Orient switches to smart to keep the brand relevant, targets millennials

The CK Birla group company goes premium, partners with Tata Elxsi to enhance product design and performance

For years, the ceiling fans category was dominated by a large group of unbranded products and fans were considered to be more of a commodity purchase. For brands such as Orient Fans, the fight for a long time, was to create a niche for its label and build recall and trust in what was largely a budget category. Today, as millennial buyers look for technologically superior products and the choice for cooling systems gets wider, the company is fighting a different enemy: irrelevance.
 
To connect with a new audience and play to their needs, Orient Fans has worked with Tata Elxsi on a premium version of the regular ceiling fan, redesigned the product and made it more energy efficient. And to spread the word about the brand’s new look and promise, Orient has taken to digital media. While M S Dhoni continues to be Orient’s brand ambassador and will be used as and when the brand needs to get on to television, the focus today is on digital media, the company said.

 
 “This partnership addresses Orient’s larger vision of ‘Switch to Smart’ and aims to continuously drive the road map of the brand in the right direction to achieve its business goals,” says Sandeep Thombre, senior manager, product design, Tata Elxsi. The new fans come with a remote control and display that indicates speed and power consumption. While redesigning the product, the challenge for Tata Elxsi was to keep it affordable and meet the expectations of young home buyers and owners.
 
The new range of fans are  pitched at an urban audience that wants a better experience and is keen on electronic gadgets that make life simpler. Tata Elxsi says that the new Aerostorm range of fans draw upon the winglet technology used in modern aircraft. The brand is being promoted via digital media.
 
In an interview at the time of launch of the product, Anshuman Chakravarty, head, Brand and Corporate Communication, Orient Electric said that the biggest smartness that a fan could bring is how to reduce power consumption. “Our R&D department was working on this technology called brushless direct motor technology which helps to bring down the power consumption by 50 per cent. So that’s one big aspect of this fan which is really smart. The second we figured it out, we partnered with Tata Elxsi to improve the interface of the product for millennial consumers who want styling that is user-friendly. So largely we stressed on two aspects – one was how to make this user-friendly and secondly, how we can make it aesthetically pleasing.”
 
The company however needs to do more to communicate the brand’s new promise more effectively. “One of the ads last season used the remote as a distinguishing feature to highlight the ‘Switch to Smart’ promise, but that is surely not great technology to tom-tom. If the Elxsi connection has to really work, then the technology it shows has to be something extraordinary,” says Sandeep Goyal, chairman, Mogae Media. Tata Elxsi is working on integration of IoT in all these products.
 
Brand expert Harish Bijoor says Orient has fought hard to stay relevant over the decades. “The once famous brand that led with its fans is taking a contemporary step again. As gadgets go smart, its latest effort is in sync with contemporaneity,” he adds. Orient has also recently introduced India’s first modular outdoor cooler.
 
The company, whose turnover in FY18 stood at over Rs 16 billion, is the largest manufacturer and exporter of fans from India with more than 60 per cent market share and a dominating presence in over 35 international markets. It holds about 40 per cent share in the premium fans segment and plans to take it to 50 per cent in the next one year. “The competition for us today does not come from peers but from challenging and raising the bar for ourselves, in delivering innovation, efficiency, performance and design. As always, we will continue disrupting the market with breakthrough innovations,” says Chakravarty.
 
In the lighting category, it claims to be the second largest manufacturer of LED bulbs in India after Dutch brand Philips. The company is now focusing largely on the air cooler and water heater segments and aims to be a top player in both these segments in the next four years.