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<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>As <keyword id="8681398" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Urban-Company">Urban Company</keyword> starts operating in a few selective green zones, we speak to Rahul Deorah, Vice President - Marketing, Urban Company to understand how its regaining its consumers trust, what kind of employee wellness programs it has introduced to ensure they feel motivated, and its larger marketing strategy for the lockdown. </li></ul>Urban Company (earlier UrbanClap) has seen an uptick in the demand for home cleaning and hygiene services as people are becoming more health-conscious. The app had become quite popular for its home repair and salon services before the pandemic broke out. However, people have been wary about letting outsiders inside their homes lately. Urban Company rose to the challenge and tweaked its marketing strategy. It started communicating every day about the changes it introduced in its services and SOPs. With gradual relaxations in the lockdown, Urban Company is slowly and steadily opening up its services. And after seeing a high demand for home cleaning, it has also started offering disinfection services for cars and commercial spaces. It has opened its salon services in a few selective green zones. And now that people are under house arrest and have limited access to various services, Urban Company did some social listening and mapped out a few trends. It tweaked its logo across platforms to convey the importance of social distancing and wearing a mask. Apart from that, it realised that people are looking for a lot of DIY videos to make the best of their time. Therefore, it started uploading beauty and wellness video tips to help its consumers surf through the challenges they are posed with. It is also conducting live sessions to engage with its consumers. <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Image"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div> We caught up with Rahul Deorah, Vice President - Marketing, Urban Company to further understand what kind of precautions the organisation has taken to ensure the safety of its employees, the idea behind its latest mental-wellness initiative, UC Academy, and its larger marketing strategy. Excerpts: Q. How challenging have the last few weeks been for you as a brand? The past few weeks have been challenging for us. As a brand, we have tried to ensure that we are in touch with our consumers. We are keeping them posted about the changes in service SOPs and the complete shift towards hygiene and safety to ensure that they get the best possible service experience in the safety of their homes. Q. From your wide umbrella of services, which ones are you offering right now? Since the last month, we have been slowly and steadily opening our services. Our Home Repairs and Maintenance services - appliances repairs, plumbers, electricians, carpenters and cleaning – are available across non-containment zones. Seeing the huge request and requirements, we also launched Disinfection Services for cars, home and commercial spaces. Lately, we also opened up our beauty and salon services in a few cities. Q. Now that salon services have begun, what precautions have you taken to ensure the safety of your employees? What kind of response have you seen for the same? We have made the following changes in our SOPs: 1. All UC professionals are equipped with 3-ply masks, gloves and hand sanitizers. 2. Usage of single use products and disposables to ensure zero cross-contamination 3. All service partners have been trained according to WHO prescribed hygiene standards. 4. Sanitization of all tools and equipment prior to the services 5. All our professionals are required to undergo a daily temperature check, which is visible to the consumer on their app 6. Low contact roll-on waxing and threading for maximum hygiene We have seen really good feedback to start with. Customers are liking the way we are providing the services with utmost caution. Q. People are becoming more health-conscious and finally maintaining hygiene at their homes, so have you seen an increase in demand for your home cleaning services as well? Yes, we are noticing increased demand in cleaning and disinfection services. Q. What has your marketing strategy been during the lockdown weeks? Have you changed your media mix, investing more on platforms like Digital since a few other mediums like OOH/Print have been suffering due to the lockdown? We have been always present on digital platforms for our marketing campaigns. Although over the past few months, we have decreased our spends and pivoted towards organic modes of communication. Q. A lot of brands have started doing webinars, have you joined the bandwagon? What kind of response have you seen around it? We are participating in a few webinars for sure. We also host fireside chats with industry leaders but currently these can be attended by employees only. We haven’t yet started an in-house webinar series that’s open to all. Q. Have you seen any changes in consumer behaviour? Yes, a lot. Consumers have become a lot more aware about the issue. They are taking a lot of measures themselves to ensure safety and hygiene is maintained. The following are the changes: a. Media Consumption: Usage of TV, OTT has increased b. Self Care: People are spending a lot of time for fitness and personal care c. DIY solutions to problems d. Online Deliveries for essentials have increased e. Need for self hygiene has increased Q. How are you utilising this time to upskill your employees? Have you introduced any mental health awareness and/or health care programs? We have introduced a program called UC Academy within our company wherein the company’s leadership have been taking online sessions for upskilling. The topics are across different functions and problems. Q. How are you preparing yourself for when things come back to normal? Because we think it will not be the same. Things won’t be the same as before for sure, at least not until a vaccine or cure is found. I believe as a company we have already taken several measures with respect to partner and consumer safety, such as introducing an 8-step safety process for each service category. Apart from this, we have procured and delivered safety kits (comprising gloves, masks, eye goggles, hand sanitiser) for all our partners and will continue to invest in this round the year.

Marketing in the times of COVID-19: Urban Company

Urban Company will scale keeping the needs of service professionals in mind

<ul><li><keyword id="9648465" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="sima-taparia">Sima Taparia</keyword> from Mumbai is back and she’s telling fortune again. This time, it is with <keyword id="8681398" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Urban-Company">Urban Company</keyword> and the audience is loving it.</li><li>Tarun Menon, Director Marketing, Urban Company takes us behind the platform's latest influencer marketing campaign with Sima Taparia, shares the thought behind partnering with her and larger goals for this year.</li></ul>Last year, Netflix's Indian Matchmaking introduced India and the world to ace matchmaker Sima Taparia and she quickly became one of the most talked about character from a reality show. The first season ended in July 2020 but the audience hasn’t stopped stanning over Sima Taparia yet. Sima gained instant popularity among millennials and Gen Z and never faded away from the news cycle. Over the past year, brands like Burger King, Tinder, Asian Paints flocked to partner with the internet sensation, who recently starred in Big Boss OTT. Meanwhile, brands are still not over her. Recently, she featured in a campaign for home service and grooming platform, Urban Company. Before Netflix renewed Indian Matchmaking for season 2, Urban Company’s Align your Stars campaign with Sima Taparia generated a lot of chatter on social media. It helped the brand garner 4.5+ million views in less than a week. <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div> <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div> Telling us why Sima was the perfect match for this campaign, Tarun Menon, Director Marketing, Urban Company said, “Sima enjoys cult-like status and is best known for matchmaking based on the stars. She was one of the most talked about people online in 2020. It was a punt – to see if the choice of influencer and content could drive engagement for the campaign.” “The videos themselves have been well received across social media with people relating, reacting and engaging with the content - and has given us learnings to bake into our next campaign,” added Menon. Its marketing objective was to create buzz ahead of the launch of Big Home Rush, an Urban Company sale property. To further spread awareness around its discounts and gain new customers, Urban Company partnered with 14 different young influencers such as Kusha Kapila, Vishnu Kaushal, Mallika Dua, to mention a few, to create content for each zodiac sign. The underlying message of each piece was to encourage consumers to join Urban Company’s Big Home Rush sale. Launched in January 2021, the Big Home Rush sale has become extremely popular with consumers. Even in the ongoing second edition, the company has already delivered close to 500,000 services, witnessing high demand from cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad and more. Sharing why it chose influencer marketing to promote its sale, Menon said, “With other media formats driving awareness, the influencer leg sought to create engagement and conversation around the sale, in a way that’s native to the platform (Instagram). We’d observed that in the last 2 months, sun-sign based content was growing in volume, engagement and traction - as people tag their friends and conversation flows organically.” Before Sima Taparia, Urban Company’s partnership with yesteryear’s TV stars such as Rupali Ganguly as Monisha Sarabhai and Komalika also received a positive response from its audience. The idea behind casting such a unique set of stars, from Sima to Monisha, was to find women who can express shock and help open a door for them in the regional markets. “These content pieces were part of a larger campaign for Salon Classic - a newly launched category that offers salon quality services at unbelievable prices. Our intent in partnering with influencers and content creators was to integrate the key message - salon services at unbelievably low prices - into content &amp; culture. It made sense to partner with influencers best known for expressing shock – Hindi TV celebrities with a cult following for the roles they play. We further extended this concept to regional TV artists as well, to build relatability for regional audiences. We are looking to attract new customers and engage existing consumers through this campaign,” shared Menon. Due to the global pandemic, Urban Company has seen an uptick in the demand for home cleaning and hygiene services as people are becoming more health-conscious. The app had become quite popular for its home repair and salon services before the pandemic broke out. However, people have been wary about letting outsiders inside their homes lately. Urban Company rose to the challenge and tweaked its marketing strategy. It started communicating every day about the changes it introduced in its services and updated its audience regularly about the number of employees vaccinated. It tweaked its logo across platforms to convey the importance of social distancing and wearing a mask. Apart from that, it realised that people are looking for a lot of DIY videos to make the best of their time. Therefore, it started uploading beauty and wellness video tips to help its consumers surf through the challenges they are posed with. It is also conducting live sessions to engage with its consumers. <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Image"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div> Telling us how the company has tweaked its larger marketing strategy after the pandemic to win consumer trust, Menon shared, “We focused on communicating every day about the changes we introduced in our services and SOPs. For example, we completely reimagined certain services, such as threading, to ensure low contact with consumers. For threading, our Beauty experts now wrap the thread around their neck, instead of pursing it in their mouth. We launched extensive campaigns to build communication on our safety protocols and how the Urban Company experience has been reimagined for delivering safe and hygienic services. Our ‘<keyword id="11886690" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="uc-safe">UC Safe</keyword> Salon campaign’ included TVCs featuring Neena Kulkarni and Shweta Tiwari aimed at communicating the safety of Urban Company’s salon at home services. More recently, in May ‘21, we ran an extension of the UC Safe campaign, highlighting how over 75% of our service professional base is now vaccinated.” Home services sector in India is largely unorganized and Urban Company is one of the few companies that is formalising it and despite being in the business for 7 years, Menon says that they are still just getting started. Sharing his larger goals for this year, Menon said, Our focus areas will be to increase market share in existing markets and increase penetration in new cities. In the past 2 years, we have expanded to 30 cities in India. Our goal is to be present in the top 100 cities over the next couple of years.”

It's a match: When Sima Taparia met Urban Company and helped the brand gain over 4.5 million+ views in less than a week

New Delhi, Jan 30 () Home services company UrbanClap on Thursday said it is rebranding itself as Urban Company, and aims to onboard about 10 lakh professionals onto the platform by the end of 2025.
 "The new umbrella brand captures our ambition to be a horizontal gig marketplace with a global footprint and leadership across services categories like beauty and wellness and home repairs and maintenance," Urban Company co-founder Abhiraj Bhal told .
 He added that the company has built a fleet of over 25,000 professionals that will be scaled up to 10 lakh by end of 2025.
 Bhal said the rebranding will also help the company develop sub-brands under the umbrella brand.
 The company, which has established its operations in international markets like Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sydney and Singapore, is also focussing on expanding its presence further within the India market.
 "We aren't looking at adding more international locations right away, but we will add more Indian cities. There is a huge scope for home services in the top 30, 40 cities in India and we would want to serve consumers with a full bouquet of services across various price points," Bhal said. SR ANS
ANS

UrbanClap rebrands itself as Urban Company

<ul><li>Considering that we are still fighting a global pandemic, brands tried to tread the line between humorous and insensitive campaigns this year.</li><li>So, from <keyword id="6361865" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="volkswagen">Volkswagen</keyword> (Voltswagen) to <keyword id="11029505" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="ola-airpro">Ola AirPro</keyword>, here are a few April Fool’s Day campaigns that almost had us fooled!</li></ul>With COVID cases on the rise again, we are all looking for a comic relief. This April Fool’s Day, brands have got your back. On the first day of April, brands usually pull a prank on their consumers by launching fake products, misdirect them into hoaxes or simply remind them to not be a fool. This year too, brands did not disappoint. They used their marketing campaigns to help their consumers giggle or drive home a bigger message through their pranks. On the other hand, experts applauded Google’s decision to put pause on its April Fool’s prank this year. The tech giant aims to express its solidarity with the healthcare workers and the grieving families recovering from the loss of loved ones. To help you forget the bigger prank life is pulling on all of us, here are a few light-hearted campaigns that caught our attention and made us laugh: Ola As fuel prices skyrocketed this year, Ola decided to launch a fully autonomous electric flying car called ‘Ola AirPro.’ The car is so light that you can lift it with one hand and you won’t ever need to worry about finding the perfect parking spot and worry about poor urban planning. Over the years, Ola has almost always played a prank on its users on April Fool’s starting from announcing Ola newsroom to Ola Restroom. With its clever campaigns, the brand never fails to drive home a bigger message and comment on the ever-changing socio-political environment. <div type="twitter" handle="bhash" handlename="Bhavish Aggarwal" image="http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1133256267340713984/UaxcE0fi_normal.jpg" favoritecount="2298" retweetcount="555" status="Excited to unveil the world’s first and only fully autonomous electric flying car. The Ola AirPro. Ab har family bh… https://t.co/WEdjAhqK6f" createdat="1617259659000" id="1377512970196971524"></div> The ride-hailing company has also launched a <a href="https://olaairpro.com/" data-type="tilCustomLink">website </a>to track consumer interest. <keyword id="263363" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="MTV-India">MTV India</keyword> Ever fell for “Bas 12th nikal lo, ek baar college mil gaya toh maze hi maze?” Join the club, friend! This campaign will make you ponder upon a lot of bad decisions that you have made in your life. At least we took an unwanted trip down the unpleasant memory lane. MTV India’s April Fool’s Day campaign is an eye-opening comment on unrealistic standards that our parents often set for us. It is about those parents who make your life, career and relationship decisions for you. “So, this April Fool’s Day, raise a toast with MTV and have a laugh for being the fools we never intended to be,” reads its caption. <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div> <keyword id="8681398" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Urban-Company">Urban Company</keyword> Ever made the mistake of snoozing your alarm and barely made it to your 9 am Zoom call? Urban Company has a solution for you! Its new #AlarmAtHome service will send a trained professional to wake you up from your sleep, no matter what. Jokes apart, some of us unorganised bachelors really need this. <div type="twitter" handle="urbancompany_UC" handlename="Urban Company" image="http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1336196738294534144/rKe5BkVP_normal.jpg" favoritecount="12" retweetcount="2" status="Our new #AlarmAtHome service for those who take their sleeping a little more seriously! 😴Wherever you are, we prom… https://t.co/tOynAUWmC3" createdat="1617261511000" id="1377520736978362369"></div> <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> The e-commerce giant gives you a glimpse of the future with its April Fool’s Day prank. It said that the platform will accept bitcoin as a mode of payment. While it is just a prank, it might be a possibility very soon! This social media campaign is conceptualised by Dentsu Webchutney. <div type="twitter" handle="Flipkart" handlename="Flipkart" image="http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1267713887165485061/WUR4QXtd_normal.jpg" favoritecount="4825" retweetcount="1066" status="The future is here. We now accept Bitcoin as a convenient mode of payment. Update your app now. https://t.co/l3MlY2qwRd" createdat="1617211834000" id="1377312378061135872"></div> Volkswagen A brand that had everyone talking with its April Fool’s prank globally is Volkswagen. Carmaker Volkswagen published a press release announcing that its US operations will be changing its name to ‘Voltswagen.’ The move, read the release, was to signify the company’s commitment to electrifying its fleet. However, the auto giant has now announced that it was just a prank. <div type="twitter" handle="VW" handlename="Volkswagen" image="http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1247872762317766657/oco3obe0_normal.jpg" favoritecount="6786" retweetcount="1978" status="We know, 66 is an unusual age to change your name, but we’ve always been young at heart. Introducing Voltswagen. Si… https://t.co/Kyd0An7wGt" createdat="1617106067000" id="1376868756782219266"></div> Keventers What does a brand do when Holi and April Fool’s Day are almost back to back? Shake it up for its fans with some well-intentioned fun, 'cos “Bura Na Mano, Holi Hai”. Keventers launched a limited time period ‘Bhang Flavoured Milkshake’, on the eve of the Holi long weekend; with a reveal on April Fool’s Day of how they had orchestrated a well-timed and aptly themed prank around a product that didn't really exist. The result of the campaign was to get more eyeballs and create social media chatter around the Bhang Flavoured Milkshake. It also gave the brand an opportunity to engage with existing audiences and reach out to new ones, while reminding them that Keventers is a brand that has a personality, a sense of humour, and a penchant for experimentation. The brand’s page saw a week-on-week jump in profile visit by 60%+ increase and its impressions hiked by 500%+. It also received 2K+ calls in their outlets across the country just asking for Bhang Flavoured Milkshake. <div type="javascript" title="Instagram" contenttype="Image"><cdata><![CDATA[ ]]></cdata></div> Ixigo Turbulence is a major cause of anxiety for travellers. So, this April Fool's, Ixigo decided to launch a smart seat that makes its travellers' trip turbulence-free. According to Ixigo, its anti-turbulence cushion is a result of our groundbreaking research in gyro sensors, hydraulic pistons and industry-grade shock absorption. With applied learnings from car suspension systems, earthquake resistance technology and NASA following their robotic suspension for the Mars rovers. Marking the company's foray into the air cushion packaging market, anti-turbulence cushion has already received 1,500 registrations. <div type="Youtube" id="Ilh1xVGOmBk" title="ixigo smart seat - anti turbulence cushion" thumbUrl="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ilh1xVGOmBk/mqdefault.jpg"></div>

April Fool’s Day: Brands that pulled the best pranks this year

Online home services marketplace <keyword id="8681398" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="urban-company" source="Orion">Urban Company</keyword> on Monday said it has awarded stocks worth Rs 5.2 crore to 497 service partners under the <keyword id="15640210" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="partner-stock-option-plan" source="Orion">Partner Stock Option Plan</keyword> (<keyword id="15640209" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="psop" source="Orion">PSOP</keyword>) programme. Of the total recipients, about 30 per cent were female service partners from the beauty and wellness vertical. <keyword id="6354321" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="bengaluru" source="Orion">Bengaluru</keyword> had the highest number of partner shareholders with 26 per cent, followed by Delhi-NCR with 22 per cent, the company said in a statement. The company in March announced the PSOP programme for its service providers, where it will award stocks worth Rs 150 crore at near zero cost to thousands of service partners over the next 5-7 years. "This is just the start and we are hopeful that in the coming years, the numbers will rise to thousands," said Abhiraj Bhal, co-founder and CEO of Urban Company. The company has already received board approval for the first tranche of Rs 75 crore worth of stocks, to be disbursed over the next few years. Seven partners, who were part of the first cohort of stock recipients in March, received it again for the second time, due to their consistently high performance, it informed. Urban Company said it has established a fair process for awarding these shares and the entire process is rule-based and transparent, with an advisory panel providing complete guidance. According to the recently released 'H1 2022 <keyword id="15640211" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="uc-earnings" source="Orion">UC Earnings</keyword> Index', the top 20 per cent of UC partners earned an average of about Rs 38,000 per month. All Urban Company partners have health insurance coverage of Rs 1 lakh, with up to 12 free medical consultations per year for themselves. The best-performing partners (nearly 5,000 service partners) also have family health insurance coverage worth Rs 2 lakh. SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/upcoming-new-car-and-suv-in-india-in-december-2022/slidelist/95823897.cms">Upcoming cars launching in India in December 2022</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/news/german-electronic-manufacturing-firm-hama-enters-india-market/articleshow/95827606.cms">German electronic manufacturing firm Hama enters India market</a>

You Searched For "urban company" and got 7 results

Marketing in the times of COVID-19: Urban Company

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Urban Company will scale keeping the needs of service professionals in mind

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It's a match: When Sima Taparia met Urban Company and helped the brand gain over 4.5 million+ views in less than a week

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UrbanClap rebrands itself as Urban Company

PTI

April Fool’s Day: Brands that pulled the best pranks this year

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Urban Company grants shares worth Rs 5.2 cr to 497 gig workers

IANS

Xiaomi, Zomato, Urban Company, Zivame and more are hiring interns across profiles

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