Boutique or cult brands are typified by a distinct, differentiated brand personality that is amplified in a consistent, powerful brand voice. They are usually passionately built by their founders with painstaking attention to every aspect of the brand. In fact, such highly differentiated brands often struggle to find the right marketing partner who ‘get them’.
Meet The Quad!
The Quad, a Chennai-based fitness brand that offers a unique outdoor workout experience, is a classic example of such a boutique brand.
With a consistent, definitive and inimitable brand voice, backed by carefully cultivated authenticity and credibility, The Quad has earned itself a loyal following – both online and offline – encompassing not just their customers, but also many others who follow them for fitness inspiration and credible advice. Maintaining a tightly woven content narrative spanning the most relevant aspects of fitness, nutrition, sustainable health / lifestyle choices and even sleep – the brand has stood out for what it says and how it says it, despite a lot of content being available out there.
When the Quad approached Inception seeking support to launch their client privilege program, The Quad Card, we jumped at it!
Identifying the right partners for The Quad Card whose values aligned with the brand values of The Quad, creating the partnership opportunities that inspire usage, directing the visual and content strategy with language, messaging and tone that is a natural extension of The Quad’s brand persona and all the while ensuring a tight alignment with the brand philosophy – the entire project was dotted with moments of challenge and opportunity – the kind of moments that a marketer savors.
The tagline “Exercise your privilege!” and positioning the card as a means for the clients to take “Fitness beyond their workout” resonated with The Quad’s philosophy of an active lifestyle that involves making the right choices of workout and nutrition, every time, every day, in class or outside. For the design of the kit itself, we took the minimalist approach in the brand colors, working with Nirupama as our design collaborator.
For a marketer, it is always about the journey and not the end product. The journey that we had with The Quad reinforced our belief that marketing is not simply about pumping money to sell your idea, but an opportunity to inspire people to want to belong to your idea. And that’s why certain brands just rock! A big thank you to The Quad for trusting us with their idea!
Inception regularly works with several boutique brands as a marketing partner for turnkey solutions, brand interventions and consulting. Please write to us at inception@inception.net.in if you would like to have a conversation on this (or anything else!)
A blog by Aarthi Srinath, Partner, and Nandhitha Hariharan, Assistant Manager Projects, at Inception Business Services.
About the Authors:
Aarthi is a Marketing & Management professional with over 14 years of experience in marketing technology, consulting and business development. She has helped Fortune 500 companies and vibrant start-ups formulate and execute their marketing plan. Her passions outside work include cycling, cooking and travel – she is the fastest amateur woman cyclist in Chennai!
Nandhitha contributes campaign ideas, social media support and brand content to the client brands she works with. Her love for writing now finds an additional expression on the Inception blog.
