"Sale-led events, social media push have created more demand for HRX"
HRX, India’s first homegrown active lifestyle brand co-owned by Hrithik Roshan and Exceed Entertainment, has seen great traction during the lockdown time and beyond as it capitalises on the coutry’s increased appetite for a better lifestyle.
The brand has rolled out its first-ever crowd-sourced brand film in the lockdown with zero production costs, alongside building India’s fastest growing digital fitness community via an eight-month long campaign.
Since its launch in 2013, HRX has been consistent in its motto of touching the lives of a billion Indians to help them become the best versions of themselves. The brand is inspired by Hrithik Roshan’s life, which gave him a lesson that ‘No matter how big an adversity, it can be overcome by perseverance’.
Also read: India’s first homegrown Fitness Brand, HRX Launches in the United Arab Emirates
Adgully spoke with Ajay Singh, Senior Marketing Manager, HRX, to know more about the brand’s performance during the recent spate of online sales events, growth during the lockdown period, and more.
Your partner channels recently concluded their respective festive season sales and HRX was among the top brands with new customers. What was the sales volume growth that you saw during this period?
The sale events on all our channel partners were a big hit for us. We are still awaiting the final numbers, but overall we were the No. 1 fitness brand on the platforms overall in our respective categories, ahead of all our competition.
HRX is also planning its offline expansion. Will you launch your own branded stores or tie up with fashion retailers? What is your strategy for offline expansion?
We have done extremely well as an online-only brand, to become India’s biggest homegrown fitness and sports wear brand. As far as offline expansion is concerned, it is still work in progress, especially with the current situation. Though it still remains one of our major goals for the next 2-3 years.
You are planning to enter the wearables space. We have seen companies like boAt disrupt this space. What is your strategy to crack this segment? What media had you leveraged to raise awareness of the HRX brand during the festive season?
We had a very successful partnership with Xiaomi, when we launched a wearable Mi Band-HRX Edition and sold over a million pieces. As a brand we are continuously looking at growing and expanding, and launched HRX Audio with Flipkart a couple of months’ back, which has again done extremely well for the brand. Our biggest media leverage to boost these categories has been our social media platforms and our fitness communities. We have focused on building content with our communities like HRX Running Squad and the HRX Fitness Collective to drive more awareness about new categories and at the same time create engaging content that works.
We have seen fashion retailers struggle with returns during the lockdown and tightened their return policy. Has your brand faced any such challenges?
We, too, had our fair share of struggles in the first two-three months of the lockdown. But ever since the markets have started opening up, we have seen slow but steady growth over a period of time. Fitness enthusiasts have also shown keen interest in buying new fitness gear, with more and more people taking up workout from home. This has also helped the brand make up for the time lost. With several sale-led events and the right social media push, we were able create more demand, which also boosted sales for us.
Now that you are planning to expand the product line under the HRX brand, what will be your brand promise to the customers?
We as a brand have been consistent in our motto of touching the lives of a billion Indians and provide them with a platform, that is, HRX, to help them become the best versions of themselves. And this remains our promise to all the people, where HRX can play the role of a fitness enabler and keep pushing them, with newer range of products and inspiring content that can help them in their journey.