ICFAI UNIVERSITY DEHRADUN

NAME: BHASKAR PRATIM SARMA

IUD NO: 0901200547

IBS NO: 09BS0000547

COURSE CODE: SLMM502

COURSE NAME: MARKETING MANAGEMENT-II

FACULTY NAME: PROF. KARPAGAM

DATE: 06/11/2009

TOPIC OF ASSIGNMENT: ANAYSIS OF PROMOTIONAL TOOLS AND COMMUNICATION MIX USED BY TANTRA T-SHIRT BRAND.

STUDENT SIGNATURE FACULTY SIGNATURE

AIM: To analyse the promotional tools and communication mix used by Tantra to market its T-shirts and to suggest necessary promotional tools that should be adapted by Tantra to create brand awareness among the people and market its products.

OBJECTIVE: The objective is to enunciate and explore the communication mix or promotional tools that can be used by Tantra to increase its brand awareness and promote its creativity, funky message and customized design.

METHODOLOGY: To analyse the promotional tools and communication mix used by Tantra T-shirt brand, secondary data are collected from different websites and online articles. Reviews of existing customers of Tantra T-shirts are collected from popular websites like mouthshut.com, cafepress.com, ebay.com, blogspot.com etc. to know better about word of mouth marketing and viral marketing of Tantra. The details of the product is collected from Tantra’s official website. An online browsing of the websites of different vendors and retailers of Tantra is done to review the online promotions and marketing of various collection of Tantra T-shirts. In this study of communication mix what marketing strategy adapted by Tantra and what hurdles faced by Tantra is also noted. After analyzing the promotional tools used by Tantra necessary suggestions and recommendations were given that should be adapted by Tantra to make its brand more appealing and strong.

Tantra is a Indian T-shirt brand, started in 1997 at Mumbai by Rajiv Ramchandani and Madan Chabria who wanted to put India on the map. Their flagship company, Tantra makes T-shirts that are far from serious. In fact they are hysterically hilarious. The company owns a cutting, making, and tailoring (CMT in garment-speak) unit in textile hub Tirupur that churns out 5,000 Ts a month. Tantra is ‘India-on-a-t-shirt’. The brand captures exclusively the essence of our 5000 year old culture. It’s past, present and future. In a sense it represents the life ‘n’ times of this subcontinent, or, the ‘brown’ race. The content and theme under the Tantra label thus revolve around ideas and things that are native to this land. Today the brand is growing at 35 per cent annually, in more than 500 outlets across India. Tantra T-shirts are now also being exported to France, West Asia, Australia, the UK, Hungary and South Africa.

TANTRA’S TARGET MARKET:

Originally aimed at the foreign tourists, the first Tantra designs carried the usual imagery of Goa and Goddess Kali, and were unisex T-shirts. Gradually, the brand caught the fancy of the Indian youth. “Tantra T-shirts are so nuttily Indian that they are cool”. slogans on the T-shirt are very humorous and eye catching. Tourists come to India for one or two weeks and that's not enough to understand the diversity of India. Tantra hopes that their T-shirts help them. Today, there are six Tantra variations — including Woman, Teeny Weenies, Polo and Fleece — and two brand extensions, Barking Dog (a wacky, alternative T-shirt brand) and Line Maro T-shirts. More than that they are creative and have got great graphics along with the funny and witty slogans basing their creativity on the life and times of the Indian sub-continent. Tantra delight in taking conventional Indian images and transforming them into exotic T-shirt art. Some of the famous quotes and sayings of tantra t-shirts are shown below:

I’m sorry My fault I forgot you were an idiot

I don’t have a license to kill. I have a learner’s permit.

All men are idiots And I married their king.

I can resist everything except temptation.

Life’s Too Short To Date Ugly Women.

COMMUNICATION MIX/PROMOTIONAL TOOLS USED BY TANTRA:

1) Word of mouth marketing: Word of mouth is a reference to the passing of information from person to person. Originally the term referred specifically to oral communication, but now includes any type of human communication, such as face to face, telephone, email, and text messaging. Tantra used word of mouth marketing. Consumers quote their experience about Tantra T-shirts in a no. of website through their blogs and reviews. Few blogs and reviews of tantra t-shirts that appeared in the website www.blogspot.com were given below:

By paramore cd on 24 October, 2009

Tantra T-shirts sound like the perfect type of gifts for close friends. I'm quite sure everyone will enjoy getting such a T-shirt.

By priya srinivasan on 25 october,2009

Well I have been wearing the T-shirts from Tantra for a long time. I must say its become quite popular since it started. The best part of the T-shirts are that they are made of 100% cotton.

By abhinash on 25th October, 2009

The slogans on the T-shirt are very humorous and eye catching. More than that they are creative and well you will never go unnoticed when you are wearing a Tantra T-shirt. They have got great

graphics along with the funny and witty slogans basing their creativity on the life and times of the Indian sub-continent.

By srikanth on 26th October, 2009

The Tantra T-shirts are for people who want to be noticed, people who want to make statements, bold or funny or just general statements.

2) Online marketing and advertising: Tantra T-shirt brand, in association with Mumbai-based Net Assets, has launched TantraUniverse.com, an online store where users can buy Tantra T-shirts. According to Tantra, Net Assets is the exclusive global online distributor that has built and is operating the online-store and takes complete ownership of driving online sales, product delivery and customer service. Tantra is primarily a youth brand and the youth are very comfortable with online buying. The objective behind launching the website is to make Tantra products available on a global basis, to a global audience, including consumers in towns and cities across India where there is no physical retail presence. It is part of the business strategy to have multi channel availability of the product. According to Tantra, the products of both the offline and online stores are the same, though the online channel has a marginal add-on cost of delivery. “The website has a vast collection of Tantra T-shirts and can be compared to a large, dedicated Tantra showroom. Consumers can create a wish-list, select and checkout design, colour and size and thus engage with the brand. The website of Tantra is shown below:

www.tantrauniverse.com

     Now shipping worldwide

Men

Tantra Adults

Line Maro

Barking Dog

| Women

|

Kids

 

0 Items Login |  Register  |   Enquiry   

3) Direct and interactive marketing: Direct and interactive marketing takes many forms-over the phone, online, or in person. Through direct marketing, Tantra provided customized T-shirts to the consumers. Tantra created and modified the design through the consumers response . The customers can make an account on the website. Then upload a design, message or art-form and order for printing. Design of two customized Tantra T-shirts is shown below:

Arty or humorous — pick your tee-shirt style

A T-shirt that makes controversial statement

4) Sales Promotion: Tantra used sales promotional tools-coupons, contests, premiums, and the like- to draw a stronger and quicker buyer response, including short-run effects such as highlighting design offers and boosting sagging sales. Besides being available at leading retailers in India, Tantra T-shirts are sold and sales promotion is done through its exclusive stores that are in major cities. These are at located at: Mumbai, Jaipur, Delhi, Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Shimla, Dehradun and Chennai.

MARKETING AND INNOVATIONS OF TANTRA: In t-shirts as a category, the product itself is the biggest marketer. If the designs are great and the quality is good, it will start becoming popular. Tantra as an organization has stayed away from any above-the-line marketing campaigns. Awareness about Tantra’s product has largely grown through word-of-mouth, where people who know about Inkfruit and designers whose designs get printed on Tantra, talk about it to their friends. Tantra focus very strongly on keeping their members happy—for example their designers get their name on every t-shirt sold and feel very proud of this. Secondly, they focus very strongly on the quality of their products and ensure a great experience every time. Thirdly, they keep innovating and launch new products—like recently they launched color changing t-shirts, which change color when a person walks in the sun. Together all of these things create positive word-of-mouth for a business in this space. Once the brand has some attention, quality, variety and ease of operations makes it popular with the crowd.

COMMUNICATION MIX/PROMOTIONAL TOOLS THAT SHOULD BE USED BY TANTRA ARE AS FOLLOWS:

1) ADVERTISING: Advertising reaches geographically dispersed buyers. It can build up a longterm image for a product or trigger quick sales. Advertising permits the seller to repeat a message many times. It also allows the buyer to receive and compare the messages of various competitors. Large-scale advertising says something positive about the seller’s size, power and success. Tantra has till now advertised its t-shirts only in internet through You Tube and retailers website. Tantra has never gone for TV, radio and newspaper advertisement. For this reason the awareness of the brand is very less in the market. Tantra should adopt the following advertising strategy:

Advertisement by some iconic person – This employs trusted, credible personalities to promote and give greater visibility to its brand products. The role of the brand ambassador is to transcend all aspects of the brand. In a sense, the brand personality and the endorser must hold the same morals and principles, style and appeal.

Success of any marketing and advertising campaign depends upon the homework done prior to the beginning of campaign. It needs complete marketing study, competitor analysis, and market research to study the potential sales of any product. The prime focus of advertising and marketing campaigns is always in some specific geographical area. Apart from that, all small and medium businesses need customized marketing and advertising solution specially tailored to suit their business needs. A newspaper print ad is shown below as an example how tantra can advertise its product.

How India on my mind can be expressed on a tee

2) PERSONAL SELLING : Personal selling is oral communication with potential buyers of a product with the intention of making a sale. The personal selling may focus initially on developing a relationship with the potential buyer, but will always ultimately end with an attempt to "close the sale".

The four main activities of a sale force that can boost the sales quantum of “Tantra T-shirts” even further are as follows :-

a) Prospecting - Trying to find new customers.

b) Communicating - with existing and potential customers about the T-shirts design and Slogans.

c) Selling - contact with the customer, answering questions and trying to close the sale.

d) Information gathering - obtaining information about the market to feedback into the marketing planning process.

3) SPONSORSHIP: Supporting an event, activity or organisation by providing money or other resources that is of value to the sponsored event. This is usually in return for advertising space at the event or as part of the publicity for the event.

There are many kinds of sponsorship:

Sports sponsorship: major sporting events have the advantage of being attended and (more importantly) watched by large numbers of people. They also attract significant media coverage.

Arts sponsorship: arts events or organizations are not as well attended as sports events but are often regarded as more “worthy” and more in keeping with the image of certain businesses and brands.

College fests sponsorships: since the Tantra brand caught the fancy of the Indian youth, so they can go for sponsoring different college campus fests,management fests and events to increase their brand awareness among the youth.

4) POINT OF DISPLAY: A point-of-sale display (POS) is a specialized form of sales promotion that is found near, on, or next to a checkout counter (the "point of sale"). They are intended to draw the customers' attention to products, which may be new products, or on special offer, and are also used to promote special events, e.g. seasonal or holiday-time sales.

LIMITATIONS: There are three big hurdles facing by Tantra in Online Marketing. They are:

Low penetration of e-commerce and Internet users in India. People are still reluctant to use credit cards online.

Lack of awareness about customized merchandising in India.

At present, the market for custom t-shirt printing is in its nascent age, but it is picking up quite vigorously. And also at present Tantra has set its exclusive stores only at Mumbai, Jaipur, Delhi, Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Shimla, Dehradun and Chennai. They should try to set their stores in all cities of India to get a massive response.

RECCOMENDATIONS: Tantra have got great graphics along with the funny and witty slogans basing their creativity on the life and times of the Indian sub-continent. But their promotions and advertising campaign are very weak. They should go for celebrity or brand ambassadors to endorse their cool and funky T-shirts. They should also visit college campuses and target youth to promote their new designs and messages. Tantra should also feature their designs in print and television ad during festival seasons. Tantra can also upload their advertisement in the You Tube as many consumers browse You Tube to know about a particular product.

CONCLUSION: Indian street fashion has a potentially larger following than the designwear that comes strutting down the ramp is a foregone conclusion. For brand recognition as well as the principal of adhering closely to their themes Tantra have three ranges exploring different areas – ‘Tantra’ has Indian themes, ‘Barking Dog’ is more general ideas and ‘Line Marrow’ has clever one liners. A t-shirt is a very personal piece of clothing and it is important that products offered gel with current consumer trends. So Tantra should understand the nature of the market and adapt with changing trends.

REFERENCES: Marketing Management( Twelfth Edition)- Philip Kotler & Kevin Keller

www.tantrauniverse.com

www.mouthshut.com

www.ebay.com

http://www.blogspot.com/tantra _ad

http://www.cafepress.com/tantra

http://www.zazzle.com/tantra+gifts

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4653418,prtpage-1.cms

http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/bourbon_lamb