, the more experienced the team gets. With every problem, the team learns, and the brand grows!

Initially Warp had no competition, as it was a niche market in Pakistan that the brand was catering to. She observed an immense gap in the market, realizing that “Pakistan is one of the largest leather exporters in the world and it’s sad that we don’t have a single commercial brand that’s selling high-value goods overseas.” She sought to fill this gap with the vision of

“Warp essentially means to twist, so I wanted to re-interpret handbags in a contemporary form. A good design is something that evokes the five senses…the shape, for instance, is so important, it should pique a potential buyer’s interest. A handbag needs to have its own character”

Hirra Babar, founder and creative director of Warp

“make local and sell global.”

As the brand gained traction over digital media, her first international order from South Korea became a disaster due insufficient attention to detail. Starting global, Hirra experienced tremendous challenges with regards to the quality, logistics, sales and brand management. She believes that after order, she would place significant importance on feedback and train Warp’s craftsmen accordingly, until she managed to surpass the international quality standards for handbags.

Warp maintains a value based pricing strategy as the brand equity and the utility of her handbags are of high value. Her handbags range from $80 to $400, including a series of ‘hexella’ handbags in Warp’s distinctive & elegant geometric design.

MO AM - Hand stitched sweaters from Lahore

MO AM is a contemporary luxury brand founded by an emerging knitwear designer based in Lahore, Pakistan. MO AM’s journey to handmade knitwear began in 2020. The brand is an embodiment of slow-fashion and sustainability that is reviving the age-old tradition of hand-knitting and crafting garments with love and care. MO AM maintains an all-women team that invests in both employing and training females while providing them the opportunity to earn from the comfort of their respective homes. The brand provides rather specialized & niche products relying on the talent and expertise of small teams of knitters in local ateliers, where every piece is hand knitted. MO AM is a fairly recent brand attaining rapid growth within a couple of years. By adopting a diverse range of marketing strategies and branding techniques MO AM has managed to attract both local and well as international consumers. The brand has used an integrated marketing strategy, to provide its target audience with the right product. The product functionality is primarily based on quality, sustainability, and customer satisfaction. The pricing is done accordingly, where a value-based pricing strategy is adopted. Promotion is primarily done through social media (paid and non-paid promotion), influencer marketing, direct selling, fashion events, and word-of-mouth. The product is seasonal ‘winter-wear’; henceforth, peak sale period is from November to January for local sales, whereby international sales extend throughout the year, especially from western markets.

Momina argues that despite the fact that all other challenges could be resolved in one way or the other, lack of investment mechanism is the key issue concerning Pakistani brands. Although the culture of Venture Capitalists and Private equity has gained pace in the past few years, their primary focus is tech based startups while conventional startups still have to bootstrap. These VCs - both local and international - essentially look for technological innovation which then enhances their scalability. On the other hand, brands which are not ‘Tech-based,’ are subject to immense pressure looking for funding.

Momina believes that creating a brand is more nuanced than it seems. It requires extensive research, Total Quality Management (TQM), Extraordinary emphasis on Customer Relationship Management (CRM), targeted Customer Driven Marketing Strategy (CDMS), and much more. In order to compete, a brand needs a separate identity and a profile that speaks to its target audience & showcase products capability. She opines that a brand needs to communicate a message from the producer and that pricing is crucial at first, but once the brand has grown its customer base, what’s more important is reliability, credibility, durability and sustainability.

MOAM has three key message that it seeks to convey to its target market:· • Women empowerment - All MOAM sweaters are hand knitted by female employees, from the comfort of their respective homes.· • Sustainability - The raw material used in all MOAM sweaters is recyclable acrylic yarn, which can be reused to make Shalls or Sweaters of different designs. • Premium quality - The raw material used by MOAM is a high-value, high-quality and highly expensive yarn. MOAM places utmost importance on customer satisfaction and product quality where the products are made with specialized and trained labor.

The primary marketing tool MOAM uses is digital media including social media, youtube, SEO etc. MOAM has placed its sweaters on different online marketplaces - both local and international - including fashion stores such as ’Specter.pk. The vision of the company is to take its brand to the western markets directly by setting up both online and offline stores in the fashion capitals of the world. Momina believes that there is extensive demand for her products in the European, North American and North Asian markets because of colder weather conditions. She believes that this demand can be catered to by partnering up with both large scale and small scale clothing stores in these regions, participating in a diverse range of fashion events to enhance footprint, and precise use of online marketing tools. However, she maintains that this requires investments and the investment mechanism in Pakistan is not very effective when it comes to conventional niche products that cater to a relatively smaller proportion of the population. n

“I have faced an abundance of challenges throughout this journey including operational inefficiencies, lack of an international Payment mechanism in Pakistan (Paypal), quality maintenance, but perhaps the biggest issue has been investment”

Momina Amjad, Founder of MO AM