How Godrej L'Affaire is building brand affinity and a luxury lifestyle experience for consumers

After more than a year’s research and analysis on the salience and affinity of Godrej brands, the company realised the importance of giving an authentic experience to consumers. Keeping this aspect in mind, a luxury lifestyle platform, Godrej L’Affaire, was launched in 2017.

L’Affaire, which was conceptualised as a one-day annual event, aims to define the future of progressive lifestyle aspired by urban consumers across age groups. L’Affaire showcases a mix of ideas and concepts around food, travel, fashion, art, music and design. Master classes, engaging conversations, fashion shows, musical performances and an immersive experience with lifestyle brands is what this experiential event delivers in a bid to drive salience for the master brand, Godrej.

The objective of the luxury lifestyle platform is to create content, drive social media presence at the initial stages, create conversations, create influencer engagement, build relations, and build a community that can yield results for the brand in future.

Sujit Patil

“In the 2016 and 2017 researches, we found that certain segments of consumers loved us; they knew about us. But affinity to the critical segment and TG— the millennial and Gen Z — could have been much better. Back then, we were not seen as a lifestyle player,” Sujit Patil, VP & Head of Corporate Brand & Communications, Godrej Group, said.

“After an analysis on these issues, we found that what really would work is something that is experiential,” he said.

The group had a huge chain of influencers and digital PRs within the corporate brand and communications team. And so it thought of mobilising this community of influencers, give them a platform to experientially engage with Godrej brands and lifestyle space and help create content in a meaningful authentic manner.

“Once they see, touch and feel the product, experience it then the content automatically becomes much more authentic. We thought if we give the influencers this platform, bring them all together in a celebratory style where we celebrate lifestyle, it would be much more effective,” he said.

L'Affaire not only brings together various Godrej Group businesses —Cinthol, BBLUNT, Godrej Professional, Godrej Interio, Script, Godrej Locks, Godrej Properties, Godrej Security Solutions, Real Good Chicken—present in the lifestyle space but also non-competing external brands.

In the past, brands such as Jeep, Myntra, Mercedes-Benz Shaman, Elizabeth Arden, California Walnuts, Jack Daniels, Strangers & Sons, among others came on board as brand partners.

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“Along with the brands under Godrej lifestyle, every year we attempt to get some non-competing brands in the lifestyle space to borrow their aura,” Patil said.

The company picks and chooses those brands as partners which complement the Godrej brands. “The partner brands also bring their influencers who get to witness Godrej products. It’s a collaborative initiative,” Patil emphasised.

Three pillars of L’Affaire

●       Tremendous amount of content creation opportunity.

●       To engage meaningfully and experientially with people on the ground (Influencers, bloggers, HNIs {High-net-worth individuals}, celebrities, thought leaders). They are also amplification partners for the brand.

●       To mobilise the entire list of this community.

The third edition of L’Affaire, which took place in February, 2019, was attended by over 650 people, including CAT A crowd, celebrities, digital influencers, bloggers and content creators.  It got total impressions of 37mn and 7mn across digital platforms.

The group is all set to host the fourth edition on February 22, 2020. In its fourth edition, Godrej L’Affaire aims to bring forth India’s unparalleled bequest and affluent culture that will inspire future lifestyle experiences.

According to Patil, approximately 300 integrated videos are created in one evening by 40 brands. Each brand creates around four to five videos with multiple influencers on an organic basis. “At this event, brands with so many influencers create discerning content and use it over a period of time,” he said.

Speaking on the benefits in-house and other brands get from the event, he said, “For each of the brands present in L’Affaire, social media presence has touched highs. The followers on the Godrej page have gone up four times in the last three years.”

“The vision is to make this platform a destination for large brands to come here on ground and celebrate with us in L’Affaire. Going forward, we feel content is going to be even more important. This is a huge aspect of generating content for us,” he adds.

According to Patil, the brand partnership for the event is largely driven by integration. If a big brand wants in-depth integration, they charge them on that basis.

“If a brand wants to get a lounge created, based on a level of integration, we charge them a basic fee of Rs 3-5 lakh based on the kind of experience zone they wish to create,” explains Patil.

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The brand integration with influencers, engagement and experiential activities with the CAT A audience shortens the sales process of the brands as consumers get salience of the product and then quickly the enquiry happens.

“It's very important for a brand to have such a platform because in today’s world authentic content is important and it only comes when someone talks or writes about it after experiencing it. This is a platform in which we are enabling experiential with the product. We are giving them experiences in a way that influencers are able to write stories that are more authentic and meaningful,” he said.

This year, L'Affaire is divided into two halves

Throughout the afternoon, there will be an eclectic mix of artists and personalities conversing and sharing stories on food, music, travel, good health, parenting and much more.

Versatile actress Bhumi Pednekar debuted as a chef in this live cook-off with Chef Varun Inamdar along with a conversation on how to bake a blockbuster.

Celebrity couple Karanvir Bohra and Teejay Sidhu will urge millennial parents to rediscover the art of teaching spirituality to kids through travel.

Music director Shantanu Moitra will talk about his 100-day fascinating adventure across the Himalayas and how it inspired him and his music.

Can your home decor give back to nature? Learn why sustainability and design cannot be an either or choice anymore from India’s leading names from design world such as Krsnaa Mehta (India Circus), Alan Abraham (Abraham John Architects), Madhav Raman (Anagram Architects), Swarup Dutta (Scenographer) and Asha Sairam (Studio Lotus).

Masterclasses and workshops, part of GodrejL’Affaire, will take place at Godrej One in Vikhroli, Mumbai, on Saturday, on February 22.

The schedule of the second part is not yet finalised, and not open to all.

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