“Luckily, we established ourselves as an essential, and not a fashion brand”: Gaurav Dublish, Wildcraft

We spoke to the brand’s co-founders, Gaurav Dublish and Siddharth Sood, about the impact of the ongoing national lockdown on their business, on the sidelines of the launch of a new campaign.

Wildcraft, the outdoor and tactical gear firm, recently launched a campaign ‘Hain Taiyaar Hum’. Conceptualised by the Indian brand’s communication and strategy partner, Ogilvy India, the anthem wants Indians to be prepared for the ‘new order’, with a blend of safety, style and self-belief.

The one-minute-30-second-long film captures the country’s vibrant diversity, indomitable spirit, and zest for life. The song has been composed by Abhishek Arora, and sung by Nooran Sisters. Shot at home, across the length and breadth of the country, the film was stitched together by Good Morning Films, a Mumbai-based firm that produces TVCs, music videos, documentaries and digital content.

Speaking about the ideation of the campaign, Gaurav Dublish, co-founder, Wildcraft, told afaqs! over a Zoom call that it encapsulates the beliefs of the brand. “We thought this was the right time to tell our brand’s story to the world, and the campaign serves the purpose.”

The anthem will be released in seven languages - Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam. This 360-degree campaign will run across television, OTT, social media, and music streaming/video sharing platforms.

On how Wildcraft is ensuring distribution of its products, especially face masks, co-founder Siddharth Sood revealed that the brand has tied up with e-commerce platforms – Flipkart and Myntra. “The brand started distributing the product in the first week of April under the essential service category of the e-commerce platforms.”

Over the last 45 days, Wildcraft has also reconfigured its supply chain. “We have opened around 35 new warehouses in the country, and have appointed a lot of distributors in the pharma and FMCG, grocery space,” says Sood.

These distributors are helping Wildcraft supply its products to around one lakh points of sale. Sood also says that over the next 45 days, the brand plans to exponentially scale up its distribution base.

He says one of the major challenges, apart from getting licenses to open factories and ensuring the safety of workers, was ensuring that the supplies are continuous.

“While our factories were open, we faced some challenges in making sure that raw material is available. Once it was sorted, it took us about 10 days since the lockdown to be able to sell our products,” added Sood.

Around 50 retail stores of the brand are currently open in locations where the lockdown has been relaxed.

Speaking about the impact of lockdown on business and the challenges (if any), Dublish says, “Luckily for us, we’ve not positioned ourselves as a fashion brand. Our sense is, since we are in the essentials space, the lockdown has impacted our lives a little less, as compared to others.”

Dublish states that there is definitely going to be an impact on discretionary spends. “We anticipate some changes in the market. However, we will ensure the availability of our products.”

Wildcraft aims to increase its points of sale by 100 times by June 30. The number of distributors has grown from 75 to 580 in the past two months. It is expected to grow to up to 1,000 by the end of June.

“We’re sure that we’ll be able to give a commercial boost to our business model, and grow as expected,” says Dublish.