Our brand values are different from Shein's: Rahul Dayama, Urbanic

UK-based fashion company Urbanic recently had a brand makeover. It introduced a new logo and brand image, showcasing its revamped identity centred around inclusivity with the tagline ‘We are because you are’. The app and the website of Urbanic will also get a new visual identity.

Rahul Dayama, head of marketing, Urbanic believes their brand was very much on the awareness stage and focussed on influencer marketing, but there was no personality communication about them as a brand. There was no story behind the old logo, and there was no tagline.

“We thought that it's a perfect time to set our foundation because we are also planning to launch in more countries in the coming year,” he said.

The new logo features a more rounded, softer font, symbolising unity and fostering inclusivity while celebrating each individual’s unique style.

The brand chose to go for a lowercase logo to get closer to consumers. Dayama shared, “We are a community-driven brand; we have a community, but that was not implemented in our visual identity.”

The fashion brand also incorporated five primary and 15 secondary colours. “We are colourful and inclusive as a brand, so we thought 'Why stick to one brand colour?'. We should have a whole colour palette so that we can accommodate more choices and we can select different colours for different personalities,” he added

According to the executive, the brand already has a good amount of awareness in India and they have been quite popular among Gen-Z. Now, they want to tap a larger target audience, which is from 18 to 35.

A lot of fashion brands want to create aspiration, and they end up making a lot of distance between themselves and their consumer, we never wanted to do that, Dayama shared. Hence, the brand has been trying to communicate via its marketing campaigns the vibe of a stylish yet friendly brand.

Furthermore, the kind of audience Urbanic was addressing till now, was very digital-friendly from tier-I and metro cities. So the consumption of social media was really high.

Dayama shared, “We will be focusing a lot more on social media, influencer marketing. And as we always had a very tailored plan for each platform, there's a completely different plan for Instagram. Apart from that, we're trying to have pop-up stores starting next month in multiple cities because we want people to see our quality offline as well.”

For the longest time, Urbanic was known to be a brand that replaced Shein and earned major fame after Shein exited India.

“So if you see fashion as a market, it's not a market with a single winner. For sure, Shein is a big competitor in fashion; but even when they were around, we were doing our influencer marketing strategies. They are more like a marketplace," highlighted the Urbanic executive.  

He further added, “I feel Shein is not our direct competitor because they never try to do branding. Our brand ethos and the brand values are different. We don't want to do everything everywhere and be a marketplace.”

The UK fashion brand has been focusing on this rebranding and globally they've spent around $10 million in total.

For the upcoming months, Urbanic plans to reflect its refreshed brand identity in its collection with three theme-based collections every month. Their first brand campaign is set to launch very soon.