Thus, to attract students, Luxor has created colourful designs on the body of its pens. These designs vary from cartoons, floral, binary system, to unique animal and bird collections. In fact, Luxor has an extensive array of colour pens, crayons, sketch pens, tattoo markers, etc. and is the only company in India that caters to the complete sketching, drawing and colouring needs of children.
Luxor was not only the first to introduce markers for various applications, but also invented the concept of 'Dry Safe Ink Markers'. These markers do not turn dry even when the cap is left open for 24 hours. Luxor enjoyed a complete monopoly in this segment for over a decade.
It has been the constant endeavour of the company to develop and improve its products through in-house R&D and continuously refine them to meet the functional and fashion needs of its consumers. All products are produced on a company-wide TQM platform in conformity with international standards. The company specialises in selling high quality writing instruments by customising them to consumer’s needs.
Luxor faced a great challenge in the early 1990s, when economic liberalisation brought into India large multinational companies; including leading international brands of writing instruments. At this juncture the company had two choices: re-invent itself or perish.
The decision to re-invent itself was fairly obvious.
The company already had a reputation of efficient home-grown systems and ethical business practices but in the new, developing environment with competi-tion from large multinationals, Luxor chose to re-invent itself. It did so by embarking on a three-pronged strategy: it accepted invitations from Pilot, Parker, Papermate and Waterman to be their preferred business partner in India. Second, it made substantial capital investments to modernise old factories, adopt the latest technologies, change work systems and train employees. Third, it expanded the consumer base by exporting to more than 65 countries. The tie-up with the big international brands, alongside its own modernisation, enabled Luxor to firmly establish itself in the image-driven segment of the Indian market. Exports took the Luxor brand beyond India’s borders.
To be recognised, purchased and valued across the globe is no mean achie vement. Not many companies in India – irrespective of the segment they operate in – can boast such a record.
Luxor imported technology to satisfy the Indian consumer who was fascinated by foreign makes of products and gadgets and it exported products to establish the superiority of its own home-grown technology.
This strategy has clearly worked wonders and Luxor continues to lead the Indian writing instruments industry and is destined for many more successes in the years to come. The organisation's perpetual commitment to quality has been further endorsed by BSi which has awarded it the ISO: 9001:2000 certification. This has reinforced the companies commitment towards its consumers.
Luxor built the brand on the strength of its product range and quality and by appealing to the fledgling nation’s desire to be seen as self-reliant. Luxor's advertisements of the early years would matter-of-factly state: ‘For the first time in India’. This straight forward approach worked well. It laid the foundation for Luxor's exponential growth in the 1970s and 1980s.
The company also started, albeit unknowingly, the trend of celebrity endorsements in India. In the 1960s, it featured film stars, sportsmen and other celebrities for its writing instruments. Most of these were not paid endorsements since celebrities were not yet marketable commodities. However, once celebrities saw themselves as brands and began to charge money, Luxor, which was a small company at that time, got off the celebrity endorsement bandwagon.
By the early 1980s, the Indian market was becoming quite sophisticated and there were many players in each product category vying for a share of the consumer's mind. The time had now come to launch and build brands, rather than just products.
Taking advantage of this trend, Luxor launched its range of ‘gloliters’ and markers with a high-decibel advertising campaign which encouraged its consumers to ‘Stop Underlining, Start Gloliting’.
Since then, Luxor has supported the launch of every new product with highly visible and energetic marketing efforts taking the brand
from strength to strength. This marketing effort culminated famously in the signing up of India’s biggest film star, Amitabh Bachchan, who added his own touch of style and pizzazz to the Luxor brand.
Simultaneously, to position itself as a responsible corporate citizen, Luxor has espoused the cause of promoting literacy by becoming an active participant in the 'School Chalein Hum' programme.
The Luxor brand enjoys an appeal that is universal. Adults view it as a reliable writing companion and children find the style and colours of Luxor products loads of fun. Luxor provides value for money which gives it a strong brand position. It has products in all writing instrument categories making it a formidable player: competitors can ignore this fact only at their own peril.