Bluestone awards creative mandate to Contract

Five to six agencies participated in the pitch for the online jewellery website business. The company plans to spend around Rs 40 crore on marketing as part of its brand building over the next twelve months

 Akansha Mihir Mota | Mumbai | August 4, 2016

Online jewellery brand BlueStone.com has awarded its creative mandate to Contract Advertising following a multi-agency pitch in which five to six agencies had participated. The incumbent agency is Ralph & Das.

 After raising Rs 200 crore in a fresh round of funding recently, the appointment has happened at a point when the website is growing robustly. The agency will be responsible for producing marketing campaigns to bring consumers to the online forum.

Pushkar Jain

Pushkar Jain, Chief Marketing Officer, BlueStone.com, said, “We are very happy to have Contract on board with us. It is really the time for us to start scaling up the brand to the next level. Over the last couple of years, we have got our merchandise strategy in place. In the last year or so, we have scaled up our products from 3,000 to approximately 5,000. We have also scaled up the number of cities. A lot of business has come in owing to the marketing and consumer experience we provide. We believe that this is the time for us to spend more on building consumer demand for the brand and that's where a lot of marketing investment will happen. To get Contract on board is part of that strategy.”

Jain further said, “We wanted to go with a partner who has experience across the sectors and will build the brand over a period of time. Contract gave us a very strong and novel thought for brand strategy and that syncs well with our ideology. Contract will also be helping us on the digital front.”

Regarding marketing spend, Jain said, “We plan to spend around Rs 40 crore on ATL (above the line) and brand building over the next twelve months.”

Rana Barua

On the business win, Rana Barua, CEO, Contract Advertising, said, “It is indeed a pleasure to win a business like BlueStone.com. We see an exciting time ahead at BlueStone.com and thus extremely happy to be chosen as the creative agency. I am confident that we will make a positive impact and look forward to some interesting work.”

Ashish Chakravarty

Ashish Chakravarty, Chief Creative Officer, Contract Advertising, added, “Striking the right balance between a traditional category and a modern medium is an exciting challenge. At the same time, this very combination may lead us to differentiated creative expressions for BlueStone.com. We look forward to creating some gems on this one.”

BlueStone.com and Contract are currently developing a brand campaign targeted at the forthcoming festive season, a key jewellery buying occasion across India. The focus will be on educating customers on the ease and benefit of online jewellery shopping as well as showcasing the breadth of design offerings available on BlueStone.com.

Havas Media has been handling the company's media duties as of now and the digital duties are mostly taken care of in-house.

BestMediaInfo had in June reported that Bluestone had called for a multi-agency pitch to award its creative mandate.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com