Why CenturyPly roped in Manish Malhotra to give a haute couture touch to its laminates

Century Laminates, one of the largest brands in the furniture space solutions category, has recently collaborated with well-known fashion designer Manish Malhotra for a new range of laminates. With the tagline, ‘Fashion for your Furniture’, Century Laminates seeks to redefine design and give a new life to the way furniture in homes is usually perceived. By combining fashion with furniture, it is the first in the country to bring out a unique side and aspect of furniture that has never been seen or heard before. It carefully inculcates a sense of exclusivity in its classic range of laminates for high-end consumers.

In three exquisite ranges, the essence of Manish Malhotra’s designs is captured and his proclivity for designs that are very much rooted in Indian culture and tradition finds a way for expression through the world-class modern and contemporary range of laminates by CenturyPly. With this, Century Ply is expanding as well as going beyond only textures, designs, colours, finishes.

To market this newest range of laminates, Century Ply has come up with a holistic, 360-degree independent marketing campaign, where Manish Malhotra for the first time is seen to venture into an unrelated category that is outside the wardrobe rather than inside of the wardrobe. In this campaign video, two women who are friends are seen to be engaged in a video call and when one friend asks the other from where she has got the laminate seen behind her, the former initially thinks her friend is talking about the dress, she was wearing, whereas she was referring to the laminate behind, designed by Manish Malhotra. Then at the end, Manish Malhotra is seen at her place, surprising her. The film is a quirky take on the fusion of furniture with fashion, and for the first time diverts attention from clothing designed by Manish Malhotra to now laminates designed by him for CenturyPly.

In conversation with Adgully, Keshav Bhajanka, Executive Director of CenturyPly, said: “Our corporate motto is ‘The Best Always’, that is the philosophy that we always had. This is about giving our customers something that has never been seen before in history, it's about giving our customers, a chance to express themselves in a way that they did not think was possible”.

What is the idea and reason for collaborating with designer Manish Malhotra for the new range of laminates?

For Century Laminates and CenturyPly, the objective has always been to give our customers something unique, something innovative.  We came up with a lot of innovations on the quality side of our product - we came up with biometric technology and BioVolt technology in the last couple of years, but with regards to aesthetics, we wanted to innovate on something that the industry has never seen before, something for what we are the first in the world to do. Once a laminate is put outside, people don’t know which laminate it is. Once it is pasted, the question is how to give it that distinct feel that once somebody sees it, they know that it is a product from this house, and the question of how do we get those designs that are otherworldly because otherwise, it is not something you are creating but taking something that we are creating and then you are dealing with that.

Towards this concept, we thought we want to ideally create a new design philosophy. And we decided on who is the best in the country, how do we elevate, and how we bring fashion to your furniture. So, we tied up with designer Manish Malhotra, and this is not a branding collaboration, this is a product development collaboration. Consequently, he has developed 70 new designs, which have now been brought into the Century Laminates range.

How did the idea of combining fashion with furniture come about?

Now the aspirations are different for people. They want their homes to be as aesthetically pleasing as they can, so I think there has been an uptrend in furniture for quite some time now. But in our products, Laminates, it has not been the case. That is why we thought about how to bring that entire fashion element to furniture.

Which agency has conceptualised this campaign and who is the TG?

Wunderman Thompson has conceptualised this campaign. The TG of the campaign is every single consumer, who wants something special in their homes. Every single home builder, or home renovator, is looking for something that is aesthetically different.

What are the trends observed right now in the home décor space and how has the pandemic impacted consumer behaviour in this space?

One thing that the pandemic has definitely and distinctively done is that it has led to people becoming more brand conscious. Anyone who has faced any issue during the pandemic, such as in most building societies like mine, contractors were not allowed into your homes, something went wrong. A friend of mine faced an issue with kitchen cabinets, and for six months, he had to live with broken cabinets in the kitchen. He came back to me and said “There is no chance for me in hell that I will ever go for a non-branded product. I will go for CenturyPly, no matter what happens, what anybody says.” So, I think that change in mindset is taking place. And now the customers want to express themselves differently. Earlier, there was this entire thought process that we will only go for marble or others. Now people are becoming far more expressive, so I think the fusion ranges, the abstract kind of designs – that kind of design philosophy is catching on fast.

How is CenturyPly leveraging technology for marketing this campaign and what are the marketing activities undertaken by it? What is the overall marketing strategy for this year?

Century always tried to do a 360-degree strategy, so we are very ATL heavy as well as we are going to be on television, on cinemas, on digital media extensively, and we are going to be on other mediums as well. So, that is a holistic approach that we take. We feel that there is no single touchpoint where we can reach the customers, we can reach customers across end number of touchpoints, so the more we can create awareness about superb product classes like this one, the better the chances are that people will appreciate the product.

Towards that end, it is a 360-degree campaign that we are doing and this is going to be the largest marketing campaign in the history of Century Ply also, investing heavily in plywood and other elements. Therefore, it is going to be a substantial jump over anything done in the past.

CenturyPly stands for quality, range, and customer focus. How is this new range going to fulfill those parameters?

Our corporate motto is ‘The Best Always’, that is the philosophy that we always had. This is about giving our customers something that has never been seen before in history, it’s about giving our customers, a chance to express themselves in a way that they did not think was possible, I think that is how as you know Manish Malhotra stands for one thing above all, stands for innovation, disruption, quality, so I think the ethos of both matches very well.

Was Manish Malhotra hesitant to design for the furniture range at Century Ply?

Surprisingly, he was very excited about it because he said “I already do everything inside the wardrobe. Now why not step outside of the wardrobe and create a complete picture?”. Furniture, to me, is a work of art, but with a lot more bandwidth. So, I think it merges beautifully.

How has been the year 2022 for Century Ply and what are its plans for the upcoming quarter?

Of course, we have huge expansion plans, but because we are in the silent phase right now, we cannot talk about numbers. But India’s long-term future is very bullish. So if you look at it, going forward we are going to be the world’s growth engine. The philosophy or the sort of track record that other countries have seen is that when the economy grows at a scale, it is the housing segment that booms. In India, you have heard the statement ‘Roti, Kapra, Makaan’. Roti and Kapra have been addressed, now Makaan needs attention. That’s the focus such as the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana, the focus on the revival of the domestic sector, the cleaning up, so all of these are going to lead to tremendous boom in the domestic sector.

There will be temporary ups and downs, like right now interest rates are higher, and more people are buying homes through EMIs, while long term we are extremely bullish. We are getting CapEx of nearly Rs 2,000 crore, which is 2x of what we have done in the last 35 years. So, as you can see, we are quite bullish.