When you look around, you'll see "A TATA Product" on a lot of storefronts. Tanishq, Westside, Taneira, Starbucks and a lot of others, but whenever you look outside Zudio, you’ll never find it.
But why are they treating ZUDIO differently? There are two possible scenarios here:
Trust and Ethics Building to Sell High-Value Products
Premiumness of the Tata Brand
We’ll explore both of them one by one.
ONE
Trust and Ethics Building to Sell High-Value Products
When Jamsetji Tata built his first company over 150 years ago, his mission was using it simply to make people’s lives better. And the Tata companies have consistently remained loyal to these core values and ideals set forth by their founder.
Protection of Tata’s reputation and brand equity as well as working for the betterment of society is extremely important for them and they don’t consider business a zero-sum game.
And even with Zudio they are trying to give everyone a chance to jump on the latest fashion and style trends, which were limited to people with more money. So, at its core it is not a bad idea plus it is a great business. If they didn’t jump onto this opportunity, some foreign brand would have covered this space as well.
But the downside of this is the environmental concerns attached to fast fashion which have been well known and companies like Zara and H&M have been facing a lot of backlash because of this. That leaves Tata at ethical crossroads.
They might not want to attach the TATA name — which stands for responsible and ethical conduct, to an ultra-cheap fast fashion brand — which has a massive environmental cost.
TWO
Premiumness of the Tata Brand
Tata brand is slowly trying to position itself with brands that are aspirational and somewhat premium.
Being attached to a steel and salt brand for years had positioned Tata as a mass-production, mass-market business. And having low-cost cars like Tata Indica, Tata Indigo, and the most famous Tata Nano made the brand take an even bigger hit.
As a part of their new strategy, it seems that they are being extremely conscious of how they position this renewed image of Tata.
You see, the dilution of this brand by attaching itself to a mass-market ultra-cheap fast-fashion brand like Zudio could have an indirect effect on how the public perceives a Tata Harrier or a Tata Safari. It can also potentially disturb their long-running brand Westside. People might start linking Zudio with Westside and that will eventually dilute Westside’s brand.
BUT WAIT
Does Zudio even need Tata?
If you see the kind of companies that need the backing of the TATA name, goodwill, trust, and reputation are mostly companies where trust building is required. Like for Tanishq, which is selling expensive jewelry, having the Tata name does help in building trust in the product. And recently, they launched Taneria:
When you walk across Taneira the first time and you don’t notice the TATA name, you might walk into the store, but not make any purchase. That’s because they are selling really expensive sarees. Having the TATA name on its storefront does help in giving the brand a head-start in terms of trust.
Zudio on the other hand is self-sufficient in its proposition branding strategy.
They know who their target is — young Indians.
And what they want — trendy clothes at extremely cheap rates.
And a shopping experience that doesn’t feel cheap.
Tata brand had nothing to offer in this with its reputation, status, aura, and goodwill. And again, instead of elevating Zudio’s brand, attaching its name with Zudio could have diluted the Tata brand instead.