New brands make quiet entrance

• Retail brands arrive in Singapore
• Cache Cache and Click!
• Focusing on direct response and PR

Singapore - Two new retail brands arriving in Singapore will focus on public relations and word-of-mouth when their flagship stores open at mall Tampines 1 in April.

French apparel brand Cache Cache, part of the successful French Beaumanoir Group, will make its debut appearance in Singapore and according to executive director Thomas Tay, there will be very little hoop-la when the Tampines 1 store opens.

"There is another store opening at ION Orchard in June - we will probably shout a bit more when it comes to then," Tay said.

"But don't expect us to do anything above the line because that's not the way that the brand has been promoted."

Tay said Cache Cache will initially use direct response marketing when its first store opens, first building up a customer database to reach its consumers. The brand has previously worked with Publicis and Tay said there will be little change to that model used in France.

"We've worked with Publicis to come up with the entire year-plan so at the moment we don't think we need to do change anything- things are more or less fixed up already. We won't be doing anything different in Singapore from what was already set at the beginning of the year," he said.

Click! is also bringing its brand to Singapore - a first of its kind concept shop that integrates high fashion female apparel and accessories with a pre-selected range of latest technology gadgets.

Click!'s group general manager Sean Mak said the brand is currently looking to appoint a PR agency.

A cutback in the marketing budget means Click! isn't working with any other agencies at the moment but Tay said they will look at options in the future when other Click! stores open up in Singapore.