For the love of music

Recently, Casio launched its Gen-Next Keyboards for professional musicians at a musical and fun filled evening in New Delhi. Mr. K Seth,  Head – Sales & Marketing, Casio India, on a one to one interaction with Aadeetya Sriram talked about the new product and the company's  plans in general..

Aadeetya Sriram(AS): What is the unique feature of these futuristic product lines?

K. Seth(KS): The punch of this product line is “Create & Perform Music”. These keyboards are highly suited to the needs of professional musicians, with their functionality and also they can create their own music. This can be done through various features like: song-sequencer, mixer, recording function, rhythm editor. So, the complete package in itself makes the education of music hassle-free.

AS: The rock culture in the country has got a widespread fan-following. Is this the reason for your association with bands like Parikrama, Eka?

KS: Yes, our idea is not just one type of music as the biggest advantage of keyboard is that you can take care of all genre of music, from very classical to the rock fusion from the west. So, we have tones and rhythms from all over the world, which makes all kinds of music possible. So, the association with different bands is to showcase the different sort of versatility, our keyboards can provide to different sort of genre.

AS: What sort of retailing strategy have you adopted in the country?

KS: We are continuously trying to develop this channel, apart from the normal music shops; we have also got into electronic shops, such as Reliance, Croma, Next etc. so, that more and more points are available where customers can interact and experience the product, which is an important part of selling in music. So, we are exploring such type of organized retailing, from which we have attained quite reasonable result. We will keep exploring and provide high-class retail services to our customers.

AS: How many stores do you have in the country? Are these your exclusive ones or MBO’s?

KS: At the moment we have around 250 stores in the country that deal in availability of our equipments. These all are present in MBO’s. We do have a couple of exclusive showrooms as well,  but the scope of MBO’s provides the customers with a chance to select from variety of products, as music instruments needs to be checked-out and then when they feel satisfied with their choices, they buy them.

AS: Who are your target customers?

KS: Our target customer starts from a 5yr old to a very professional musician; that’s the unique part of Casio keyboards. We have widest that range from Rs 2000 to more than a lakh. There are people who just want to play, there are some who want to learn, create music, so our range is available to every age-group that has an interest in music, which do not have any bounding.

AS: What sort of shopping experience do you provide at your outlets?

KS: At most of these outlets we provide our products for demonstration. Live product is always kept for people to come and try it out. Also we provide them various sort of communication medias  like pamphlets, brochures, through which the customers can assess their options and make their choice carefully.

AS: Considering the Indian music trend, are you providing any feature that compliments those traits with you offerings?

KS: Out of the 16 keyboards we have, 14 keyboards have features that compliment the Indian music culture. According to our study, most of the people in the country, who learn or play, perform on Indian music that can be based on classical touch. So we have various features that go hand-in-hand with the requirements of the musicians in the country.

AS: What sort of marketing strategy do you have in the country?

KS:  We like to communicate our product clearly to our customers; we want to show them the kind of importance music has in everybody’s life. We organize events in various schools across the country to promote music as a serious profession. We also associate ourselves with various bands and market our products through the same, and provide good services to go with it.

AS: Which is the best selling instrument from Casio in India?

KS: We have various categories like: Mini for kids, medium for amateurs and high range for musical professionals. In mini range we have monopoly, it is already known as the Casio rather than the keyboard, where we occupy a reasonably high market share. And regarding our mid & high range segments we are witnessing steady rise in the demand as well.

AS: What is the revenue and growth Casio has attained for the year ’10-’11?

KS: We are a mass brand, but we cater to middle-segment demand. Figuratively our returns would be around Rs250 cr and the growth we have attained compared to last year will about 35%.

AS: What sort of role does Casio Music Club play in the country?

KS: Casio Music Club is actually a concept we had thought of when we realized the state of music schools in the country is unorganized. Typical schools expect the students to bring their own instruments to learn, and also the upgradation from one level to another can be a bit of mess in the sense that it encourages turn-out ratio. In such a case, these schools do not feel the need to provide them with instruments which costs them immensely. But we provide them keyboards at subsidized prices. At first we provide them with entry-level instruments then the gradual transition takes place, which makes the whole experience of learning music fun and exciting.

AS: What sort of retail plan do you have for the future?

KS: Retailing is evolving and we plan to go hand-in-hand with this evolution. So we want to be more presentable in interactions with the customers so that they feel satisfied about our products and services. We want to improve the buying experience for them. We also want to integrate Piano, which is an alien instrument in the country as a part of our music folklore.