Royal Enfield will be announcing a new motorcycle every quarter: Shubhranshu Singh

The oldest motorcycle brand in continuous production, Royal Enfield has created beautifully crafted motorcycles since 1901. From its British roots, a manufacturing plant was established in Chennai (then Madras) in 1955, a foothold from which Royal Enfield spearheaded the growth of India’s mid-sized two-wheeler segment. The iconic brand remains unchallenged in the domestic market and is surging ahead to be one of the most preferred brands globally.

The brand has achieved remarkable growth in the past decade and has successfully built a resilient business model. The focus has been to become the global leader in the mid-sized motorcycle segment with globally relevant motorcycles and initiating more enthusiasts towards motorcycle-led lifestyle. The company is expanding their business and extending their retail footprint across the globe to bring in newer audiences across geographies.

Royal Enfield has always kept innovating with interesting engagement initiatives and taking their community connect to the next level by unlocking new means to establish a more intrinsic connect with the modern customer, using virtual as a medium. The host of unique, engaging initiatives from Royal Enfield have seen customer engagement and brand interaction attain an all-time high awareness and visibility for the brand while focusing on the core themes of exploration and the importance of authentic experiences. The Royal Enfield community ranging from avid riders and aspirants to custom builders and motorcycling clubs under a common umbrella has today established a strong bond and liking on their common passion – Pure Motorcycling.

In conversation with Adgully, Shubhranshu Singh, Head - Global Marketing and Brand, Royal Enfield, speaks at length about how the brand has evolved over the years, what factors have kept the brand resilient amid launch of strong international brands in India, the formidable Royal Enfield community, how the company has been strengthening their brand engagement across various markets and much more.

120 years of Royal Enfield is a great achievement for the brand. How is RE planning to make it bigger and stronger in the India market?

We have achieved remarkable growth in the past decade and have successfully built a resilient business model. We are continuing to expand our business and retail footprint across the globe to bring in newer audiences across geographies and will cater to their unique motorcycling requirements. Customers across the world and in India are gravitating towards the middleweight segment, with a desire to have a simple, accessible, yet evocative, great looking, and fun to ride motorcycle, and we plan to support them in their journey of exploration, through our product offering.           

Continuing with our ambition to lead and grow the middleweight motorcycling segment, we have taken huge strides in expanding our retail footprint deeper into the regional markets. We hope to make the brand presence bigger and stronger in the market, and for this, we have digitised our services to create a truly differentiated experience on both fronts – Business and Customer. On the service front, we have rolled out a number of initiatives to ensure a seamless purchase and ownership experience for our customers – from watchful home test rides (under company supervision with safety precautions) and contactless servicing. We reimagined our service initiatives with our dedicated Royal Enfield mobile application, the online booking platforms and the ‘Make it Yours’ initiative that lets the customer personalise their motorcycle and gear. Moreover, Royal Enfield pushed out several initiatives through which we have engaged with our community at large. These activities resulted in impactful numbers for the brand and witnessed digital engagement from our customers like never before.

The deployed initiatives are focused on the core themes of exploration and the importance of authentic experiences, that resulted in bringing together a diverse yet inclusive Royal Enfield community, ranging from avid riders and aspirants to custom builders and motorcycling clubs, under a common umbrella and bond, for their common passion- Pure Motorcycling.

The avid riders and bikers of Royal Enfield are a strong community. How do you excite these passionate bikers and what kind of engagement activities do you undertake and ignite these riders to keep them motivated and thrilled continuously?

Royal Enfield as a brand has always had community at the heart of all of its engagement initiatives and the new world view has contributed to the brand innovating and taking our community connect to the next level by unlocking new means to establish a more intrinsic connect with the modern customer, using digital as a medium. A host of unique, engaging initiatives from Royal Enfield have seen customer engagement and brand interaction attain an all-time high for the brand while focusing on the core themes of exploration and the importance of authentic experiences. Royal Enfield community ranges from avid riders and aspirants to custom builders and motorcycling clubs under a common umbrella and bond on their common passion- Pure Motorcycling.

Some recent initiatives that we have rolled out in the recent past through which we actively engaged with our community are:

• Found #MYBULLET Received 19.7K+ Stories | 976K Views
• #ROYALENFIELD x GOPRO Masterclass Over 365.5K Engagements | 6 million Views
• #TRIPSTORY Received 26.8K+ Stories | 9M Engagement | 25.8 million Views
• #CUSTOMWORLD Live Over 637.5K Engagements | 480.7K Live Views
• #DEEDSNOTWORDS Women's Apparel Launch 30K Engagement |1.8M Views 3 million+ Reach
• #STAYHOME 95.8K Engagements | 4.4 million Views
• #ARTOFMOTORCYCLING | 10,500+ registrations | 40% of the entries from Tier 1 cities, 60% of the entries have come from Tier 2 and Tier 3 | 62% non-owners, 38% Owners | Over 3k+ post on Primary channel: Instagram
• Build Your Own Legend: Total Reach 34 Million, Engagement 838K, Entries 1,341 custom designs.

The highlight of the last year was the #MISSOUTONNOTHING campaign that was rolled out alongside one of the most anticipated motorcycle launches of the year – the Meteor 350. We were able to generate 39.7K conversations, out of which 95% were positive. The brand posts and stories reached a total of 2.2M users with 790K views and 331.6K engagement. We were able to rope in 71 advocates who shared content around the Meteor 350, reaching out to 905K users with 51K engagement and 172K views.

The Meteor 350 adds to Royal Enfield’s legacy of cruisers. It has been more than 6 months since this bike has been launched. How has the market accepted it and how is the bike doing in terms of sales after the initial launch?

The Royal Enfield Meteor 350 is a brand new motorcycle that takes ‘easy cruising’ to a whole new level and it is one of the most refined motorcycles in its segment. The Meteor 350 takes our cruising legacy to the next level, and is a gorgeous, accessible and easy cruiser. Within a span of months, the Meteor has performed extremely well in terms of booking and inquiries. We have seen interest from across Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities. With the Meteor 350, we’ve been able to target a variety of riders and have been able to expand our customer base by setting a new benchmark in cruisers.

To enhance the ownership experience, we have introduced a host of offerings with the Meteor 350 that consumers can now experience with the RE App, Make-it-Yours and the all new Turn-By-Turn (TBT) navigation. With this, comes an absolutely seamless discovery, purchase and ownership journey. Our efforts have already been well received by Meteor 350 customers and have helped the Meteor bag many prestigious awards for the year. The response has been absolutely fantastic and our strong booking numbers are proof of that. It’s also interesting to note that approximately 50 per cent of our inquiries are routed through digital platforms, up from 10-15 per cent earlier, and the conversion from digital inquiries has also doubled – the Meteor 350 has played a pivotal role in these numbers.

The buyer and audience for Cruiser bikes are very niche and special in India. So, what are the marketing challenges you face in promoting bikes in this category? Going forward will this category grow and are you expanding your presence in smaller markets?

The trend of premiumisation continues to be strong in the country as consumers are looking to upgrade from an average commuter motorcycle to a premium and capable motorcycle that is easy to own, ride and maintain. The cruising segment has seen a surge in demand across markets as this segment offers an enjoyable, easy-going and an accessible riding experience. In India, where expensive, heavyweight cruisers were neither available nor suitable for the road conditions, the Meteor 350, has been well received by the motorcycling enthusiasts as it is a highly refined, desirable and accessible mid-sized modern-day cruiser.

With cruisers enjoying a large fan following, and with Meteor 350 offering a fabulous easy-cruising experience, we are definitely seeing a fabulous response from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. To cater to leisure motorcycling enthusiasts in smaller cities, Royal Enfield had introduced ‘studio’ format retail stores across India. Studio stores are compact, and are located in upcountry towns while offering a full fledged brand experience. With these stores, we are certainly able to reach a much wider audience and bring them closer to the Royal Enfield brand.

How was the overall performance of Royal Enfield in 2020 and what kept the brand resilient in the pandemic year? What are the growth targets set for 2021?

We have seen a strong revival in demand on the back of solid business and product fundamentals. While the initial trend in the first few weeks or months of the unlock phase was the pent-up demand, we have witnessed a steady and strong surge in fresh demand coming from across the nation, especially Tier 2 and 3 cities and towns. The presence of more than 771 studio stores across India has aided us with an increased number of retail touchpoints, thus, positively impacting the overall business recovery so far. In FY20-21 we have sold over 623,000 motorcycles.

While we would not like to mention future targets, we have a very strong product launch pipeline and will be announcing a new motorcycle every quarter. As for 2021, we are focusing on bringing higher levels of contactless sales and service experience for our customers. Our aim is to significantly expand our product range, working consistently towards enhancing and improving the purchase and ownership experience of customers, and not just expanding the network globally and locally, but deepening brand engagement across markets. In the coming year, we hope to remain focused and work towards fulfilling our long-term objectives.