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NH-X: Creating India’s First “Limitless” Sneaker (from the house of Rex Shoes)

How Nine58 built a white-space-driven positioning, a distinctive brand philosophy, and a powerful name for a new-age Indian sneaker brand.

  • Category: Lifestyle & Footwear

  • Services: Strategy, Positioning, Naming, Identity Direction

About The Brand

The client is a new sneaker brand built on decades of footwear manufacturing expertise. The brief was to create a brand that is aspirational, democratic, stylish and deeply Indian - a sneaker brand that can scale across styles, budgets, generations and cultural segments.

The Challenge

The brand was entering a crowded sneaker market filled with influencer-driven brands, nostalgia-inspired players, comfort-first startups and fashion-led labels. They needed a sharp audience understanding, competitor landscape mapping, positioning clarity and a unique cultural white space. Our mandate: find a powerful, ownable idea and build the entire brand around it.

What Nine58 Was Tasked To Build

  • Audience mapping & psychographic profiling

  • Competitor analysis across premium + affordable segments

  • Identifying untapped white spaces

  • Positioning the brand around a differentiated idea

  • Conducting a brand-building workshop with founders

  • Creating the brand’s central philosophy Developing the brand name

Finding The White Space

Through a deep analysis of Indian sneaker brands, we identified these patterns:

  • Aspirational + fashion: COMET, Rare Rabbit

  • Indian-rooted nostalgia: Gully Labs

  • Comfort-first: Neeman’s

  • Youthful + streetwear: Nickron

  • Pop culture collabs: The Souled Store

  • Affordable trend-driven: 7-10, Zaydn

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What no one owned:

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  •   A holistic brand built on LIMITLESS possibility — styles, colors, silhouettes, customizations and personality.

  •   A brand that empowers people to “have it all” without compromise.

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This became the strategic white space for the new brand.

The Brand Strategy We Built

1. Brand Philosophy:

LIMITLESS
The brand’s reason to exist.
Limitless choices. Limitless expression. Limitless accessibility.

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2. Brand Promise:

Have It All.
No need to choose between comfort, design, aspirational style or price.

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3. Audience Core:

Urban India · 25–35 yrs · Aspirational · Trend-aware · Upwardly mobile.

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4. Brand Purpose:

To democratise sneaker culture in India — making high-quality, aspirational footwear accessible to all.

What Makes The Brand Truly Different

Functional Differentiators

  • Crease-free technology

  • End-to-end manufacturing capability

  • Multiple silhouettes, colors, shapes

  • High comfort, high durability

Brand/Emotional Differentiators

  • Limitless choices

  • Rooted in India, global in appeal

  • Democratic + evergreen

  • Pride of ownership without premium intimidation

What Makes the Brand Truly Different

Functional Differentiators

  • Crease-free technology

  • End-to-end manufacturing capability

  • Multiple silhouettes, colors, shapes

  • High comfort, high durability

Brand/Emotional Differentiators

  • Limitless choices

  • Rooted in India, global in appeal

  • Democratic + evergreen

  • Pride of ownership without premium intimidation

Values, Beliefs & Personality

Values

  • Democratic

  • Authentic

  • Evergreen

Personality

  • Extroverted

  • Uninhibited

  • Approachable

  • “Common man ka bindaas saathi”

Naming The Brand: NH-X

With the core philosophy of limitlessness established, we explored names that were Indian, aspirational and symbolic.

NH-X emerged as a powerful expression of the brand idea.

  • NH (National Highways):
    The largest, most democratic, limitless network in India — the open road we all share.
    A cultural symbol of freedom, movement and possibility.

  • X:
    The individual.
    The expression of every personality.
    The variable you define.

Meaning:
NH-X = The limitless path, powered by you.

A name that is short, bold, universal, premium and emotionally loaded.

Values, Beliefs & Personality

Values

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  • Democratic

  • Authentic

  • Evergreen

Personality

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  • Extroverted

  • Uninhibited

  • Approachable

  • “Common man ka bindaas saathi”

Emotional Tone: Confident yet accessible. Premium yet joyful. Stylish yet rooted.

Final Brand Positioning

NH-X is India’s limitless sneaker brand — a brand that gives people the power to “have it all” through unrestricted design, unbounded choice and unfiltered personal expression.

Outcome

  • A clear white-space-driven brand idea rooted in Indian culture

  • A unique brand name with emotional & cultural resonance

  • Founder alignment through a full-day workshop

  • A positioning platform strong enough for D2C, retail and mass marketing

  • Identity directions ready for design teams to build visual layers

We help new brands find their space — and own it.
Want Nine58 to build your brand from scratch? Let’s talk.

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