AgTalk | Opportunities like IPL promise a decent ROI: Aventus Retail's Barathi

WHSmith, for people across countries is best known as a chain of convenience stores at airports and railway stations besides other places across the world. The UK-based retailer, engaged in the sale of books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, confectionery, travel and entertainment products, opened its first store in India in partnership with Travel News Services (India) Private Ltd back in July 2010. It currently operates nearly 34 stores in the country, of which, more than half of them are at airports. WHSmith, under its expansion plans appointed Aventus Retail as its local franchisee in the UAE in 2011.

WHSmith along with opening operations in India has recently associated itself with the mega cricketing event IPL as the principal sponsor for team SunRisers Hyderabad.

As part of its promotion strategy, WHSmith along with SunRisers Hyderabad, owned by Kalanithi Maran of the Sun TV channel network, will now initiate a slew of in-store activities, on-ground promotion and provide merchandises and customised gifts in order to reach out to the cricket fans in India and West Asia.

Adgully (AG): For an association like this, what is the thought process or strategy behind partnering with an IPL team?
Arun Barathi (AB): WHSmith is a leading convenience retailer in UK offering a range of convenience products from books, magazines, beverages, snacks, electronics, toys, accessories, etc.  The company in recent years has been focusing on developing its international foot print with India and the Middle East figuring as key targets markets. Our companies runs the franchises in India (with focus on A,B cities) and UAE. We have been in the markets for 3 years now and established ourselves operationally in these markets with around 50 stores. It is right time to scale up our business. We identified brand awareness as a key area we need to work on to help with our scale up plans. In both these markets IPL has a tremendous following and brand strength and it offered us the best ROI for our raising brand awareness initiative.

AG: Since it’s the IPL, shed some light on the marketing initiatives at WHSmith for the mega sporting event.

AB: We have identified in store promotions and digital platforms for giving us the best returns for a variety of business and marketing objectives. We have launched a series of special promotions were are giving away SunRisers merchandise and free tickets at our shops to lucky winners, opportunities for people to meet the players etc. Our initiative at Dubai mall at WHSmith shop was a big success where we had invited hundreds of school kids to meet there favorite players, through our social media initiative on Facebook and Twitter people have the opportunity to win signed merchandise by the players.

AG: What millage will this association get on the table for your brand?

AB: The association is aimed at highlighting WHSmith’s presence amongst the target audience. As a Principal Sponsor the usual branding opportunities are including our branded name on player’s jerseys, stadia bill boards, stadia big screen ad time etc.

AG: As an extension to the previous question, IPL is a great opportunity to connect with the consumers. What is your take on the same?

AB: In India there aren’t too many vehicles that allow you to connect with the consumers in A,B,C centres across the county barring a few events such as the IPL. We hope our calculations on the ROI with IPL and SunRisers will be validated in a few months time.

AG: Speaking industry specifics, share with us size of the industry that you are in today and what percentage share does your brand hold in the same?

AB: It is very difficult to put an accurate figure on this as we are by definition into organized convenience retail and this is a relatively small niche within the overall consumer retail Indian market. But for sure within this space we are the market leaders.

AG: Since the retail industry is quite robust in terms of competition, how do you deal with growing competition and what challenges you face in terms of staying ahead of the curve?

AB: Again the focus in on a niche market where we have definite and superior competency. Once you establish leadership in this space you expand the space in achieving continual medium term growth.

AG: Since you are a global player what kind of challenges does Indian market offers you?

AB: The convenience market space is highly fragmented and disorganized and poorly structured.

AG: Share with us WHSmith’s expansion plan in Indian and UAE market.

AB: We hope from the current 40 stores to reach at least 250 in next 3 years

AG: What are your plans for brand promotion in Dubai?

AB: We have plans for both in stadia and in store activity. In Stadia our branding will be in dug outs, 4s &6s placards, Ad for giant screen, in stadia booth, branding at WHSmith stand, seat branding. For In store activities we will have player’s pictures, scratch card offer, WHSmith standees, Posters, digitally signed bat, ball, caps etc, Mannequins with jerseys, Customized T shirts etc.

AG: If you have to chalk out a few differences between India and its global counterparts in this industry, what would they be?

AB: I think the sophistication in category management and space planning strategies to derive incremental bottom line growth is something Indian companies can still learn from their global counterparts.

AG: With respect to the industry that you are in, what trends do you visualize going 3 - 5 years down the line?

AB: Many more niche and organized operators to come up and a lot more click and brick business models to be implemented.

AG: Other forms of sports are gaining equal amount of prominence, does WHSmith have any plans to get into that as well?

AB: In India Cricket is king and with a bit of patience you do come across partnership opportunities with cricket that pays well on the ROI even for a small company such as us!