In the early 2000s, when Mohit Dhar Jayal and V Sunil got together to set up the India operations of Wieden+Kennedy, the iconic American advertising shop, one of their first clients was homegrown motorcycle brand Royal Enfield. The duo helped the brand with its various advertising facets. It was also a time Jayal was trying new things; ‘dealing with midlife crisis,’ he jokes. To clear his mind, he would often zip around Gurgaon on his Royal Enfield. Cut to 2024. Jayal is today the company’s Chief Brand Officer. Life has come full circle for him. In an interview with Storyboard18, Jayal talks at length about working with a cult brand, the challenges that come along with it, and more.
On being a cult brand
Royal Enfield has built its cult brand status not by design or through a marketing strategy, believes Jayal. Much like any cult brand, Royal Enfield is fuelled by its community of loyalists. From a marketing lens there are a few layers that bring the brand’s community together. For instance, the brand’s marquee brand, Motoverse, a three-day motorcycling event, which was recently held in Goa. There were 15,000 attendees for the event.
According to Jayal, Royal Enfield’s community highly engages with the brand even when there are no major consumer activities. The brand constantly gets inputs from loyalists. “An initiative like Motorverse gives us a platform which is good for us and good for the active consumers who are generating ideas that help us decode insights,” he said. Channelising the community-fed energy and ideas into the right buckets is a layer above straightforward marketing that Jayal and his team at Royal Enfield work on. As a cult brand, these activities create newer sub-cultures that gives a new dimension to the brand’s marketing strategies. “It’s also given us an opportunity to connect with people who understand the motorcycling culture, but are not necessarily die-hard motorcyclists themselves,” he added.
On working with Droga5
Royal Enfield’s creative and design ecosystem is spread right from the grassroots of its home market, India, to various international markets. “London is a big centre of gravity for the brand creatively because it’s one of our jump-off points for our global markets,” indicates Jayal.
As the oldest global motorcycle brand in continuous production, Royal Enfield boasts a long and proud heritage. The company’s first motorcycle, Royal Enfield Bullet was built in 1901 by The Enfield Cycle Company of Redditch, Worcestershire, England. That said, while the firm still makes great play of its British heritage, it is today headquartered in Chennai, India. In 2023, iconic creative agency Droga5 London, part of Accenture Song, a digital media organisation, won Royal Enfield’s global advertising business. Recently, the agency worked on the launch campaign of the Himalayan. The ad film was well received on social media for featuring the rawness about motorcycling in the Himalayas.
Jayal explained why his team partnered with Droga5 for this particular campaign. “We use an ecosystem of agencies, right from India to London and beyond, because it depends on who gets the subtler nuances of the brief. In this case, Droga5 got it right.” He also says along with the brand’s agency partner network, he has a team of creative nerds who work with directors, photographers, and artists to keep the marketing engine well oiled. Campaigns that have elements of pop-culture fits well in the brand’s community.
On creative strategy
Marketing works slightly differently at Royal Enfield. Most of the internal marketing team members have a creative background. As a thumb rule, Jayal and team tell their agency partners not to come with a pitch deck when they have ideas. “We don’t want our agency partners to feel the pressure of selling ideas because I’ve been there. It was not fun when I had to do that because it felt like a beauty parade. Building on each other’s ideas together is what true creative partnerships are like,” he said.
Sometimes there are no strategies, and things are not done out of plans at Royal Enfield. “Our leadership thinks we would rather create something organic that feels good, even at the cost of sometimes not being a very sharp proposition,” added Jayal.
Today, thinking beyond a slick campaign or the proposition is important especially for a brand like Royal Enfield where the consumers are evolved in various ways. They understand the product deeply and whatever comes along with it. “I think our business has become more honest in that sense. If we’re not doing something clever, better to keep quiet until you have done something clever for the consumer,” shared Jayal.
On the challenges of a legacy brand
“The real challenge with the legacy brand is how to stay true to your DNA in tradition. It is precious to a lot of our community, and one of our biggest stakeholders, which is our own 20,000 people workforce of Royal Enfield,” opined Jayal. As a legacy brand, he thinks it’s important to be relevant to people’s changing needs, tastes, influences and ideas. The challenge is how to make sure that the brand is hitting the intersection right and moving with time. The brand is doing that with its products. For instance, Shotgun 650, it’s a motorcycle that’s trending for its style and future-ready features. Keeping design and brand essence at its core is what is powering Royal Enfield’s success, concludes Jayal.