Amidst all the talk of slowdown and sluggish business, Titan Industries is welcoming the festive season with an

all guns blazing attitude. The brand has just launched its Pearls collection for Titan Raga with a collection of 26
watches, and is in the process of introducing a total of 180 new variants of watches across segments.
Katrina Kaif is the brand ambassador for Titan Raga, which is positioned as sensuous, delicate and feminine. The
brand introduces a new collection for Titan Raga at the same time (pre-festive season) every year something
that has held the brand in good stead.
Raga has helped us drive a premium quotient year after year. Last year, the show piece watch was for Rs
11000, a price we had never touched before, and it sold very well. This year it is Rs 15995, said Rajan Amba,
Global Marketing and Product Head, Titan.
Premiumisation continues to drive the business. People are willing to buy higher priced watches. The lower price
consumer may not buy as many watches, but that is certainly getting compensated by the consumerism that is
happening at higher price points, he added.
Amba believes consumers today are increasingly willing to buy that one exquisite piece, which is giving the brand
more power to drive business upwards of Rs 4000.
For Titan, the battle is going to be won and lost at retail. If we can take the look and feel, service, experience
and delivery even beyond what it is today, it will make a big difference, he further said.
The brand made a conscious decision to double its digital spends at the beginning of the year from its previous
spends of seven eight per cent to 15 16 per cent.
The brand strategy going forward is to supplement the TVC launching the new collection with a plethora of
outdoor advertising, which showcases not only the collection in the TVC but the other collections as well,
leveraging the current campaign to showcase watches from other segments as well. The brand will further
strengthen its strategy with an added focus at its dealer outlets; the brand has the dealership strength of 8000
dealers.
The watch market has seen year-on-year growth of 10 15 per cent. Titan Industries announced an income
growth of 42 per cent in the challenging first quarter of 2013-14, while the sales income grew from Rs 2174.74
crore last year to Rs 3087.79 crore in Q1.

Titan believes there is a growing appreciation of finer things amongst consumers and the brand is aiming at
driving multiple purchases.

We have got the tools and the financial resources; if we dont go all guns blazing in the watch business, who
will? It is a question of attitude; we have decided to bat on the front foot. Now is a good period for us,
commented Amba on the brands approach in the economic scenario to the festive season.
Competition doesnt have the portfolio and distribution that we have. Our estimation is that our business of
watches of Rs 4000 upwards is equal to that of all the rest of the brands put together, stated a confident Amba
on being quizzed on competition brands.

What are the key drivers for Titans growth over the years?
There are the three fundamental drivers of our growth over the last few years and that have helped us to be a
leader in this field. One, it is our tremendous clout with our distribution, which close to anywhere between 7,000-
9,000 dealers who we deal with on an annual basis, we have 420 stores that retail Titan and large format stores
like Shoppers Stop, Central, Lifestyle etc. Our presence there has fuelled availability to consumers. We also have
not compromised on spends that we have been making year after year. Last, but not least is the quality of the
product and the range of the products that we have been able to offer over the last few years.
How has the brand evolved over the years?
Initiation was 25 years ago. We dont want to go that far back, but if you look back the last few years, there has
been considerable evolution but yet remaining true to the core of the brand Titan, which is the appeal across a
wide variety of age segments, being a down to earth brand. We have changed the execution of our presentation.
Earlier, it was around products and around gifting ads, then we had Aamir Khan as our brand ambassador, in the
case of Raga we had Rani and now we have Katrina Kaif. A classy example of evolution would be the Raga
brand ambassador who used to be Rani, a traditional beautiful Indian woman and now its Katrina who is not so
traditional but still exhibits beauty, representing the Raga brand and the woman wearing Raga today. Similarly,
for the Titan brand we had a five-year stint with Aamir and since then we have been focused at introducing a
wider range of product offering to our consumers showcasing our portfolio. If you see the new communication of
Tagged that we did recently or the campaign around Diwali, last year, where we showcased Katrina wearing a
beautiful watch that came to life through advertising, there is more focus on the product in the last few years.
What is the strategy behind having multiple sub-brands such as Zoop, Xylus, Octane, Raga etc?
Some of them are sub-brands that we have created and some of them are brands that the consumer has created
in the mind. If you look at Titan the brand, it has only one sub brand known as the Titan raga. Zoop is a brand in
itself because of its offering, composition, price point and the target segment is entirely different. We are basically
investing in kids who we hope will graduate from Zoop to Titan. It is a big and healthy business in itself, our
collaboration with Marvel Iron Man and its sales are a great example of how we have been able to take a watch
that has been traditionally priced at a ballpark of Rs 450-500 and now, we have been able to sell a Zoop Iron
Man watch under the price point of Rs 895. This is all under one big company that is Titan Industries, even
Fastrack is a sub brand of Titan industries but it has its own price points, offerings and target. Similarly Xylus and
Nebula are two separate brands which have completely different consumers from Titan and have focused their
media planning and even their creative execution in a totally different way. Xylus proposition is that it is Swiss
made and it follows the Swiss pedigree. Nebula of course is a watch that is made in gold and is pegged at the
royalty in all of us. The price point from where Xylus starts, has a very little overlap with Titan, the Nebula is way
above Xylus. Since they are from the Titan industries one has offerings for every category. At the end of the day
every brands intention is to own the market, in the watch segment has evolved since the last few years where
there are so many segments that have been created, by acknowledging the evolution of the economy Titan has
also evolved its product portfolio in the last 8-10 years because there is consumer demand and there is business
to be had.
How consistent has Titans communication been in regards to its media mix and what are the new
platforms that it is using for promotion?
Difficult to answer because I dont think we are doing anything which is really Hat Ke in that sense. We are
traditionally having a wide base of consumers, which makes TV the best medium for us to reach out from. We
have always used traditional mediums. For the last one and a half year we have invested more in to digital and
from the current fiscal we plan to double our digital spend. There are various opportunities with the nature of
digital, the communication can be more dynamic more economical and more focused. It allows us to cherry-pick
the consumers we want to cater to. It is not mass in the country but for certain categories and higher end
products it allows us to have a laser sharp focus and be more efficient with the way we spend on media. The
appeal is mass, for the major segment of our portfolio, if you look at what we advertise on TV, for example Raga,
which has a wide appeal, we have products that start from Rs 2,500 and go up to Rs 15,000. If you take watches
like Tagged as an example, it is targeted to the youth, the price range is from Rs 2,000-4,000 and with a TV
campaign linked to the IPL since it catered to that segment. Another example is of HTSE campaign which was a
Rs 15,000 watch that runs on the minimum of light and its has a high tech look. This was primarily a digital
campaign and a small experiment with outdoor in 5-6 cities, the celebrity was not relevant across the whole of
India but only a few. How do we leverage the media mix also depends upon the category that we are pushing.
Everything has to have its impact on the brand but if we have various categories that we work with it really
depends on the appeal and how we use it. Watches like octane which are sports watches or watches like HTSE
or EDGE have a sharper appeal and we have to use the media accordingly.
What kind of growth have you seen in numbers in the watches division?
The cake of the last five years should be in the ballpark of 15-18 per cent.
What are your spends for marketing?
Overall is five per cent of our spends in marketing, digital we would be spending 15 per cent of the money which
is double of what we spend normally.
What is the market share that you are targeting with your offerings, brands and portfolio?
It has various dimensions, depending on where we are the number can go anywhere from 15 per cent to 55 per
cent. But there is no source that can tell you that number, we do our own internal study. If you take Zoop
watches at Rs 395 and Titan watch from Rs 995 going up to Rs 15,000 and look at volumes we are a huge
player. In a year if you look at all brands under Titan Industries, we manufacture 18 million watches, Titan alone
would be five million watches a year.
What is your distribution and retail strategy?
The evolution has been that we have focused at opening up our own showrooms and stores, whether it is
Fastrack or Titan or any other brand. But at the same time we havent taken the foot off the pedal in terms of
large format stores or MBOs and trade distribution is concerned. The mix today is fairly healthy. It is a good mix
to have despite our aggression of opening our own store have continued to penetrate into outlets but take more
share from the MBOs to the single brand outlet. That has continues to be our strategy and there is no letting go of
the hold that we have built in our channels. If you look at the watch market today, we are the only player with this
kind of distribution and clout. All the other brands are hardly investing in opening showrooms. If at all they are
multi-brand shops. We have large flagship stores where we have representation from all our brands and some of
our other portfolios beyond watches are also present like sunglasses, accessories and eyewear and we will soon
be getting into perfumes.
What are the key challenges that you face in the market today?
I think key challenge is obviously competition. it is good because it keeps on educating us on a regular basis. We
have seen great influence in our products in terms of design etc, plus we have learned a lot from the international
markets, where we have a presence in 15-18 countries with an overall presence in 30 countries. We
keep getting educated about what the challenges there what are the trends there, the competition has been
challenging but at the same time it helps us to be sharper and at our toes and also be more aggressive in the
market.
The other challenge is to keep on meeting and exceeding our consumers expectations. The consumer is
also evolving in the mind and needs as he is getting exposed. The last challenge is that it is an expensive
operation in India, in terms of real estate, operating costs, running stores and deliver high level of quality and
turnover for our stores and businesses.
What is the basic differentiating factor or the USP that Titan has?
We have built a strong brand, reliability and trust with our consumers. We have our own portfolio of designs
which are in house. It is difficult to have a distinction because there is so much competition. It is all about the
brand, quality and the feeling of trust and value for money. Nobody is spending this kind of money that we spend
to bring in watches showcase and bring the trends to the consumer. We like to engage with the consumer. When
we bring in something we like to bring in scale, if you see the last commercial we took Raga to a Rs 11,000 price
point, we did the Katrina commercial and sold 30,000 pieces of that watch in the last 6-7 months. Because we
engaged with the consumer in the right kind of way through the lens of the brand we were able to drive that kind
of business through that watch alone. We are talking about Rs 25-30 crore business from one single watch
model. That is the power of engagement and that is what differentiates us from the rest. We are committed to the
market and the consumer.
Are you lowering your ad spends on ground with the advent of the digital frontier?
No we are not, it is not the right thing to do, we just changing the mix, we are taking digital to have a larger play.
There is enough money for us to play around and meet the rest of our expectations.
What is the rationale behind the tie-ups with movies, in regards to the recent Iron Man and Marvel
products?
The whole superhero space is exciting for everyone from kids to adults. We are doing Iron Man watches for
adults as well as for the kids. The idea is very simple, there is a strong rub off that Zoop will get from Iron Man
and Spider Man etc, we are going to leverage that. We have wide distribution, Iron Man will reflect a lot on Zoop
and the way we are looking at it is that it is helping to have a good rub off for brand as well. Associations like
these help us get a positive rub-off and associating with it and managing with it in marketing planning activities
ensure that we get as much mileage out of a movie like iron man which will be strongly promoted. It helps the
brand take itself to a higher place it helps drive consumers, many of them may be new consumers. It helps us to
get attached to the kids too for the long run. Zoop itself will be a million units this fiscal.
There are so many brands under your portfolio is there any core TG that you cater to?
The core TG continues to be 25-40 years. We have a wide range of watches, a lot of this was started 20-25 years
ago we are not only holding on to those consumers but are getting to other consumers as well. There is a trong
core business happening in the 25-40 age group across men and women. Lets say Tag caters to the 25-28, with
our high end watches like Octane or automatics we cater to the 30-40 age group with overlaps in every category.
What are your future plans for the Indian market?
The future plans is to be consistent for what the brands stand for. But the core of the brand continues to be the
same. We are not pretending to be something that we are not. We are catering to new age segments for example
sports and fashion; these are areas where we will focus on. We will tweak the products to ensure that we have
the right communication of new products and will tweak the marketing strategy to make sure that the
marketing spends are in the appropriate channels. We intend to grow by 20 per cent over last year which is a
tremendous target to have. If we do that for four years we will double our business. It is achievable though a
volume and value game.