Brands
We were never marketing heavy in the traditional sense: Kunal Popat
Mumbai: R for Rabbit was conceptualized in the year 2014 in Gujarat, India by the power couple duo Kunal and Kinjal Popat. With a vision to become an“Amazing Baby Company” the brand offers a wide range of innovative baby products backed by research adhering to international quality and safety standards at accessible price points.
Their premium baby products are backed with four key pillars namely Quality, Safety, Innovation and Exceptional Customer Support. Over 300 SKU’s under baby category like stroller, high chair, tricycle, bicycle, baby care products etc., the product range of the brand spans across Baby gear, Baby Diapers & Baby hair & Skin range.
A VC Funded company (2 rounds), R For Rabbit is amongst the top five baby commerce companies with a pan-India presence. Consistently rated 4.5+/5 across all marketplaces and offline retail.
Indiantelevision.com caught up with R for Rabbit founder Kunal Popat where he shared more interesting insights regarding his company.
Edited excerpts
On marketing strategies has R for Rabbit employed to establish itself as a trusted brand among over 2.5 million parents
We were never marketing heavy in the traditional sense. So we always led with developing the right product and let our products do the talking. R for Rabbit products are made with 3 basic mantras – Safety, Quality & Innovation. Since the inception we followed these 3 mantras, and our products got us customer loyalty and word of mouth.
We were amongst the first ones to introduce many categories of products in India like car seats, electric cradle etc. When our parents saw all these products came with international US & European certifications, they realized that even at premium pricing the products were actually rightly priced.
Being an EBITDA driven brand, we focussed marketing on activities that were ROI driven and clearly measurable. Hence digital was our first go to channel. We focused on digital marketing strategies so that we are able to be in front of customers through ads and promotion on various platforms like e-commerce, social media, digital news channels, emails, sms and many more such.
Apart from digital we believed to be seen in the physical world through indoor and outdoor store branding that gave more trust to our target audience.
Our social media channels are not shops but community building platforms where we regularly engage with our parents through useful and helpful content. This help us in making a closer connection with them and understanding their pain points.
On R for Rabbit effectively communicating its commitment to safety, quality, and innovation in its marketing efforts
Generating awareness plays a very important role as many parents are still unaware of safety in baby products. We try to communicate our 3 pillars of safety, innovation & quality by interesting depiction of each feature through our graphic language in branding and marketing assets. our communication will always be around safety and comfort across all the categories.
Understanding pain points and then showing safety features as a solution also worked for us. Last year we did a “No Rash challenge” for our diapers which was a huge success. Highlighting how high quality products actually solve one of the biggest problems for babies.
Even our CSR efforts are geared around increasing awareness, like the Child Road safety campaign we run since last 2 years.
On leveraging digital presence to engage with parents and drive sales
We usually engage with parents over social media by giving value based content and engagement kind of posts where parents comment, share and save the content. Getting more and more parents engaged with our social media helps us to be on the top of their mind and let them explore our products over our website and other ecommerce platforms.
Apart from social media we are able to get good organic visibility on the ecommerce in the google search results.
On customer testimonials and reviews playing a role in R for Rabbit’s marketing strategy
Customer testimonials and reviews are actually not part of the marketing strategy for us. They are a natural push or outcome of the product quality and service that we offer. We organically get a lot of testimonials and reviews that help us across ecommerce platforms. We actively seek these and benchmark our products & services around it. This has helped us immensely as on each of the ecommerce stores 90% of the products have 4.2+ Stars on the product listings.
On R for Rabbit tailoring its marketing messages to resonate with different segments of the parenting market
From an outsider perspective it may look like one big segment of parents. But further cohorts get formed when you focus on the needs of the parents. Every parent has pain points that change as the age of the baby changes. Our products are tailored to solving these. The needs of parents with a baby in 0 – 6 months are different for that in 6 – 12 months. Similarly those of a child in the 0-3 yrs range are different from that of 3yrs – 6yrs.
Since our focus is on the ‘problem- solution- benefit’ approach, it helps us in clearly and effectively communicating with every segment. The idea is to make the community of parents where R for Rabbit can play a prominent role in not just selling the products but can help the parents in some way or the other through information over different channels like social media, whatsapp, emails etc.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
