It as an evolution of an existing brand: Rahul Dayama on Urbanic’s brand revamp

Launched in 2019 in India, Urbanic is a premium fashion brand from London, which brings fashion that sustains the idea of creativity and sustainability via advanced technology to emerging markets. It is now the No. 1 D2C brand in India currently, with annual sales of over $400 million. The fashion brand has built a strong community of content creators and customers. Urbanic has also spearheaded multiple social campaigns that challenge the status quo. Furthermore, it has organised many CSR initiatives, which have led to positive change.

Urbanic recently refreshed its brand identity with a new logo and brand image, showcasing their revamped identity centered around inclusivity, with the tagline – ‘We are because you are’.

In conversation with Adgully, Rahul Dayama, Head of Marketing, Urbanic, speaks at length about the brand’s new revamp, the insights behind their new campaign #YouAre, associating with micro-influencer marketing, creating a strong community, and much more.

It has been just three years since Urbanic’s inception, and to rebrand your identity in such a short span of time is a bold move. Could you share about this global rebranding, how will it impact Urbanic’s vision and objective?

I see it as an evolution of an existing brand and not just rebranding. Urbanic always was inclusive, but now we want to actually incorporate all our values and our visual identity as well. So, we’re calling this campaign as ‘blooming’, which means Urbanic is blooming and this will be a fresh beginning. So, with this identity, we are putting out our tagline, which is ‘We Are Because You Are’. ‘U’ stands for a very important role. It’s in our initials as well, so that is how our logo is formed, that is how our monogram is formed. We have changed our logo, we have designed the logo in a way that it talks about our community, we have added brand colours with talk about our inclusivity. So, I think it is picking a story for the first time, adding those values to our visual identities, adding those values and creativity to our content. For the positioning, I think we were very focused on Gen Z, but we’re also tapping more audiences with different kinds of collections, which is more casual. We have a lot of athleisure wear as well. So Urbanic, globally, is going to focus very much on quality. Our goal is to provide premium fashion at a fair price. So, it’s like communicating all that through our visual identity.

Which agency was involved in the entire rebranding, or was it done internally?

Internal plus agency. Our creative agencies are from Europe. Our production agency is from Spain. Also our London team, which is leading this rebranding. So, globally there are multiple agencies involved in this. Our shoot has been done in Spain and the campaign video talks about our identity and talks about the logo, which is like the soul of the brand.

With the new website and app revamp, how do you envision enhancing the overall customer experience for Urbanic’s target consumers?

Enhancing their experience is always our goal, because when we say we are a premium brand, it doesn’t come only with growth, but it also comes with experience. It includes how the app is, how the customer service is, and we want to make sure that everyone is heard, everyone is listening. We’ll be continuously adapting the feedback, we’ll be continuously working with our community of customers and influencers. We want to make sure that we provide the best to our consumers, and our goal is to provide the best quality at the best price.

Could you tell us more about the inspiration behind Urbanic’s global rebranding and the significance of the #YouAre campaign in conveying the brand’s ethos of inclusivity, self-belief, and creativity?

The campaign is called ‘Bloom’. It is developing an identity of Urbanic being and our tagline – ‘You Are’. Urbanic has always been a community driven brand, we have worked with so many influencers and many customers talking about us, and community was always the first thing for our brand. That also lies in our tagline now. And we also wanted to communicate that through our campaign as well. We want to create a communication with users, where we promote the natural charm, and we want to come out as a brand, which promotes the natural beauty, and which also respects and identifies works on the individual’s uniqueness. Thus, the campaign talks about how the natural elements are important, how, the concept of being and the tagline ‘You Are’ is so important for us.

Micro-influencer marketing has been successful for Urbanic. Could you share some insights into how this strategy has contributed to the brand’s growth and engagement with its audience?

Urbanic has always been a community-first brand. So, influencer marketing is not just a channel for us to create awareness, it is also a channel for us to understand audiences well, because we not only want them to talk about our brand, but also want to listen to them. What they think about us, what they’re looking for, what they want. And that has actually worked really well for us. We have worked with all kinds of influencers from mega, micro and nano, and we have a community, which is larger than 2,500 people.

Urbanic has always been very creative with the content and has been very transparent with influencers as well. So, we’ve not tried to manipulate influencers to put a certain amount of content. We have always been very customised in our relationship with each influencer and I think influencers have gotten very comfortable. And that really helped us and we have seen good engagement. People want to join the squad, a lot of people keep messaging us that they want to join the Urbanic squad. And I think that this Urbanic Squad is something we’ve built with time, and that community has become stronger and stronger day by day.

What are your key strategies to ensure Urbanic’s message and vision reach the right audience effectively?

I believe in using the right platform with the right content. We don’t want to do a lot of complex types of communications. We want to be very simple. We want to be very creative. I think through our community, the community which stays with you, obviously loves your product. They are the ones who find the right people for you as well. So, I believe with our community, with our social media platforms, we will have a very good engagement on our own social media platforms as well. Thus, we will be able to reach the right audience and communicate our story really well.