Bare snare?

Bare, the casual wear brand from Future Brands, which has been in the Indian market for almost a decade now, has finally given in to advertising (no pun intended!). In what looks to be its first attempt at media, the company has released three print ads which position the brand as an antidote to mindless fashion.

One of the three print ads has a young boy exclaiming, “Sure, I have a personal stylist. Mom.” The second has a girl depicting her desire to be herself; the copy says, “My clothes should say Diya. Not Donna, Calvin or Georgio.” In the third campaign, a man says, “Thirty years of being stylish. Zero years of following trends.” All these campaigns carry the logo of Bare Casuals, and the tagline, ‘Keeping It Real’.

“We intend to bring the average consumer face to face with true fashion by making available to them regular everyday wear, which is different from what designers project fashion to be,” he says.

There was hardly any advertising for the brand earlier, largely because it was meant to be a store brand, a private label, explains Saraogi. The last time that the company considered advertising the brand was seven-eight years ago.

The creative agency on the brand is Publicis Dialog. The brief given to the agency required it to bring out fashion as a notion of individuality. “With lots of brands creating conformity, one can see that fashion has chosen to create divides and designers wish to get consumers to conform to their standards of fashion. Consumers tend to feel intimidated by this. As a brand, we bring forth a point of view on life, and fashion as a part of it. The Bare positioning acknowledges life beyond clothing,” states Saraogi.

Currently, the brand is being communicated heavily through print and outdoor. The company’s billing period begins in July and Saraogi says that for a period of a month and a half, the company has planned an ad spend of Rs 3-4 crore (the media being limited to print and outdoor for the period). The current communication spans across six cities, Mumbai, New Delhi (and NCR), Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata and Hyderabad. For the year to come, Saraogi is contemplating an ad budget of Rs 10-15 crore. Television is an important medium, and hopefully, the brand will be seen on television within this year, he says.

Bare speaks to an older audience – customers between the ages of 24 and 35 years, upper middle class working professionals. Unlike teenagers who are casual browsers and not serious shoppers, Bare is aimed at customers who have a developed sense of personal style and are purposeful in their shopping habits and seek out specific labels and items. They believe in economising on time and have a defined basket of labels from which they choose.

The range that Bare offers comprises jeans, T-shirts, cotton shirts, corduroy and zip-up jackets and caps. The company has taken a second look at its product range to bring the brand on track and to make it a strong and ambitious national brand.

In 2006, Bare’s revenue stood at around Rs 110 crore, and the company is expecting it to go up to Rs 460 crore by 2010-11. The brand is available exclusively across 40 Pantaloon stores and six Central departmental store-format malls.