Case Study of Blossom Inner for the course of Corporate Communication, during Master in International Communication at the Hague University of Applied Sciences

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Hammad Saif, 2018
MICM
CHAPTER 1 : BLOSSOM INNERS THAT BLOSSOMED
Blossoms Inners Private Limited Founded in 1982, a privately held, incorporated lingerie
manufacturing company in India’s southern state of Kerala. Because Kerala had a 100 per cent
literacy rate, Blossom and many other companies used Kerala as a test marketing ground.
Blossom’s product portfolio included hundreds of bras and panties in a range of styles and colours.
The company targeted all age groups from girls and teenagers to professionals and mature women.
Product segmentation for the bra line was based on size and usage. The company used “Blossom”
as its brand name.
The company had been either number one or two for the previous few years in its competitive set
in the South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala.
The decision to fundamentally change the company’s advertising had the potential to destabilize
what was a successful company with a stable brand.
Blossoms Inners, a privately held Lingerie manufacturing company in Kerala and they identify
themselves as the biggest local lingerie producing brand in India. The company does have been
among the top one or two for past few years but that is only limited to the region of Kerala or
South India. Blossoms inners did used Kerala as a testing ground just like other companies because
of one big reason that Kerala has 100% literacy rate. This made very clear that they wanted to be
high profiled among the literate people and their target market is usually the people who have
enough knowledge to recognize a brand. Also lingerie products are usually bought in a very hidden
way when it comes to people who belongs to illiterate / close minded society. There fore targeting
a very literate area was a good thought on Blossoms part. The target market for Blossoms inners
include almost all age group and they have a very big product portfolio of bras and panties.
“Blossom” the brand name has been internationally recognized with the product range that covers
cotton bras, hosiery, panties, bra and panty sets, slips and tights.
Blossoms also identity themselves as a premium brand as they focus on quality very much and
they like to be among the premium brands as also reflect a bit into their pricing.
Blossoms focus on simplicity and being premium. This was also very much visible in their logo

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design and website.
The communication of Blossom was very much commercial, they were into mass marketing and
also print media. The have arrange one of the best advertising agency to look after their advertising
campaigns.
Currently they have moved towards a more ethically and responsible campaigns of promoting
lingerie due to religious and ethical grounds. Therefore now previous lusty campaign can be found
online, which also focuses there alignment to what they think and do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt_eAaXieCQ
Although a portraying themselves as very premium brand Blossom is not very active on social
media as per the recent times, when social media is a very powerful tool for advertising and
marketing and promoting one’s ideas.
What blossom has to say about the women si what they really believe and that’s what they
incorporate in their identity and corporate ethics, where they cover their Corporate Social
Responsibility as well and they portray it well above everything on their website.
Welcome To Blossom “Where we will never get tired of reminding you, that you're
perfect just as you are right now. We are here to remind you that - Beauty is You !”
CHAPTER 2 - THE DECISION: STUPID OR NOT

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The company was running upwards with a net sales of 41.48 million in fiscal year 2014 which
gives a clear feedback of customers confidence and trust in the brand. The company was running
nine state of art factories which are equipped with sophisticated electronic machines. The
Revenues were rising high. The advertising was high and the brand was very much gripping the
minds of consumers and they brand perception was roaming high. When suddenly in a
brainstorming session the directors and the owners came with the most non-orthodox decision of
advertising the lingerie. The decision was to never use any visuals, especially in mass media
which reveals a woman’s body. The directors were firm that this is closely attached with their
religious philosophy and relied on it to explain their decision. The owners on the other hand also
had another point of view about the recent juveniles including sexual harassment of women.
Although the juveniles and media reporting never said anything attached with the advertisement
of any lingerie brand, but the decision was made and had to be executed.
The decision definitely came as a bomb on the stakeholders, The employees, the Management,
the design team, the marketing team, advertising agency. Later the decision is definitely going to
effect other stake holders, which include the customers, potential consumers.
The company consisted of research department, development department, quality control
division, tech-savvy designers and more than 200 female staff.
This decision was no doubt was the most difficult for a lingerie producing brand and specially
when you are rising high in revenues and customers love your product. But the decision was
made because the owners were more concerned about their believes and cultural norms then they
are for the profits. This at one point is a great value for the company if they can portray it well
enough.
Salient Model:

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CHAPTER 3: THE NEW CAMPAIGN
The blossom spent and allocated actually the same amount of budget and followed the same
pattern they use to do for the new thought campaign of social and ethical privileges. The
company took their advertisement to the women’s magazine and newspaper. They also
advertised on television. But the start was real touch for the brand team as what ever they had
planned and done for this year in the last year, it was all trashed and they had to work twice to
make the new campaign a success, but they result definitely happened as the sales team had
already communicated. The pull fell down and the sales went down due to that. The new layout
and campaign was based on models wearing elegant T-shirts instead of showing their body in
lingerie and seductive poses. The whole campaign was focused on “ free attitude” instead of
what the company used to promote as a perfect fit and elegant style.
So the decline started, with sales team complaining about the loss of pull, even with the new
designs in market, as the campaign was not good enough to communicate it and instead the T-
shirts were the prominent factor and people were calling the brand department about the details
of these elegant t-shirts rather than asking for a lingerie design. The communication actually
confused the current customer and also the future customer was hurt.
Potential
Stakeholders
(customers,
employees)
Blossom
Sales and
brand Team
Media Team,
Employees,
advertising
Agency

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Thomas, the CEO, was shocked to see the response, he was of the point that being the first and
pioneer in going away from the body-revealing, Blossom will get a moral support and a bigger
increase in sales, but what really happened was a decrease in sales and profits. So the whole
campaign actually became a very bad experience for the company and the brand. Thomas as
CEO decided that the current company is not creative enough to put up Blossom’s idea in the
market and hence started the find for a new advertising agency, whose idea and soul should be in
match with Blossom.
What was not done in this case was a thorough research and a proper communication plan, which
might have intrigued the customers to know more about the change in perception of Blossom on
the concerns they were working on. The company might be good enough to go for designs and
advertisement, but going so unorthodox takes a lot of view to be catered, not only in design but
also in communication.
CHAPTER 4 : BLOSSOMS MEET ALENDE DESIGN
Alende Design , founded in 2008 and was new in the market as compared to the last company
Blossom used work with. Alende was a brand design firm and they used to work very closely
with the clients in hospitality culture, fashion, accounting, and education industry. Sreedharan,
CEO of Alende design was all about creating a signature experience through well-designed
products supported by the most aligned communication. He by nature was an extremist which
can also be counted in as a person who look for perfection. Sreedharan was of the concept that
communication should solely be based on the beliefs and ethical values of the brand owners,
which also was the core concept behind the new Blossom change in advertisement. What
Sreedharan use to believe is pretty much aligned with Alende design want to do. The only
question left was , that will Sreedharan and his company can be able to be pull it out or will it
end the same way like the last advertising agency.
So the reference of Alende Design came up from the media partner , who definitely have the sole
concern of not losing a client like Blossom, who spend millions on advertising. So the Blossom
meets Alende Design. Now Thomas has been waiting for the second meeting to be in progress
with the directors, owners and Alende Design for the future prospect and he hope that Alende
Design have understood and aligned themselves with what Blossom wants.

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CHAPTER 5: WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?
Keeping the identity of Alende Design and Blossoms, it was pretty much clear that both the
companies does focus on certain points in common, and they both are ready to work on the
process of advertisements, catering the most important point , which is currently the ethical and
religious believes of owners and directors.
Alende Design should keep in focus the main concept and identity of Blossom, which is very
much linked with Premium product, quality and an very literate target market. Apart from that
once more identity has been involved which is the religious and ethical beliefs.
The communication Objectives for the campaign needs to be very clear, transparent and open.
The communication objective should be based on the idea of generation awareness that
company is no more supporting the idea of showing nude/ half nude models and they feel that its
their social and religions responsibility and they will stop doing it for further basis. They will
keep on producing the same quality of product and love how the customer respond to them and
they in return are now redefining their identity on the basis of cultural, religions and ethical
beliefs.
The company is very much known for their product and quality and was doing good business and
had a trust in the customer mind, so what needs to be done by Sreedharan and team was to focus
on the new message rather that the products itself and the same products need to portrayed with
the new campaign but should be carrying the message what the company believe and what they
don’t want to do any more.
The point on which Thomas was so confident that Blossom will get support was actually not
communicated in the message, rather the new campaign gave a different result, therefore it was
needed to be in context.
The theme and message needs to be in aligned, ( as they did try to do in their new campaign) by
not revealing the body and also showing the product. But still the concept was a little vague and
it can be communicated much properly, but having some bold tagline related to the women
beauty and rather then the body revealing.

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I believe that Alende Design should come up with a media campaign with Blossom only on the
topic of explaining to the current customers and the market that they are redefining their media
trends and they hope that other will follow. They should have communicated via media channels
and their social media , which is a very strong opinion generation tool in todays world. I believe
that a campaign only for the concept of redefining should eb launch without any focus on the
product , rather promoting the company’s concept of going towards the most un-orthodox way of
going for this specific product. They might have gained a better target market and definitely a
support from the biggest customer i.e WOMENS. The society where they were operating is very
much inclined towards such things and they might have gotten an edge on this.
I believe social media should have played a very big role in it and also some television teasers on
the same topic might have helped them. Putting up some small boards creating awareness about
the fact and also supporting women in their cause, going against the sexual abuse of women in
general might have helped on media and other forums. They could have invested a but on the t
shirts as it was already shown in their last ads, and can use them to generate awareness about the
new ideology.
CHAPTER 6 : COMPANIES AND CSR
Companies with a strong CSR roles and who really implement the CSR in their company roots
and strongly believe on it are tend to really grow faster, only if they utilize it also for their
benefits. Corporate Social Responsibility in today’s world is something what people do expect
from almost all companies operating in the market, and if you implement it and it gets noticed by
the customer then they definitely vote for you by generating value for the brand. Companies who
take responsibility of people and ethical values keeping their products as value for money,
definitely tend to go higher in market.
e.g Blossom, can use their CSR role very effectively, as they seriously implemented it in their
organization, but they need to communicate it to the people. That will actually generate more
brand awareness and better brand perception. People would definitely prefer a brand which they
have already tested for the quality and now they are also respecting their privacy, their ethical
values and honour, which is very trivial to almost all the nations.

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Therefor I believe that companies, with better CSR roles are tend to move higher in the rank in
terms of customer preferences.
CHAPTER 7: REFLECTION AND SUGGESTIONS
Looking at the website of Blossom Inners, I do find it very simple and pretty much linked with
what they portray and want to sell. The top of the website is a banner of their new ads and then
their belief and what their values about women are. But then the website starts with all the
products right on the front page and directly take you to purchasing part.
The News section also does not have much of the content. Just one video commercial and few
pictures. No events or anything has been listed. The team members are not mentioned, who are
an integral part of the company going through such a big change. The website is too simple for a
premium brand and does not have much content and knowledge about the company. Its more of
a shopping cart, rather that a website.
I would like to revamp the whole website and give it a new proper look. It can be very neat but
also very attractive and self-explanatory. Again the content does not explain much about their
ideology of going thought the change. That needs to be there and in a very prominent manner.
The banners can be changed to more prominent values and ideology and there should be a
section about the company which explains the whole ideology and shift of the company. How
they pioneered in changing this trend. They can use this idea of being pioneer in changing this
whole campaign into a real change and can make worth out of it.
The product section needs to go down in the products tab only and the cart can be redefined as
per the new structure of websites.
I will definitely activate their social media, which is almost dead now, except few posts and
17000 likes. The social media in today’s world is the most effective, efficient and cost effective
way of communicating your ideology and what the company want to do.
References / Biblography
1. http://www.blossominners.com/
2. Ivy | Publishing case : Designing Non sensual Communciation For lingerie Marketing.
3. Lectures: Corporate Communication, MICM, THAUS.