Retro yet modern

In the era when riding on every new technological trend and somehow blending it into your product feels like a necessity, a legacy company with resources at its disposal to add more technology chose to build something bold and unconventional - let's talk about Saregama Carvaan!

Saregama has been a legacy company working in the field of music and content production and IP business. In 2017, company decided to build a physical product under the brand name of Carvaan. As we all know, Carvaan is Bluetooth speaker based audio player with 5000 pre loaded songs. The company identified a need gap in the market after the decline in the sale and distribution of CDs.

Carvaan was designed in a way that it tapped on nostalgia of the public. The outer design reminded anyone of the old styled radio device. When the design is retro, it helps public to feel familiar about the product and also creates a picture of "good old days" in their mind.

The product was built as a minimalistic and technologically agnostic option to consume music, simple and clear. The aesthetic appeal of the device compelled user to find reasons to buy it even though the same task could have been done with a cheaper Bluetooth speaker and a smartphone with some music app subscription. I would like to comfortably assume that a lot of product people wouldn't have predicted that such a device with introductory price of nearly 6k INR to be so successful given the way we casually tag Indian consumer as price sensitive and value conscious.

As it was a new category product, where one can not directly predict customer reaction, the touch and feel experience for the customer was important. The legacy brand name Saregama did help to gain customer trust and to offer customers this experience through pan India retail network. Company sold more than 3.5 lac units of Carvaan (along with mini) in the first year even before the marketing in mass media had started. The product was positioned as a gift to the older generation and they could successfully convince the Indian consumer in next few years as they sold nearly 5.6 lac units in FY23. One of the most impressive things about Carvaan is, it was one of the most talked about product innovations coming from India in those times and to the concept level it was so basic and simple.

This helps us to learn that there is always room for building great products which are quite basic and simple at conceptual level but still add some value or touch upon some pain point of the common consumer. It becomes the convincing task for the maker, once the product is conceptualized, to make aware customers of the space of that product in their life.

I am sure there have been multiple product innovations from India post this and I hope to see more such simple yet outstanding product innovations in near future coming from India for the world.