Media house BCCL launches clothing & accessories under Femina brand

India's leading media house BCCL, which owns the Times Group of publications, is extending its various brands to non-media categories and has launched a clothing and accessories range under the Femina brand.

The move will see the company doing brand extensions with the English magazine Femina, the recently launched Panache, which is a supplement with the Economic Times, and another magazine Good Homes. The group has begun with the Femina under which the magazine has partnered with Shoppers Stop to launch Femina Flaunt, a brand of apparel, shoes, bags and accessories priced from Rs 549 to Rs 5,499. "We have so many media brands and we feel that each of them have so much value hidden, which could be successfully unlocked," Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd's director and business head for brand extensions Sandeep Dahiya said.

"We have invested in the brand Femina for the past 60 years and it has a strong equity and now is the time to unlock some of it into other segments," he said. On partnership with Shoppers Stop, he said, "it's a 10-year-long strategic partnership. It's a hybrid licensing model where we will earn royalty on sales." The range, which is a jointly created and owned, will initially be available across 17 Shoppers Stop outlets stores, going up to 45 stores over the next two years.

Dahiya said they will be introducing other products in Femina Flaunt over the next one or two years. "With Femina as a brand, we wanted to position it in the fashion space. We've taken care of the core fashion category which is the apparel, bags, footwear and accessories.

"Over the next 18-24 months we would like to launch the other related categories like inner wear, lounge wear, eyewear, wristwear, which would complement core categories," he said, adding that the immediate next category that BCCL may launch is likely to be fragrances. On marketing, he said they will initially start with digital campaigns and then some print as well.