- Written and compiled by Hassaan Elahi - Guest speaker: Mr. Deepak Perwani - Global Entrepreneurship Week - Iqra University

1. Global Entrepreneurship Week
“How to Develop and Market a Brand”
Written by:
Hassaan Elahi (28270)
Guest Speaker:
Mr. Deepak Perwani
Course:
Entrepreneurship
Program:
BBA
Submitted to:
Sir Ali Abbas

2. Global Entrepreneurship Week
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Introduction
Global entrepreneurship week is an annual event which is held to conduct different guest speaking
sessions in order to cultivate and promote entrepreneurship culture. Various entrepreneurs are
invited from different industries to share their experiences, journey and entrepreneurship spirit in
front of students. These entrepreneurs also help the students by mentoring and guiding them about
how they can start their own ventures successfully in a highly competitive and volatile markets of
Pakistan.
How to Develop and Market a Brand
(Guest Speaker: Deepak Perwani)
Biography
Mr. Deepak Perwani is one of the most renowned top
Pakistani fashion designer who started from a small
platform and end up as one of the most expensive designer
of Pakistan. He is a role model for many people who are
trying to start their career in the fashion industry. Deepak started his career when he was studying
in New York at an early age of 20, by working in his uncle’s store where he started designing just
to earn some pocket money. He never realized that this business in which he had little knowledge
will make his life better. He used to design clothes for many prime ministers, ministers, and
celebrities when he was just 20 years old. He got two Hum TV awards, Two MTV awards as well
as several other international acclaims and compliments one after another. He is a man who never
takes any attention rather he gets attentions for his outclass work. This was also evident when he

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astonished people by enrolling his name in the Guinness Book of World Records for making
world’s largest kurta.
Deepak’s take on how to develop and market a brand
In the session, which was conducted at Iqra University, Mr. Deepak
started off by showing students a series of videos related to different
advertising campaigns which were based on men’s wear and
women’s wear and he also explained how to differ brands, how to
identify them and what makes one brand different from the other.
After showing the videos, he stated that for him, fashion is a blank
canvas and you can actually take the canvas and write, project and
make anything that you want in that canvas. So after commencing
the session, he asked the students how does one sees a brand, is it
something that we can just open in the next morning because we feel like it? Is a brand something
that you can create by just putting a name on a billboard? Is a brand something that is successful?
Or something that needs to be thought out? Or is a brand something that can just happen overnight?
He stated that all these questions are something that he and his team asked themselves when they
started out as a brand during the formation of Deepak Perwani. He stated that 1994 was the time
when Deepak Perwani was conceptualized. Situations were very different in those days, there was
very less competition within the fashion industry, designers were very few in the country, and
those who were interested in this field and wanted to become a designer, did not know how to
become a designer. Everybody who was in the market did not understand how retail worked.
Everybody did not understand the concept of affordable fashion. It was a very difficult time to sell
your product to the people, as you’ve to beg to the customers to buy your clothes. Moreover, the

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industry itself was not formalized at that time. He said that in the last 30 years, we were known as
a “non-serious” retail industry that nobody paid attention too. But in the last 10 years, we formally
organized it and tried to create fashion weeks to promote this industry in the country and became
biggest tax paying retail market brand in Pakistan. This also includes other brands, such as Khaadi,
Junaid Jamshed, Gul Ahmed, Ideas and many other designers and retail brands who worked in the
market.
Today, brands are not easy to make, he further said. Mr. Deepak emphasized that the most
important thing for a brand is to have a certain kind of vision. If you don’t have a vision, you can
never become a brand, he said. Mr. Deepak said that a great example of this is Iqra University
itself. He shared his experience when he used to go to school with Mr. Hunaid Lakhani. He said
that Mr. Hunaid wanted to first open up a fashion institute as an AIFD, back in the days. Mr.
Hunaid used to discuss with him by kept on saying that there is a market in this area, and there is
an opportunity in this business and it would be a great idea to come up with a fashion school. In
those days, the only fashion school existed in Pakistan was PIFD (Pakistan Institute of Fashion
Designing) situated in Lahore which was established by the ministry of commerce and trade
development authority of Pakistan in collaboration with a French designer named Ted Lapidus.
They first managed to create a school and went ahead to make a fashion university out of it. AIFD
(Asian Institute of Fashion Designing) has been very successful in Karachi and it was only possible
because Mr. Hunaid Lakhani had the vision and he managed to create a brand for this city, Deepak
said.
In the same way, whether its education, whether its retail, whether its science and technology,
whether its consumer products, and whether its food, anything can sell if you want to sell, Mr.
Deepak said. But does it really become a brand? That is the real question which we need to ask

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ourselves. In the current situation, the most difficult thing is not to create a brand but how you
actually manage it to live in a market competitive environment, where pricing has to be right, and
where value for money has to be there for the customer to make the brand successful and this goes
for all sectors that you looked at because there is so much competition everywhere and you need
to discover that how can one differentiate itself from the others and how does one actually end up
creating something successful, he said. One of the biggest example of this is Khaadi who managed
to revolutionize Pakistan and has taken Pakistan forward as a local brand itself with also the
presence in UAE, England and all the other GCC countries. And they only managed to do this with
their name “Khaadi”. Khaddar existed in Pakistan, which was sold a lot in those days when Khaadi
was founded and the company used it and went ahead to create a brand which was price conscious,
fashionable, it also gave value for money and the brand also made it feel that their clothes can be
worn by anyone, whether you’re rich or poor, and whether you belong from upper class, middle
class or lower class. It was acceptable to everyone and that’s what makes a brand, Deepak
emphasized.
He said that what we learned up till now and what all students must have to learn whether they
want to pursue their careers in fashion, retail, finance or any other field, is that there is always a
one product that help to sustain you and your brand throughout. Mr. Deepak further said that a
couple of years ago, he was sitting with the CEO of Christian Laqua which is a French brand of
Paris, at the airport of Milan, waiting for a flight. And before their unexpected meeting at the
airport, Mr. Deepak saw a news while reading a magazine that Christian Laqua filed a bankruptcy
of 217 million euros. So at the airport, he asked the CEO that why did they filed a bankruptcy
when Christian Laqua in the 80s and 90s was the biggest brand of Paris. The CEO replied that Mr.
Laqua failed to make that one product that could have helped him to sustain the entire brand. In

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the Khaadi’s case, that one product which lead to their success is the Kurtis that many women
wear and that one kurti helped to sustain the entire fashion of Khaadi. One product is what sustains
any brand in the world, Mr. Deepak emphasized.
Another example, which Mr. Deepak gave was regarding Chanel which he said is the highest
selling brand in terms of luxury consumerism. The perfume Chanel no. 5 sells every 36 seconds
all over the world, and it is still the highest selling perfume in the world after over a 100 years.
Likewise, the Chanel bag that every woman wear sells every 7 minutes all over the world which
is priced around £3500. Just imagine the pricing and the power of the one product, he quoted.
Brands are the ethos of any company and how they look at themselves and how they’re dependent
on one product which help them to move forward, Deepak stated. One interesting point which Mr.
Deepak shared that within fashion, in the luxury brand items, people are very price conscious and
it’s the secondary product that would sell more, rather than the clothes. The clothes are just there
to support the brand. But when consumers go out and buy something from the market, they want
to feel a part of the brand, they want to connect with a brand, but sometimes they are not able to
afford it. That’s why it is noticeable that perfumes, glasses, belts, cufflinks, and ties are more
bought by the customers when they go in a high end store. They will not try to buy the main
products oftenly, such as suits, jackets, tops, blouse because those things will be too expensive. So
it would be cheaper to buy a pair of Armani glasses of Rs.15000, for instance, or to buy Armani
perfume for Rs.7000 as opposed to trying to buy Armani suit that would cost around $3000. That’s
how consumers differentiate and still wants to become a part of a brand, he said.
Mr. Deepak further stated that ethos, commitment, and a complete focus into a market is what
creates a brand. He stated that in fashion, brands must have 3 things. The brand must be identifiable
and must relate to the customer, the brand must have enough shock value to make the customers

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realize that it is the brand that they want to wear, and the brand must constantly keep on innovating
and reinventing itself to make itself better because customers are very fickle and if they get
dissatisfied, they will switch to another brand. Once a customer buys a product, his/her
expectations becomes a little higher from the brand. According to Mr. Deepak, brands are made if
you believe in them, brands are made if you’re innovative, and brands are made if you have
individual original idea. He said that globally it will take a lot of time, but as far as the domestic
market is concerned, you will shine with any brand if you believe in yourself. He said that you will
fail a lot of time, but he quoted that you must learn how to fall before you can learn how to fly. He
advised to the students that if you want to create a brand as an entrepreneur, first concentrate on
the kind of brand that you want to make, and the kind of ethos that you want to believe in before
you move forward and make your brand a global brand. And you also have to look at how brand
can keep on continue to do well and innovate constantly in its product, marketing, advertising,
planning and execution. Moreover, you will also have to make sure that whether your brand is in
line with the current trends to move forward and this applies to all sectors. If you cannot be
innovative in today’s modern age, especially in this globalization where everything is available on
a click of a button, then you will be left behind as a brand, Deepak said.