Brands
Sports accessories brand D:FY clubs quality with affordability
MUMBAI: Affordability is every Indian’s first thought when purchasing anything. However, quality sports shoes tend to be high priced and the likes of Nike Air or Adidas Superstar are beyond the reach of normal people’s budgets.
Enter the latest entrant to try to make the impossible possible – D:FY (read: defy). Launched by fitness enthusiasts Prashant Desai and Rajiv Mehta, who are marathon runners themselves, it aims to make great sports gear accessible to the Indian makes with great technology and breath-taking looks.
For Desai and Mehta, the idea for D:FY seeded with a personal need to buy quality sports products at an affordable price as running was becoming expensive for them. “As runners, we had to buy products by global brands that are heavily priced which has always pinched us. There are enough brands available in the market but they don’t give enough quality products and technologies required to run well,” says Desai.
The company competes directly with Indian brands in the same category such as Action, Power, and Red Tape but aspires to compete with international brands including Sketchers, Nike, Adidas, Puma and Reebok in a year’s time. On this, Pradeep says, “We definitely aspire to compete with bigger players in the market. If you compare a product of D:FY’s which is priced at Rs 5500 with a competitor’s Rs 5500 product, ours is definitely way better in terms of technology. But most people compare apples to oranges whereas they should compare apples to apples.”
Backed by FMCG mogul Kishore Biyani along with Farhan Akhtar and ex-cricketer Anil Kumble, the company has Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya and actor Nidhi Agerwal as brand ambassadors.
The company wants to target a mass audience and hence has decided to price it at a sweet spot. D:FY footwear range targets Indian fitness sensibilities — walk, gym and multi-sport that starts from Rs 2200 whereas apparels start from as low as Rs 799.
Marketing the product efficiently is equally essential to ensure brand awareness and recall and this is where most companies get it wrong. Since digital is available at a much cheaper rate than television D:FY wants to advertise heavily on digital and BTL. It wants to reach consumers at as many touchpoints as possible but will refrain using television at the moment as it comes at an exorbitant cost.
The company is set to invest Rs 10 crore for advertising during the first year of its operations. An optimistic entrepreneur, Mehta says that they are extremely aggressive about their capital spending and will invest in outdoor, digital, BTL, radio and maybe in-cinema advertising along with influencer marketing.
The co-owners don’t want to be just another online brand but will look at ramping up the offline presence by opening stores where consumers can touch and feel the product before buying them.
D:FY is planning an aggressive physical presence with 22 store launches across nine cities of Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Surat, Vadodara, Mohali, Bareily and Hubli by the end of September and plans to take this to 100 stores by 2022.
Online sales are equally important for any brand and especially if you are just starting out. Usually, brands partner with multiple e-commerce websites to sell the products which help them in reaching out to a large set of audience. But D:FY has tied up exclusively with Amazon to sell the merchandise which kind of narrow downs the scope of reaching a mass audience that shops online.
While the products will be available across all channels, the company does not want to sell the products at a discounted rate as it believes the price-point is pretty much justified.
Though major sales for the brand will come in from metros and mini metros, the co-founders want to reach the rural consumer as well. It will also face a stiff competition from local players that sell sports shoes for as low as Rs 200 and apparel at a mere Rs 100-200.
Where most manufacturers – national and international – are looking at shifting their manufacturing units to India in order to promote the government’s Make In India initiative, the duo wants to continue manufacturing the sports products in China. They will, however, bring the apparel manufacturing business to India which is also manufactured in China.
For 2020, the company has set huge targets where it will become more aggressive in terms of marketing and advertising the products, with an increased number of stores and SKUs. The sports brand targets to have revenue worth Rs 60 by the end of its first year’s operations.
The store has all the feels you get when you walk into a Nike or Adidas outlet. It will, however, be interesting to see if D:FY can create a niche for itself in an already cluttered market where Indians still prefer buying international products for the sake of quality.
Brands
Abhinav Rastogi named global marketing director for YouTube Shopping
Google veteran to scale creator commerce and expand shopping across global markets
SINGAPORE: Abhinav Rastogi has stepped into a new role as global marketing director for YouTube Shopping, marking the latest chapter in a more than decade-long career at Google.
Rastogi, who took on the position in February and is based in Singapore, will lead global marketing for YouTube Shopping, a platform designed to connect creators, viewers and merchants in a single ecosystem. His remit includes expanding the service into new markets and strengthening its positioning as a growth channel for both creators and brands.
In a reflective note on the transition, Rastogi pointed to a simple but powerful idea driving the role. For years, creators have quietly built trust with audiences through consistent and authentic content, and that trust often shapes purchasing decisions. What is changing now, he said, is the infrastructure around that behaviour. YouTube Shopping aims to make it easier for viewers to discover and buy products recommended by creators they already follow.
The scale is already significant. More than half a million creators have joined the programme, with recent expansion into Japan through a partnership with Rakuten signalling further global ambitions.
Rastogi believes the future of shopping on YouTube will be driven by a blend of creators, content and communities. In his view, it is the human voice behind the screen, not just the product, that ultimately builds trust and drives discovery.
Prior to this role, he served as director of marketing, YouTube Asia Pacific, where he led regional marketing across creator engagement, brand building and reputation. During that time, he played a key role in launching and scaling YouTube Shopping across eight markets in the region.
Earlier stints at Google include group product marketing manager, consumer apps, overseeing growth for products such as Search, Maps and Assistant across India and Southeast Asia, and product marketing manager roles spanning consumer apps and YouTube, where he contributed to launches including YouTube Music, YouTube Originals and YouTube Shorts.
Rastogi began his career in consulting with Boston Consulting Group and A.T. Kearney, before moving into the technology sector. He is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.
Alongside his corporate role, he is also an active angel investor, backing early-stage startups in consumer technology and electric mobility across India and Southeast Asia.
As he settles into the new role, Rastogi is betting on a future where every video can double up as a storefront, and where commerce feels less like a transaction and more like a recommendation from a trusted voice.
