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Tag: Faber-Castell

  • Jayesh Gadodia joins Faber-Castell as CFO

    Jayesh Gadodia joins Faber-Castell as CFO

    NEW DELHI: Faber-Castell India, a leading stationery brand, has appointed Jayesh Gadodia as the chief financial officer. In his new role at Faber-Castell, Gadodia would be responsible for Finance, Accounts, and Commercial & IT verticals across India. Before joining Faber-Castell, he was associated for a short stint with Ernst & Young as Consultant. Prior to that he has had successful stints as CFO at Forum Homes and A.P. Moller – Maersk Group in India. He draws around 29 years of extensive experience.

    On his appointment, Faber-Castell India Managing Director, Partho Chakrabarti, said “Jayesh joins us during a very crucial time, when all businesses globally are facing challenges caused by Covid-19 to contribute to Faber-Castell India’s success and take the company forward to achieve its goals. His broad experience in Banking & Working Capital Management, Project Management, Management reporting & Accounting, Audits & Control, Tax Compliance and Secretarial & Legal Management will help Faber-Castell reach its goals. We are delighted to have him on board.”

    Speaking on his appointment, Gadodia  said, “Having worked in various roles in the capacity of a CFO before joining Faber-Castell, enables me to understand many aspects of finance, accounting, capital management etc. deeply. I’m also joining in the times when the world is seeing a pandemic and I believe I can bring my expertise together with a highly motivated and achieving team to turn the crisis into an opportunity. 

  • Faber-Castell sees 300% hike in downloads of painting patterns and drawing tutorials during the lockdown

    Faber-Castell sees 300% hike in downloads of painting patterns and drawing tutorials during the lockdown

    NEW DELHI: The Coronavirus pandemic with all of its challenges has changed societal structures around the world. Fears and concerns about personal and familial health, as well as the long-term economic outlook, are a massive mental burden on millions of people. Since the beginning of this “new reality,” many have increasingly turned to means of creative expression – as a self-prescribed and astonishingly effective therapy for stress, anxieties and loneliness. During lockdown periods, Faber-Castell registered an increase of 300% per colouring patterns and tutorial videos, with plans for an expanded range.

    Cancelled pre-school education, enervating homeschooling, work from home, absence of friends and grandparents, growing fears about the future. And drawing and painting on paper can help in easing mental strains. Seeking contemplation to retreat from a seemingly hostile outside world is a human reflex that tends to intensify in times of uncertainty or even crisis. Creative expression has long been used as a therapeutic tool to alleviate stress and focus the mind. While never an adequate replacement for treating serious mental issues, drawing and painting are proving an effective therapy for calming, the stimulation of brain activity and relaxation.

    The Swiss psychiatrist and Freud disciple Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) described the positive psychological effects of colouring figural Mandala images, for example. He described them as “holy geometric patterns,” a direct invitation to listen to the inner self and find harmony. These patterns, said Jung, would strengthen the spirit to foster personal growth has been frequently proven that interaction with artistic tools can help in better coping with traumas or difficult stages in life. According to the US magazine “Psychology Today”, the involvement with art can considerably relieve stress, improve symptoms of depression and anxiety and evoke more positive memories. Such artistic self-realization truly has healing powers.

    Feelings and ideas can be expressed through pencil and brush, in shapes and colours, with each interpretation a completely singular one: Blue shades can mean open sky to some, the vast ocean to others, orange, red and yellow may represent the sun, a hearth or campfire. Others may prefer all hues of green, associating forests, summer meadows or a secluded garden. Such exercises are a means for reflection and mindfulness, no matter the individual artistic talent. They offer an opportunity for meditative relaxation and convey positive associations such as success and contentment.

    Faber-Castell head of digital marketing -Oliver Hempel has monitored concrete download figures to outline the growing demand for creative activity: “During the lockdown phase of recent months, our drawing patterns and tutorials have been downloaded about three times as often as in the comparable period last year,” explains the manager. “Our online sales also went up significantly.”  

    Faber-Castell, India marketing director -Sonali Shah notices a hike in the engagement rate by almost 30-40% on the tutorials uploaded by the brand during lockdown than pre-COVID times. At the same time, she also says we have seen substantial growth in Art and colouring products like paints, colour pencils and accessories like canvas and brushes.

    In Brazil, they offered free online drawing lessons during quarantine times and successfully so: These courses were downloaded three million times, with the number of subscribers rising by 4,500%.

    In response to the fast-growing demand worldwide and the emphatically positive feedback, the stationery giant plans offer new designs and instructions on a continuous basis.

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  • Faber-Castell art business grows by 300% y-o-y during Covid2019

    Faber-Castell art business grows by 300% y-o-y during Covid2019

    NEW DELHI: Faber-Castell is a name most children grow up with. As one of the leading manufacturers of wood-cased pencils with a varied range of products for writing, drawing, and creative design, as well as decorative cosmetics, it also found Covid2019 challenges and is now changing its strategy.

    Faber-Castell marketing director Sonali Shah says, “When the country was in complete lockdown, schools were shut, stores were shut, we were completely shut. But we saw a lot of latent demand coming from e-commerce. And when stores started opening, we saw that a lot of people started putting their attention towards DIY (do it yourself) products and art which helped us gain demand for our products.”

    Self isolation, work from home and study from home options led to a growth in demand for art and other stationery supplies. Faber-Castell tied up with Swiggy Genie to make stationery available at the doorstep for its consumers. 

    “Demand for products including highlighters, text liners, which are generally used for office purposes, now because of digitisation, people actually want to do hands-on things. Our art business has grown by 300 per cent over last year and we have recently launched our liquid paint. Art is divided into dry medium and liquid medium. Dry medium products include crayons and coloured pencils and liquid medium is acrylic paints, fabric paints, poster colours and watercolour. Our liquid paint business has grown by 84 per cent,” she shares.

    Faber-Castell had restrained from any overt advertising during the pandemic. “I thought it's quite insensitive for us to do it. But what we continue doing is putting up tutorials on different techniques that people can use to do art and crafts and DIY techniques and how they can spend their time at home. So, that was something that we had done during the lockdown. Now that things are opening up, we will probably look at launching eco-friendly products, make in India products because that’s the need of the hour. So, we are launching our paper pencil and eco pencil. For now, we have taken a conscious call to not do any overt advertising as such, but we will try and put as much content out there to help people get through this tough time,” she shares.

    With the thrust being given to Make in India products and eco-friendly items, Faber-Castell will refocus its attention and fast-track its product developments to meet the demand.

  • Faber-Castell partners with Swiggy to make stationery available at doorstep

    Faber-Castell partners with Swiggy to make stationery available at doorstep

    NEW DELHI:  With a growing demand of art and other stationery supplies in the market due to the various challenges posed by the pandemic like self isolating, work from home and study from home Stationery giant Faber-Castell ties up with Swiggy Genie to make stationery available at doorstep for its consumers. 

    In the past few years, there is a noticeable growth of e-commerce in retail strategy. However, the recent four months have made us change the way we shop and consume. The consumer’s appetite for buy at click is growing market for online marketplaces and the intra-city delivery tools like Swiggy’s Genie are all one step ahead to keep up with the demand supply channel.

     “The pandemic has made us realise the value of our nearby retailers and stores. While e-commerce is back and running but things haven’t resumed normally yet.  If you are studying, working from home or you just want to paint for leisure but you realise you don’t have your necessary stationery supplies waiting for 3-5 business days doesn’t seem feasible to all. We’re glad that Swiggy’s Genie came to play at the right time to help us meet our demand and supply gap,” said Faber-Castell India MD Partho Chakrabarti.

    “With the continued uncertainty of the future, Swiggy has been agile enough to provide multiple offerings to address the changing needs of the consumer. As we continue to stay indoors and find ways to share personal experiences with our loved ones, we have partnered with Faber-Castell to deliver stationery and art supplies to the consumers’ doorstep. This association will unlock a new dimension of convenience and safety for consumers during these exceptional times,” said Swiggy COO Vivek Sunder.

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  • Faber Castell’s ‘Change the Canvas’ gets 200% more responses than last year

    Faber Castell’s ‘Change the Canvas’ gets 200% more responses than last year

    MUMBAI: While the digital era has disrupted many traditional businesses, stationery, and art & craft facilities are going to grow, Faber Castell India marketing India director Nisha Sara Jose told Indiantelevision.com about the second successful season of its online ‘Change the Canvas’ activity.

    “Our products will continue to grow because there has been a discovery for analogue writing. It is a counter-trend, which is becoming very important and popular within the younger audience. They are going back to activities like writing and drawing to balance their (digital-dominated) lives. Also, Faber Castell as a brand is all about creativity, thoughts, and passion. So, we already are positioned on the top to tackle the digital era,” Jose quipped

    Jose shared that the online creative competition, which encouraged the people to ‘change’ their choice of canvas and instead pick any ordinary object, scene, place, or setting, and look at it from a different perspective, received an impressive response of 200 per cent more from the past year.

    “We received more than 750-800 entries for the campaign digitally this year as compared to 400 entries, which are almost 200 per cent of what we received last year. Our digital presence for the campaign has multiplied exponentially with more than 10 million impressions as compared to 4 million last year,” said Jose.

    Faber Castell is willing to double its business in India this year, and such response for the campaign indicates that they might be able to achieve the goal. The brand is also working on a multi-pronged strategy to further develop their business, mixing effective marketing and communication with product development.

    Jose revealed that, for the Indian market, a lot of innovation is going on in the acrylic and watercolour segments, developing a range of options for hobby artists.

    The marketing activities, like always, are focussed on the experiential side. Activities like ‘Art With Purpose’ will continue to connect with students across schools and universities. Apart from that a lot of digital activities are expected from the brand, which now has a strong community of mothers and artists online.