Aarong- Number one lifestyle retailer in Bangladesh

Aarong

Producing products and indigenous crafts and styles of Bangladesh and empowering rural artisans, Aarong is more than just a retail chain. The word Aarong means ‘village fair’ and the Aarong brand is meant to invoke a deeper connection to its rural roots. Aarong is one of the 18 social enterprises of BRAC - the world’s largest development organization. It has been working towards BRAC’s mission of poverty alleviation through economic development and human capacity building, with a specific focus on the empowerment of women. Aarong was initiated in 1978 as a project to ensure poor silk farmers, block printers and embroiders in Manikganj in central Bangladesh were paid upon delivery of their products.erment of women. Today, Aarong serves through 13 retail stores across the country and employs more than 65,000 rural Bangadeshi artisans, of which 85 per cent are women. At Aarong, we aspire to bring all that we love about Bangladesh to customers around the world. In 2006, and again in 2012, a number of Aarong products received the UNESCO Award of Excellence for Handicrafts. As a fair trade organization, Aarong’s products are exported to fair trade companies across Asia, Europe and North America.

Customer Profile:

Before we talk about the brands communication strategy we need to know about their customer profile.

Demographic Segmentation:

Age: For all ages.

Gender: Male and Female both.

Family life cycle: For the all members of the family from older to younger.

Income education and occupation: High and middle income, well educated & for all kind of high occupation

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Geographic Segmentation:

Location : Urban and Sub urban , major cities.

Area: Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Khulna, Narayanganj.

Psychographic segmentation:

Preference: Higher & Middle class people.

Perception: like classy, trendy but modern products of own country.

Attitude: Positive, patriotic.

Lifestyle: Trendy, passionate, classy, like to differentiate from others.

IMC tools: Aarong use various IMC tools for an effective communication with their customer.

1.     Advertisement:

Aarong gives advertisement in television and radios for communicating with their customer. But their frequency is very low. And now they just only making TVC for special occasions like eid-ul-fitr, pohela boishakh, Bosonto Utsod etc. They are also giving advertisement in billboards. They are using celebrities also in billboards for advertising. They also giving advertisement in beauty magazines, news paper etc. 

2.      Interactive Marketing:

Aarong is using various internet social pages and other websites to communicate with customer like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Youtube, Gogle+. They have their own pages in in Facebook , Twitter, youtube. They are also giving pop up ads in these social media.

https://www.facebook.com/BRAC.AARONG/notes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onTNVoQctYM

3.      Sales promotion:

For promoting sale Aarong gives sales they give discount to their customer in the special occasions or in special time of the year. Like, “Aarong Independence Day Sale – 2008” .

4.       Direct Marketing:

They are using mobile marketing for communicating with customers. Like they are sending sms to the customers about their new product and sales promotion of their old product.

5.       Public Relation:

Aarong is making a good public relationship by giving values to their customer. They are giving suitable price, making bundle goods with price reduction. They also giving upadate in facebook and other social medias about their recent information.

6.       Personal selling:

Aarong is not doing any kind of personal selling.

My opinion:

Aarong is a brand with good reputation. And they have many good communication strategies. But I think they should improve in some of the aspects. Like, they are now giving some advertisement in billboard and other media’s which of them are in the image below are very much controversial. These advertisements have no meaning. They should develop good advertisement which will show their perspective. They should work more on direct marketing. They need give email, do DRT etc. They are good in interactive marketing. But I think they need to give more importance on personal selling if they can.  

Reference:
1. About Aarong. Available from.<http://www.aarong.com/about-aarong/