Dot on time - Soch goes outdoor to drive end-of-season sale

Soch, one of the ethnic women's wear brands in the country, just concluded its out-of-home (OOH)'red dot sale' campaign in Bengaluru. It's still running in all other cities where there are Soch outlets. Based out of Bengaluru, Soch has 50 stores across India in Bengaluru, Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli, Chennai, Coimbatore, Cochin, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Bhopal. This campaign has been running since the 19 December, 2014 and will run till the end-of-season sale (EOSS) which ends on February 3.

Vinay Chatlani, managing director and chief executive officer, Soch, says: "We use innovation just to stand out and differentiate ourselves from advertising around us. With this said, we like our innovations to stay in line with our brand philosophy, which is simplicity with a primary focus on our product image. We currently use laser cut ACP signage with LED backlit acrylic letters. As you can see in the image, the warm glow of the 3D logo definitely grabs attention, but doesn't over power the image”. On hoarding spaces on mall facades, brand Soch has its signature element - the SochJaali -- which is again backlit and thrown in with a collage of the brand's latest designs.

The'red dot sale' OOH campaign has been running during the EOSS and the first challenge that the brand came across was to find the best locations. "Proximity to stores, size, line of sight and overall visibility are some of the most important factors when selecting sites. Also, considering we currently have over 220 hoardings across the country, we had to reach out to multiple vendors well in advance to ensure we managed to procure the quality and quantity of outdoor spaces that was needed” shares Chatlani.

The second challenge was to install the'red dot sale' (RDS) images and messages on all the hoardings across the country at the same time. This was pulled off successfully by planning everything in advance by team Soch. Chatlani here says that the campaign shoot was done only a few weeks before the start of the sale in order to make sure the brand used the most recent and relevant products. "Essentially our marketing team, along with creative agency had to execute a photo shoot, go in for post-production, adapt images to all 225 locations and have print ready images within a week. We also used multiple vendors who we had worked with in the past and knew the importance of this campaign being executed flawlessly”.

To avoid any structural changes to any of their hoardings, all hoardings were rented and the focus has been on highlighting the logo in an innovative way. Soch has been using laser cut technology for its logos since many years now. It has been made on an ACP sheet with GI sections; laser cut acrylic letters and LED lighting. The signage and the mounting materials have been specially designed so that the location of the logo on the hoardings can be altered with every change of image. Visual representation to brand Soch is the best way to communicate their brand offering.

"A substantial percent of the ad spend is used on outdoor media, and based on research done with the consumers, a large portion of them (especially new customers) cited that outdoor campaign has been the means by which they were made aware of our EOSS. We find this the most cost effective way to communicate to the general public. It is, however, complimented by other mass media and a significant amount of direct marketing”, adds Chatlani.

For this pan-India campaign, the hoardings are monitored and maintained using three methods. "Firstly, we send our area managers to personally monitor all hoardings periodically. Secondly, we make it mandatory for all our hoarding vendors to send us photographs of the hoardings on a periodic basis. This way we are able to take damage control action as quickly as we possibly can in case of wear and tear. More recently, we have also attached GPRS sensor to many of our more prominent hoardings, which alert power outages to both the vendor and us through SMS. The devices are fairly inexpensive and ensure that in the event of any lighting malfunction, we are able to tend to the problem immediately, so as not to lose any advertising exposure time” Chatlani explains.