Best printers for Home

Best Mixer Grinder

Best wired Earphones

Best 43 Inch TV in India

Best Wi Fi Routers

Best Home Theatre in India

Smart Watch under 5000

Best Laptops for Education

Best Laptop for Students

<ul><li>Mumbai-based footwear and accessories retailer <keyword id="9095636" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="metro-brands" source="Orion">Metro Brands</keyword> that houses brands like Metro Shoes, <keyword id="3687792" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="mochi" source="Orion">Mochi</keyword>, <keyword id="833846" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="walkway" source="Orion">Walkway</keyword> and Davinchi is as focused on increasing its online presence as it is serious about going deeper into the country with retail stores. </li><li>We speak to <keyword id="2978279" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="alisha-malik" source="Orion">Alisha Malik</keyword>, President Marketing and Ecommerce, Metro Brands Ltd to understand how the year has been for all brands under the Metro Brands umbrella, and its areas of focus going ahead to capture a bigger market share.</li></ul>While retail brands were adversely impacted by the pandemic last year, with shops and malls opening up, things are slowly falling in place. Add to that, the pent up demand of almost two years. Shops are finally witnessing increasing footfall and brands are bringing their a-game to stay top-of-mind for their consumers. Metro Brands, a Mumbai-based footwear and accessories retailer that houses brands like Metro Shoes, Mochi, Walkway and Davinchi, and also operates <keyword id="271821" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Crocs" source="Orion">Crocs</keyword> in India is working towards wooing its consumers, through its omni-channel approach and by coming up with innovative campaigns to engage with its consumers. We caught up with Alisha Malik, President Marketing and Ecommerce, Metro Brands Ltd to understand how the year has been for all the brands under the Metro Brands umbrella, their focus on increasing their online presence as well as their plans to expand their offline presence. Excerpts: Q) How has 2021 been for Mochi and Metro Brands? Are you on a recovery path, considering consumer sentiments are moving towards positive? As a brand and marketeer, one of the most important things we have learnt is to quickly adapt new marketing strategies. Like every other brand and industry, the footwear industry was impacted by the pandemic too. This year with changing consumer needs and preferences we have seen a good recovery so far as compared to the last year. Q) Did the festive season bring in some cheer for the brand this year? The festive season has brought in a strong wave of positive sentiment in the market. We have witnessed a positive trend in sale both offline and online. There is 2 years of pent-up wedding demand that is definitely riving a positive sentiment and footfalls. Q) Over the years, what has been your primary marketing mix for Mochi? We have seen you use traditional mediums like OOH or Print. But has there been a change now and more spends are going towards digital? There has been a significant digital shift and dependence on technology. We are adapting to this dynamic environment and exploring new ways to engage with our customers through our social media handles and digital advertising. We are closely mapping the digital shift and reaching out to our customers through a variety of options. Both Metro and Mochi, have been coming up with engaging digital activities on an ongoing basis that has worked well with our customers. The brand is also actively trying to bridge the gap between offline and online by constantly working on solutions that will bring in the online consumers and also help them experience our stores. This year Mochi Shoes also did an interesting activity to showcase the creative side of the brand by collaborating with top graffiti artists for redefining the art of India on the Mochi stores shutters. Q) While brick and mortar stores would be important for you, what kind of growth have you witnessed on online channels for all your brands? Are you increasing focus on online platforms to further ramp up your presence? We have always believed in an omni-channel approach. We have our own e-commerce platforms. Additionally, we have a strong presence on marketplaces as well, including running omnichannel operations for a select few. We are growing our dedicated team of e-commerce operations. We propose to make further investments in digital marketing to build an omni-channel engagement experience for our customers. We are investing in technology and content to enhance the customer experience with the brand. While we have strengthened our online business, retail stores will always continue to be important. Q) What are your plans of increasing your offline presence and going deeper into the country? One of our key growth strategies is the expansion of our store network. As of March 31, 2021, Metro Brands operates 586 Stores across 134 cities spread across 29 states and union territories in India. And we continue to expand in more cities across the country. The key factor influencing the expansion of our stores is the selection of suitable locations. We will continue to adopt a methodical approach in evaluating and selecting suitable locations for the establishment of new stores, such as local population density, and identifying prime retail areas especially in regions and tier 2 and 3 that are not as highly penetrated Q) What has your marketing strategy for Mochi been so far? Going ahead, what will your key areas of focus be, from a marketing perspective? Recognized as a bold fashion statement, Mochi caters to young cosmopolitan Indians, who want to constantly upgrade their style with their ever-changing fashion requirements. This year the brand launched its digital campaign the #MakersOfAwesome. With the <keyword id="3336728" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="gen-z" source="Orion">Gen-z</keyword> making the digital mediums as their stage, we want to be a brand that recognizes their efforts and encourage them to be the best version of themselves. It's the world of creators today, and our campaign is a way to recognize the community. As a part of the campaign, Mochi also roped in top graffiti artists of India to splash its shop shutters across several cities with a dash of awesomeness. Apart from this, the brand also introduced its sustainable eco- friendly footwear range ‘Ecoz Collection’ which is made from recycled PET bottles.

While we've strengthened our online business, retail stores will continue to be important for us: Alisha Malik, Metro Brands

<ul><li>In our latest interview series, we talk to brands to understand how they are coping with the new normal and their strategies towards navigating these difficult times.</li><li>In today’s interview, <keyword id="2978279" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Alisha-Malik">Alisha Malik</keyword>, Vice President, E-commerce and Marketing, <keyword id="9095636" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="metro-brands">Metro Brands</keyword>, tells us about their key learnings from the Covid-19 experience so far and how they have been trying to adapt to the situation. </li></ul> As the dynamic Covid-19 situation keeps evolving on a day-to-day basis, brands are learning to adapt to this new normal. Businesses across the globe have been affected due to the lockdown. In India too, with the entire country under a lockdown, and malls and shops forced to remain closed, retail has been severely hit. However, as they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going and that is what a lot of organizations and brands have been trying to do. From spreading awareness about the current situation to spreading positivity through marketing communications, brands have been ensuring they don’t lose touch with their consumers. We recently caught up with Alisha Malik, Vice President, E-commerce and Marketing, Metro Brands who walked us through Metro Brands’ marketing strategy and how it has aligned itself to this changed world. Edited excerpts: Q) How have the past few weeks been for the brand, considering the country has been in a complete lockdown? While our retail stores continue to be closed, we are ensuring that as a brand we are consistently engaging with our customers. In the current scenario employee and customer safety is our priority. As a brand we choose to stay positive and also spread awareness and positivity via social media engagement. Customers are showing a lot of love towards the brand by engaging with us. One of our customers baked a special Metro Shoes cake and had emailed us the pictures. As a token of appreciation, we acknowledged it on social media and also gave her a special voucher. Q) What is your marketing strategy right now? How have you been trying to continue building a connection with your audience? Has there been a change in your media mix? Eventually this storm will pass, and what customers will remember is, how the brand made them feel. The Covid–19 lockdown has also changed the way we consume content and media. <keyword id="852798" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="marketing-strategies">Marketing strategies</keyword> need to be aligned to this change. While it’s important to be aware of what’s happening around, its equally important to stay positive and relevant as a brand. We are doing a lot of engagement through our <keyword id="3687792" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Mochi">Mochi</keyword> and Metro social media handles, to stay connected and spread positivity, be it educating and spreading awareness about social distancing or content that encourages everyone to constructively spend their time at home in a qualitative manner, staying connected with family and friends, some fun at home and much more. We have also proactively extended their loyalty points for another 6 months. Q) What are a few key learnings for you as a brand in the last few weeks? As a brand and marketeer, one of our biggest learning is that its important to quickly change and adapt marketing strategies to the change. Its also important, not to be silent and consistently be in touch with customer. Q) Since the lockdown has been further extended, will you be tweaking your marketing strategy further? Yes, the marketing strategies will be further tweaked. We will continue to innovate with different ways of keeping the customer engaged via digital and loyalty platforms. While our retail stores continue to stay closed, we will serve our customers via e-commerce during the second phase of the lockdown. Our e-commerce warehouse might now be allowed to function. We have put in place stringent SOPs to ensure our staff’s safety. There are active sanitization plans in place for the warehouse and our stocks, before the warehouse opens and at regular intervals, once the operations begin. Thermal scanners for staff entering the warehouse, making sure everyone has their mask and gloves on, are a few other safety measures being adhered to. In this second phase of the lockdown, our focus will also be on gaining customer confidence through consistent safety messaging and supporting e-commerce, without being perceived as opportunistic. Q) How do you think you as a brand, have been making a difference in spreading awareness/contributing in whichever way you can? Safety of our employees and customers is utmost priority for us. Even before the lockdown started, the safety measures required were effectively communicated to all our employees, including the front-end. We have set up health helplines for all our employees so that they have support during this crisis. Moreover, to spread awareness among customers, we are doing a lot of digital content promoting social distancing, wearing masks and even making your own masks Q) There's a thin line in terms of a brand's communication in times of crisis where marketing communications can be misread as opportunist or even insensitive. How are you working around this tightrope and ensuring there isn't any miscommunication? I totally agree to this. And hence, before every piece of content is put out, it’s important to evaluate the same again, from the eyes of the customer. We are very conscious about every communication that each of our brands are doing. In fact, our Metro Shoes digital campaign is #Shoesoff, which revolves around the promotion of staying at home and actively using this time to do different things. We have laid down a few guidelines for our communications during this time. There is also a phase-wise marketing strategy in place to handle this situation

You Searched For "alisha malik" and got 2 results

While we've strengthened our online business, retail stores will continue to be important for us: Alisha Malik, Metro Brands

Samarpita Banerjee

Marketing in the times of Covid-19: Metro Brands

Samarpita Banerjee

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides