Jockey To Groove With Gen Z, Expand Lifestyle Portfolio: CMO Nihal Rajan

With a legacy spanning nearly 150 years globally and over three decades in India, Jockey has firmly established itself as a household name and market leader in the innerwear and athleisure segments. Despite growing competition, the brand continues to strengthen its foothold, thanks to its deep consumer understanding, consistent innovation, and focus on quality, comfort, and design. As Jockey expands its presence across price segments and product categories, it remains committed to being more than just an innerwear brand, positioning itself as a complete lifestyle solution driven by evolving consumer needs.Jockey has been in the market for quite some time and is now a market leader in the innerwear and athleisure segments. How would you describe your current market share and position? What are your key strategies to defend and grow this leadership amid rising competition?We have been in the country now for over 30 years, and the brand itself will be turning 150 years old next year. With such a legacy, we’ve established a strong leadership position in the market. Year on year, we continue to grow our market share, but more importantly, our brand health metrics—reflecting our standing in the consumer’s mind—keep improving seasonally. We regularly conduct deep consumer insight exercises to assess resonance, and the results are very positive.We remain the market leader in both men’s and women’s innerwear because our strategy focuses on providing the right product, quality, comfort, and design, always from the consumer’s perspective. This applies to both our innerwear and athleisure offerings.Recently, we have expanded our presence from mass to mass-premium and have made a stronger play in the premium segment, which significantly contributed to our success last year. Strategically, we position ourselves as a lifestyle brand led by innerwear, offering solutions for all relevant usage occasions—be it innerwear, loungewear, or fitness. That’s why innerwear, athleisure, and Jockey Move form the three key pillars of our product portfolio.While we lead with innerwear, we delight our long-time consumers through athleisure, which covers everyday comfort and loungewear. Our activewear line, Jockey Move, taps into the growing trend of wellness and fitness. When we launched Move eight to ten years ago, it was a strategic call that has worked well. In short, we provide innerwear for comfort, athleisure for daily wear, and activewear to support evolving fitness needs.Could you shed some light on the key revenue drivers for Jockey over the last year? Also, which categories or consumer segments are showing the strongest growth?Interestingly, growth across both innerwear and outerwear was almost on par last year, which is notable because it indicates that consumers trust our brand for their entire wardrobe needs, not just innerwear.From a channel perspective, our ecommerce business—including our own website, the newly launched app, and marketplace partners—has witnessed strong double-digit growth. Our exclusive stores have also performed well. This cross-category and cross-channel performance reinforces our belief that our portfolio resonates with consumers. We achieved close to 8 per cent year-on-year revenue growth last year, which underlines strong consumer acceptance and successful portfolio expansion.It’s amazing to see how the brand is expanding its presence across different spaces. Could you share a bit about the new collection that has been launched?Certainly. Our new collection, JKY Groove, stemmed from our observations of increasing traction among younger consumers for our athleisure range, especially Jockey Move. We realised that while our products were doing well, they remained largely within the “basic plus plus” category. At the same time, the market had evolved significantly in terms of design, styling, and trend orientation.Groove is our response to that evolution. Athleisure today is an extension of personality and lifestyle. So, we curated a trend-forward collection for Gen Z under the Groove label. It features oversized silhouettes, bold prints, vibrant colours, and completely new textures. This collection reflects a design language and aesthetic we hadn’t explored earlier.Everything—from fit to styling—has been curated to connect more deeply with today’s trend-driven consumers. We’re confident that, like our previous collections, Groove will be well received.We have found that once someone becomes a Jockey customer, they rarely switch. That’s our true strength. We offer not just the right product, but also the right value, comfort, design, and fit. That’s the philosophy behind every collection we launch. And we believe Groove will receive the same loyalty and love.Jockey is loved equally by both men and women. In India, there are plenty of innerwear brands, some focus specifically on women, some on men, and some position themselves as unisex. Jockey truly feels like a brand for everyone, all sizes, all shapes.That’s so true. Jockey is a household name—truly loved and embraced by all. We are a brand for everyone.And not just in Tier 1 cities, Jockey has truly made its mark in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities as well. Absolutely. From Metros to Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 cities—our presence is deep and wide. We’re one of the few brands that are as democratic as India itself, reaching consumers across geographies, economic segments, and demographic groups.With consumers increasingly blending online and offline shopping, there has been a noticeable shift. There was a time when people were hesitant to buy innerwear online, but post-COVID, we’ve seen a significant rise in online purchases, including innerwear. Speaking personally, one of the biggest concerns when shopping for innerwear online is sizing, followed by quality. But with Jockey, both those boxes are confidently checked. So, how is Jockey evolving its omnichannel strategy to enhance both digital engagement and the in-store experience?We have a vast network of multi-brand outlets and about 1500 exclusive stores. Around three to four years ago, we began reimagining the consumer experience with a new store identity. Since then, we’ve focused on enriching the in-store experience to make it more immersive.Digitally, our website has seen strong growth, with a large part of that traffic being organic. The site performs well in terms of both volume and experience, and that’s something we’re building on. Our recently launched app is another important step—we see it as a storytelling platform, especially for new launches.We operate across multiple formats—multi-brand outlets, exclusive stores, our website, and now the app. While these channels function independently at present, we’re exploring how to integrate them more seamlessly. Until then, we’re ensuring consistent product, pricing, and service experiences across all touchpoints.Perfect. This was quite informative about how you plan to expand so many things, including the Jockey app. I am curious about it, so far, I haven’t seen the app. I’ve explored the website, but I would love to check out the app as well.It has been about a month since we launched it, and the initial consumer feedback has been very encouraging. The interface is smooth and intuitive, providing a seamless shopping experience. It’s available on both iOS and Android and performs well overall.We aim to be wherever our consumers are. There’s a large segment of digital natives today—shopping is primarily a digital experience for them. We wanted to provide the same Jockey comfort in that environment. Launching the app was a strategic move to connect more deeply with them and provide a cool shopping experience.We are now in an era where sustainability is no longer an option. For every brand, whether in food or apparel, sustainability has become a very significant part of their identity. How is Jockey embedding eco-conscious practices into its product innovation and marketing strategy? And how do the consumers respond to these efforts?We approach sustainability in two ways. First, through our 100 per cent sustainable product line, Jockey Life, available for both men and women. Second, by embedding sustainability into our operations, our manufacturing units follow global best practices, which is reflected in our ESG certifications. So, it’s not just about one eco-friendly collection, but about building a truly sustainable business from the ground up.Read More