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Tag: Unlock 1.0

  • Unlock 1.0: Despite 20% dip in footfall, Enrich Salon records 1% business hike in Bengaluru

    Unlock 1.0: Despite 20% dip in footfall, Enrich Salon records 1% business hike in Bengaluru

    NEW DELHI: Safety, hygiene, and sanitation have become the key identifiers of all businesses as lockdown restrictions are eased across the country. Major hotels, restaurants and salons are taking stringent quality control measures to ensure maximum safety of their clients and teams from the highly contagious Covid2019 virus. The very popular chain of salons, Enrich, which has always been dedicated to providing safe and hygienic services to its clients, has improved its SOPs to serve the changing scenarios.

    In an exclusive conversation with Indiantelevision.com Enrich Salon founder Vikram Bhatt shares, “We at Enrich salons have always had been very careful about providing the safest and most hygienic services to our clients. We have always been dedicated to safety, sanitisation, and hygiene and there’s not much of a change there as we proceed into the new normal. For example, we had introduced products like single-use kits, disposable towels and gowns, etc, a few years back.”

    However, the salon chain has now further improved its procedures and physical spaces to fit in the changing times. “We have now been working on ensuring even stringent safety measures at our salons. To cite a few examples, the salon doors can now be opened by your feet, we are placing overhead acrylic sheets between the client and the technicians for services like facials, and working hard to reduce the chance of contact at common-touch areas.”

    All these measures have been introduced in addition to the standard safety norms decided on by the industry, including sanitisation of the staff and clients and regular infrared checkups.

    Some other technologies that Bhatt is investing in for the salons are handheld switches to open store doors and sensory sanitisers. The clients who will visit the salons will be given complimentary kits with sanitisers and switches to open car doors, etc., so the whole consumer experience goes beyond the stores too. They will also be educated to maintain social distancing.

    Bhatt shares that he hasn’t struck any particular brand deals to assist in introducing these changes and technologies. “For us, consumer safety is a very serious matter and therefore, I don’t see it as a business proposition. I am dealing closely with local-level manufacturers to source the sanitisers, and masks. There is a strict quality control procedure in place and we don’t purchase handmade masks to make sure they are completely safe and hygienic. For the changes in in-house architecture, our whole team is working to chart out the best plans and working with architects. We are sourcing our own material for acrylic sheets and door fittings. Everything has been personalised with the core aim of keeping our teams and clients completely safe.”

    He adds that customers are taking these developments very positively. “We have our Bengaluru stores open for around 15 days now and we have been witnessing around 80 per cent of the regular footfall. However, the customers are seeking more services and our business has been up by one per cent there. In Gujarat, despite us working on alternate days and for restricted hours, the footfall is down by just 35 per cent of the regular, and again service demand is higher.”

    Bhatt feels that the business will pick up even better during the festive season starting October and will remain on a positive track through the quarter. “The demands will obviously be lower because of the restrictions on social gatherings like weddings but I am positive that the business will improve a lot by then.”

    Bhatt is also working hard to market the many initiatives that the salon is taking these days. The salon chain has introduced its new app with the whole catalogue of services on display. Clients can also use it to book prior appointments with the technicians of their choice.

    Apart from that, the salon teams are calling up their clients personally under its “Call is Well” campaign. They are providing personalised on-call assistance, guiding the clients on self-care during the lockdown and also checking-in to see how they’re doing. With 70,000+ calls made by the professionals; the activity was well-received by clients, shared Bhatt. They are also delivering personal care and grooming products to clients’ houses without any additional charges.

    Additionally, they are also running impressive B2B awareness campaigns and indulging in public service. Under their “Me to We” campaign, the brand surveyed 15,000+ customers across Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bangalore, Vadodara, Surat and co-created the stringent hygiene protocol for customer and the salon team safety against Covid2019. The protocols detailed as a part of the campaign communication brings alive necessary rituals for customer and salon team’s safety once business resumes.

  • Akshay Kumar urges working with precautions in govt’s new Covid2019 messaging

    Akshay Kumar urges working with precautions in govt’s new Covid2019 messaging

    MUMBAI: Last week, the union ministry of health and family welfare reached out to filmmaker R Balki to produce a public service message for the novel SarsCov2 virus. The film featured Akshay Kumar, explaining that the virus is here to stay for a while and since we can’t stop working for a longer period it’s time to resume work and lives again, but wearing a mask is necessary as it prevents us and others from the disease. In the one minute and 30 second-long video, he consistently urges people to take all precautions before stepping out while ensuring safety.

    In the last three months, the government announced several rounds of lockdown, and to make people aware about the disease, it relied on the digital medium and full-page ads on national dailies. It even launched a caller tune for Covid2019 awareness alert and used radio extensively. But there was no specific campaign released by the government officials at that time.

    The film’s timing coincides with Unlock 1.0 with new guidelines to restart the economy in a phased manner.
    The advertisement soon became the talk of the town on social media platforms. Many people praised the ad and applauded the message but a certain section of the society condemned the timing of the ad, owing to the drastically rising cases in the metropolitan cities.

    In the ad, Kumar is seen in an avatar of a village man, stepping out of home after the lockdown to start work again, but stopped by an elderly neighbour advising not to go out and remain at home as it’s still risky. Kumar then explains the reasons why work cannot be stopped and shared the vision to wear a mask and take precautionary measures to deal with the pandemic. Towards the end of the film, the elderly man accompanies him to work.

    TRA founder and CEO N Chandramouli says, “An actor and a director who have been assigned an advertisement brief by the government, may have control on the creative rendition of the ad, but will not have much say on the messaging. Akshay has done several government ads before this on promoting agricultural schemes, road safety programs, among others, so promoting a government-related cause is not new to him. Whether it is right to ask people to start working with precautions or not, is a divided opinion.”

    He adds, “Akshay is also no stranger to controversy and criticism, right from the #BoycottNirma campaign after his depiction of a Maratha warrior in a Nirma ad, to his Canadian citizenship, so this one is just one more added to the list.”

    Samsika Marketing Consultants founder, chairman and MD Jagdeep Kapoor opines, “Ads of this nature are of an educative quality. They are highly beneficial, though boring. This ad has been made with an attempt to make it interesting with the celebrity and style and light sense of humour. Public service ads are helpful because they are like a lighthouse in turbulent times. They are a guiding light and a glimmer of hope in difficult times and viewed seriously. Such ads usually work due to relevance and the social context.”

    In the past, as well, the government has used public service messaging as a key tool to aware people and reassure them. Take the example of ‘Do Boond Zindagi ki’ campaign by Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign saw massive support from the audience and encouraged people’s participation in eradicating polio from India. There are many such campaigns released by the health ministry over the years, be it HIV AIDS, tuberculosis or dengue and other many diseases.
    This showcases that public service ads serve a purpose in mitigating the myths surrounded or to propagate a clear message to the audience and when such campaigns have famous superstars, the message spreads quickly and people actually follow it.

    However, this time things are different. The government has decided to start working again because the the economy has come crashing and it’s important to return to normalcy with effective measures.

  • Magazines and in-app communication to promote Marriott’s welcome-back discounts

    Magazines and in-app communication to promote Marriott’s welcome-back discounts

    NEW DELHI: The Covid2019 pandemic has led to many businesses within the country shut their shops completely, including the $22billion hotel industry. For the past two months, with stringent travel restrictions in place, the industry faced clumps of losses. However, as the lockdown starts easing, the players are slowly prepping to get back on their feet.

    Recently, US-based Marriott International announced the launch of an interesting deal as a welcome-back offer curated specially for South Asian countries including Asia, under which people can make the hotel bookings now within the month of June, choosing between three different complimentary offers, and avail them any time by June 2021. They will be able to save 30 per cent and above on these bookings.

    Sheraton Hyderabad GM Vikas Sharma told Indiantelevision.com that it is an initiative by the hotel chain to get the cash flowing within the hotels. He said that just within five days of the announcement of the offer, his hotel has already received bookings for 50 room nights.

    “In fact, the whole Marriott chain has been receiving queries and bookings. People have reacted to it pretty well,” Sharma added.

    Most of the bookings received are for the month of June and July 2020. “My hotel is an area where most bookings are made for business purposes. However, another trend that I am seeing is people booking the hotel for staycations.”

    Marriott is also preparing all its hotels to ensure complete safety for its team members and guests and has been ensuring proper sanitisation of the spaces, and introducing touch-free options for facilities like check-in, bill payments, and food & dining experience, etc.

    “The hotels have been working with partners like Ecolabs and Diversey to get the best sanitisation practices in place. We have stringent quality control over each other product that will be used in our hotel, as well,” Sharma said.

    Marriott is also working on in-house technologies to provide keyless check-in to its guests using QR codes and innovating to introduce maximum touch-less experience at shared spaces like elevators.

    The hotel chain is looking at utilising print media, like magazines, personalised communication to its patrons, and in-app notifications on its Bonvoy platform to communicate about this offer. Sharma added that they are also looking forward to a lot of word-of-mouth publicity about the offer.

    While he is expecting a positive response to the discount and thinks people will soon start travelling for business and staycation purposes, he believes that it won’t be before the first quarter of CY2021 that the industry will be able to get back on its feet.

    “I have at least 75 per cent occupancy at my hotel in this time period (June-July) and I will consider myself lucky if we manage to get even 25 per cent this time. The industry will take some time to get back to normal,” Sharma concluded.