How Usha International has beefed up brand connect by leveraging sports and inclusivity

In this interview with Adgully, Komal Mehra, Head – Sports Initiatives and Associations, Usha International, talks about the role the organisation plays in supporting an active and healthy lifestyle and promote sports, instilling the spirit of sportsmanship among communities, including women, children, and the differently-abled. Usha aims to encourage everyone to adopt and integrate “play” into their daily lives and bring the spotlight back on indigenous sports, promoting inclusivity while initiating change at the grassroots level. Excerpts:

As Head of Sports Initiatives and Associations at Usha International, can you tell us about your role and how it contributes to the overall mission and vision of the company?

Supporting an active and healthy lifestyle is an integral part of Usha’s DNA ethos, and sports is one of the most important platforms in creating such an ecosystem. Sports helps us instill the spirit of sportsmanship among communities, which includes women, children, and differently-abled, even in the remotest areas of the country. As a brand, we want to encourage everyone to adopt and integrate ‘play’ into their day-to-day lives. We also aim to bring the spotlight back on our indigenous sports and encourage inclusivity while initiating change at the grassroots level.

Our team works towards various initiatives in line with this vision at Usha, and we are consistently working towards reviving, strengthening, and promoting a wide array of sports and games as part of the company’s long-standing legacy of ‘Play’.

We scout for relevant associations that are unique and bring about impact and change ground up, ensuring that we provide men and women with similar opportunities to play together, spurring gender equity alongside sportsmanship and healthy living.

Our sporting collaborations underpin our brand values to mutually grow, support, and evolve over time, and become relationships that can withstand the test of time. Our continued associations with platforms such as the Mumbai Indians franchise, Divyang Cricket League, Delhi Golf Club, Indian Blind Sports Association, and brand ambassadors like Mithali Raj and Narain Karthikeyan, have gone a long way in helping us enhance a sports culture as we envision – inclusive, equitable, and impactful.

Usha has been involved in promoting a wide range of sports initiatives across the country, including partnerships. How do these partnerships align with Usha’s values and goals?

Partnerships with sports at all levels – national, local, grassroots – aligns with Usha’s ‘Play’ ethos encouraging people to live a healthy and active lifestyle. Giving back to society and community is built into our corporate culture, and sports is amongst the most effective ways to support inclusivity across communities, class, and gender, besides teaching participants extremely valuable life lessons while spurring them to lead an active and healthy life.

All sporting associations grow brand salience, while the major ones grow the brand internationally; local associations grow brand awareness as we encourage and support indigenous sports in the deepest pockets of India, breaking gender barriers along the way, which is something we are seriously focused on. Reviving almost-forgotten sports and supporting various Indian regional indigenous sports, such as Kalari, Mallakhamb, Siat Khnam, Thang-Ta, Saz-Loung, Satoliya (popularly known as Pithu), Yoga, and Silambam, is helping us do exactly that. We also support the National Athletics Championship for the Blind, which is one of the largest inclusive platforms in the country.

Our constant endeavour is to enhance India’s athletic ecosystem with a special focus on bringing up to speed platforms for the underserved.

Usha has been involved in promoting sports for women and children across the country. Can you tell us about some of the challenges and opportunities that you have faced while working on these initiatives and how Usha is addressing them?

At Usha, we believe that India is a powerhouse when it comes to sports talent and are committed to ensuring that sports become a means of community bonding and gender equality. For a majority of women, who want to make sports a part of their life, their journey is fraught with hurdles. Moreover, inspirational stories on women in sports are rarely given the splash they deserve, though this is now changing thankfully.

Our intent is to be part of the opportunities that empower women to play a sport, and in the process break the barriers of gender biases, allow them to step out and create opportunities for themselves, especially in remote rural areas and towns, and become independent. Yes, it’s a slow journey, and our efforts are now showing results. To see more and more women taking to sports is very gratifying.

Further, at Usha, we have been working at the grassroots level over the years strategically to eradicate stereotypes by empowering women with various skill sets.

Usha has had a 10-year long partnership with Mumbai Indians, which has extended nationally to MI’s Women’s Premier League team and internationally to MI’s Emirates team. Can you tell us more about this partnership and how it has evolved over the years?

Our decade-long partnership with Mumbai Indians (MI) is a testament to the mutual respect and value alignment of both brands. It represents and ties back to a common goal and dedication of nurturing sports and developing a sporting ecosystem via strategic partnerships. This partnership provides a great platform to improve our consumer connections across categories while also enhancing brand salience.

Our journey with Mumbai Indians has only gotten stronger with each passing year and has helped enhance brand recall and visibility for Usha. After 10 years of a mutually successful association with MI, we recently also partnered with MI Emirates, and MI Women’s team for 2023 leagues.

Our association with one of the high performing teams has been quite phenomenal, positively impacting our brand and our stakeholders.

Usha has a regular association with local authorities and sports bodies. Can you give us examples of some of these associations and how they have helped Usha achieve its goal of promoting sports across the country?

All our partnerships – at the regional and national level – have played an integral part in community building using games and sports, which has been at the core of Usha’s efforts to boost people and help forge closer bonds. From golf and cricket, to Mallakhamb, martial arts, flying disc, athletics for the blind and cricket for differently-abled, and yoga, we support multiple sporting events across the country in collaboration with local authorities to various association and franchisees throughout the year to promote and grow the spirit of a healthy and active lifestyle, also encouraging inclusive platform across ages and levels.

With our associations such as Divyang Cricket League, Delhi Golf Club, and Indian Blind Sports Association, we have been supporting inclusive and impactful sports culture.

One of Usha’s aims is to uplift women and children through various sports initiatives across the country. Can you tell us about some of these initiatives and how they have impacted the lives of those who have participated in them?

At Usha, we believe society is uplifted when women are empowered; therefore we consciously work towards gender inclusivity – through our Silai Schools, sporting platforms at the grassroots/ local/ and national level. Since Usha already has a strong network of Usha Silai Schools across the country, the aim is to help women and children from these Silai Schools villages to promote various traditional sports across India and to re-familiarise local communities with the joys of sporting activities by supporting indigenous sporting disciplines among the masses.

In fact, Ms Suman Devi’s sports journey is a testament to the success of Usha’s Silai School initiatives. She’s our Silai School Partner, who is a homemaker, entrepreneur and now a regional coach for Satoliya – the local sport. She is one of the first women to have become a coach in the village of Hirapura in Rajasthan. She successfully coaches a team of 11 girls with the aim to reignite the lost spark for traditional sports at the grass-root level. Suman’s story is one of the many examples of women who have pushed the boundaries to achieve physical, mental and financial well-being for themselves via sports, with Usha’s Silai School.

Usha has several long-standing partnerships, including the Divyang Cricket League, Delhi Golf Club, and the Indian Blind Sports Federation. Can you tell us more about these partnerships and how Usha has contributed to these organisations and their initiatives?

By supporting each of these partnerships, Usha’s endeavour has been to encourage a more inclusive and equitable sporting culture in the country. These partnerships go way back, in fact, our association with the Delhi Golf Club goes back to more than three decades. In each of these associations, Usha’s endeavour has been to encourage inclusivity and diversity.