October 26: Dalmia Bharat Parivar yet again made waves recently with its maiden retail venture, Hippo Stores. India’s first one-stop-shop for building products @ wholesale rate, Hippo Stores, is an intelligent aggregation of building products brands through a chain of megastores. Starting with its first megastore at Mayapuri, New Delhi, Hippo Stores has already disrupted the unorganized market of Building and Construction material, which is set to record a CAGR of 15% to reach INR 29,782.2 billion by 2024. With the launch of its first 360 degrees integrated marketing campaign, the brand has already made its mark. While the growth in online traffic is eye-popping 6157%, the inbound calls to their call centre have grown by 1178%. This is just the beginning; their digital film campaign comprising of 11 films is recording an average CVTR of 45%, compared to the average CVTR of 15% – 20% that is considered very high and super successful. These remarkable numbers have reflected well in the growth of revenue which, when compared with that of June, has seen a leap frog jump of 277% in September.

This dream start for Hippo Stores is a result of months of preparation and work that went in the shaping of the brand, its personality and perception, brand promises, and consumer take home. Ranjan Das, MD of their Marketing and Creative Agency, Apppl Combine, says, “Hippo Stores has been one of most exciting opportunities as well as a challenge as a marketer. The toughest part was simplifying the brands proposition and messaging while making it appealing for its three inter conflicting target audiences, i.e. the Re-seller (B2B), the Contractor (B2B) and the Independent Home Maker (B2C). All of them traditionally transact with each other and are customers or suppliers to one another, and have conflicting interests. Our marketing campaign needed to attract both B2B and B2C customers under one roof, making them believe in the brand and unlock the various benefits they could draw from this new disruption, Hippo Stores. All 11 of our Digital films have done the magic. Even though each of them is almost 1 min long, the highest CVTR is as high as 60%, meaning, way more than half of the viewers who came across our digital films, instead of skipping it, like most of us do, watched it till the end. This is unprecedented. The storytelling is very engaging. We used humor at its subtle best, communicating every USP through a unique slice of life stories between husband and wife for B2C and a father and son duo for B2B films. Rashi Das, Business Director, Apppl Combine adds, while jingles during peak hours through all popular FM stations is working as a constant reminder and base, the print campaign is an intelligent extension of Digital Films. Telling the brand story in parts, every weekend, through full-page newspaper ads, we started by claiming our pole position of being India’s First One-Stop-Shop of Building Products Wholesale, followed by ads giving customers an indirect tour of the store. We used different store images in the background of the B2C characters, giving the TG a glimpse into the 50000 sqft store retail store with 160+ brands, 250+ categories and over 12000 products on their retail display. Moving the weekend storytelling through full-page ads to more compelling and pocketable USPs like wholesale price, product comparison, product experts, our strategy is to strengthen the tangible bond with our customer base through measurable benefits. Ranjan Das adds that retail space design and Retail Branding by Apppl Combine is experiential and engaging, connecting equally well with B2B and B2C customers sets when they visit the store after engaging with our digital films, radio jingles or print ads.

While Amit Garg, CEO Hippo Stores, is excited with the result of the marketing campaign, Munir Suri, Head Demand Generation, Hippo Stores, elaborates, ‘Ensuring a direct and un-layered brand communication was imperative as our TG was so varied. Apppl Combine, our marketing agency, has done a brilliant job of strategizing with our team and giving word, voice, visuals and films to our launch and continuation marketing campaign.