DMAi Awards TRRAIN Marketer of the Year.

We are happy to announce that TRRAIN was adjudged 2015’s Non-Profit Marketer of the Year by the DMAi aka Direct Marketing Association: India. DMAi celebrates the spirit of direct & interactive marketing with innovation, collaboration and creativity. The eminent jury comprised marketing maverick Sanjay Behl from Raymond serving as chairperson, along with other highly distinguished panel members.  

Over the years, TRRAIN has consistently been reinventing the way the world views marketing within a non-profit business model.  Some of our  highly effective  marketing campaigns which were considered watch-worthy by DMAi were:

Pin a Medal Campaign

On Retail Employees Day, 2014 (RED), we encouraged retailers to appreciate & recognise the efforts of a retail associate not only by thanking them but also by honouring their tireless efforts by “pinning a medal”. This idea was pivotal to the entire RED campaign.
TRRAIN Trekkers, initiated last year, has seen 4 individuals walk at the Oxfam Trailwalker event representing TRRAIN as their ‘Charity of Choice’. Also, we had 11 individuals representing TRRAIN as their ‘Charity of Choice’ at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2015 along with a 15 member team from Shoppers’ Stop Ltd. What’s more, we managed to fund-raise approximately 3.5 lakhs from this exercise.

TRRAIN Journalist

On Retail Employees’ Day, we recruited 27 student as ‘TRRAIN Journalists’ from top post-graduate institutes in Mumbai and Bengaluru, placed them at various malls in the two cities and had them record the celebrations and live-tweet about it.

TRRAIN Trekkers

"​TRRAIN being a not-for profit organization, it is our constant endeavor to reach our retailers & retail employees with a succinct message at all times. We have used a 360 degree approach for communicating to our beneficiaries which includes direct marketing, social & digital media marketing other than the traditional methods. Our approach has been different from the traditional NGO's. We at TRRAIN are very happy that our efforts have been recognized so early in our journey to create social impact in the retail industry & thank DMAI for the same." Ameesha Prabhu, CEO, TRRAIN (Trust for Retailers & Retail Associates of India)

Winning the Marketer of the Year Award in the Non-Profit Category acknowledges TRRAIN’s penchant for innovation in the marketing space and while helping it take a step forward in achieving its vision to empower every single retail associate in India.

Around the Country in 17 Days!

Recently, TRRAIN achieved a challenging feat in a mere seventeen days; training over 900 retail associates across the country. The focus of the training was Liva, a high quality fabric by Aditya Birla Retail Limited (ABRL) that moves naturally with your body while reducing your carbon footprint.

The sole objective of the training program was to update every customer facing executive associated with 6 leading retail brands, namely, Allen Solly, Pantaloons, Van Huesen, Global Desi, Fusion Beats and 109°F, about Liva. Herein lay the real challenge; if executives were to sound convincing while selling the product they had to be convinced about it themselves. Hence, educating them on everything from the science behind Liva to the technology used to produce it was pivotal. 

This necessitated a 2-hour long training module comprising videos, PowerPoint presentations and role playing games to cover enough ground about Liva with the associates. What’s more, we set ourselves a target of conducting the module at 4-5 stores per day. Though they were constantly on the move, the energy and enthusiasm levels of our trainers did not dip for even a moment. Instructor Led Training (ILT) combined with On Job Training (OJT) kept engagement levels at a peak. 

Trainings continue through the month of April and an assessment of every customer service associate trained will be submitted to ABRL for audit to gauge if their learning objective was achieved. And we are proud to say, the feedback coming in has been excellent.

A SPECIAL FELICITATION CEREMONY FOR PANKH STUDENTS AT RELIANCE RETAIL

A program was organized by Reliance Retail to felicitate the outstanding contribution of the employees with disabilities at the organization. Reliance Retail started by hiring 33 speech and hearing impaired trainees in Mumbai for various roles thought advocacy by TRRAIN under Pankh initiative. Since then, they have been strongly supporting and recommending the hiring of persons with disabilities across the country. Reliance Retail has people with disabilities as their employees working at various Reliance Fresh, Super & Mart stores spread across Mumbai. Commenting on the experience, Shweta Baghel, Chief Manager - Human Resource, Reliance Industries Ltd said,"During store visits and meetings, it has been emphasized on the fact that these employees are contributing exceptionally well to the overall store performance through their special abilities, hard work, dedication & retail acumen".

Gracing the occasion, we had Mr. Sameer Satere, Head HR - West Zone, Reliance Retail Ltd speaks on recruiting Persons with Disabilities at Reliance stores. "After being introduced to the TRRAINs Pankh Project, we hired a batch of 10 deaf students for our Flagship store in Mumbai. After 8 days of their placement, when we took their performance feedback from the store, the feedback was superb. The customer Interaction was overwhelming and the store manager was very happy with the kind of work the Pankh Students were doing. Currently we have more that 50 people with disabilities working with Various Reliance formats".

The felicitation ceremony witnessed Ms Baghel, Mr Satere and Mr G R Venkatesh from the Reliance Retail HR team to hand over the certificates to their employees for their great performance in the stores they are placed in followed by a focus group discussion between Pankh Team, the Reliance HR team and Pankh Students now working with Reliance formats to address if they have any concerns. This showcases the organization's employee-centric policies and concern towards the growth or flawless working atmosphere for every employee. Speaking of the occasion, G R Venkatesh, Chief Human Resource Officer, Reliance Retail said, "Most of the times the Pankh Students bring to the table a much higher level of empathy, customer Centricity, politeness, courtesy, an ability to learn & train themselves and a burning desire to be of use and help to people around them whether they are customers, or the 

company or the organization they work. We look forward to having more such students working in our organization with us."

At the ceremony many of the Pankh students working as Reliance Retail employees, spoke about their tenure with the brand. Nilesh Yewle, one of the Pankh students spoke of his experience of working at one of the outlets in Reliance retail. He has a diploma from J. J. School of Art. He was recruited with Reliance Retail post his Pankh Training as Customer Service Associate. The HR team understood the potential he had for designing after seem his involvement and work in creative jobs in the store. He was then reevaluated and HR team offered him to join as a Creative Merchandise designer for Reliance Retail Outlets. This has boosted his and like minded and potential Pankh student to find a career growth and an industry that will provide them the platform to showcase their talent and use the same for the optimum level of work in the industry and the organization.