With this piece, we take a look at the story of Titan, India’s most successful consumer brand. We take a look at how a niche brand became one of the most beloved brands.
Titan was launched in 1984 as a joint venture of the Tata group and Tamil Nadu corporation. Headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka, Titan has transformed the Indian watch market. The company mainly manufactures fashion accessories such as watches, jewellery, and eyewear. With offerings like the Titan Quartz sporting the international outlook and capturing a vast market share, the watches have about 45% of the total revenue. Titan is the world’s 6th largest watch company in the world!
The beautiful music of the Titan watches in their advertisement occupies a soft corner in our hearts. The music is euphoric and soothing to ears.
Did you find the music familiar?
Anyway, before we learn more about their watches, let’s take a look at their Rebranding. Titan has rebranded 3 times over the years.
The Titan Rebranding
In 1987 the Titan logo was designed by Sudharshan Dheer. The logo wasn’t changed until 3 decades. The most beautiful aspect of the logo was the play with letter T, which created a hallow letter around it. The form reminded of a watch dial and the internal parts of the machinery.
The logo was changed in the year 2008. In this, the brand logo colors were changed to red and white (Titan was inscribed in the background). The rebranding was done in order to show their audience that Titan was very much a “trend” company and could adapt per the changing behavior of its customers. The brand worked with Amir Khan as their ambassador. The communication they wanted to drive home was the “Be More” message. Unluckily for the World, the 2008 Financial crisis happened during this time and this campaign helped a few of their customers stay motivated as they sailed through the crisis.
In 2013, the company rebranded to Titan Company Limited and unveiled its new logo to mark its 25 years. The new logo was called Titan Star. The rebranding was again done in order to keep up with the trends. If you look at this new logo, it is totally different from the ones that were done previously. The company said they wanted to move from just a watch company to a lifestyle company.
Let’s now break-down their various brand segments and understand a few of their interesting campaigns.
Titans watch division and Campaigns
The Titan co. has two major wristwatch brands that catered to two completely different segments. Sonata catered the less-premium segments, whereas, Titan catered to premium segments of their customers.
Sonata
The bold and beautiful designs of Sonata have been passed down to generations and has become a legacy. Not to mention the new trendy designs, Sonata comes up with. The brand also runs various campaigns to attract new customers.
Let’s take a look at a few of the interesting events with regards to Sonata.
Khud par Yakeen: Sonata and CSK partnered to celebrate #khudParYakeen spirit of Tamil Naidu youth.
Sonata Act: An app-enabled coordinates tracking watch that catered to the problems of the Indian women. The inbuilt tracker in the watch helped keep track of locations and send a notification to the “Guardians” when there was trouble.
Sonata Stride: Fitness ka Naya Style! Sonata launched watches that kept track of your fitness and calories. You see how moment marketing is important for them?
Let’s get India ticking: Another recent example of going with the moment marketing. They came up with this new campaign with the motive of getting the economy back to the normal.
Related: Take a look at the Tata Pravesh campaign that aimed to support the unlocking of India
Titan Raga
Titan Raga is known for its striking design language that speaks to the young women of today through its unique aesthetic design. It is the symbol of individualism. Titan Raga designs are exquisitely bold and eye-catching. Given that the brand is women-centric, let’s take a look at a few of the campaigns by Titan Raga.
#Herlifeherchoice: Given the gender-divide of the Indian population, this ad directly speaks to the women looking to eliminate the gender-stereotyping.
Flaunt your fears: Titan raga came up with the #FlauntYourFlaw campaign that encouraged women to accept their scars.
FastTrack
FastTrack was launched in 1998 and has, since then, become an independent youth brand. Their designs are funny, edgy, and quirky which makes the brand connect best with the audience. A few interesting campaigns we can look at:
#RagewithFastrack: It was established with the central theme to give people a chance a dream and party music festivals in India
#Lovewithpride: Love with FastTrack – Supporting the bigger cause of LGBTQ community!
A few other brands
Zoop: The Zoop was mainly launched for the kids. The prominent tagline was cold; it came in bright colors and became a famous brand among kids.
Titan Octane: These were designed for men and were intended to convey the idea of speed.
Xylys: It is an exclusive brand of Swiss-made watches brought by Titan. It comes in 3 collections: Contemporary, Classic, and Sport. They launched the campaign to stay inspired. It inspired people to create 25th hour for themselves.
The Joy of Gifting
Market share
Like we already mentioned, the watches have about 45% of the total revenue. Titan is the world’s 6th largest watch company in the world! Titan is spread over a wide range of markets in India. It is India’s largest watchmaker and controls nearly half of the watch market, which is worth about INR 8500 crores.
The company sold about 16 million watches last year, including Titan, Sonata and FastTrack.
One of the reasons for this growth is their association with the right folks. Titan was one of the first few brands that realized the power of celebrity endorsements in India. Earlier Titan advertisements featured Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, and Amir Khan. While, in recent years, Titan featured Katrina Kaif, Rajkumar Rao, Kriti Sanon, and Kalki Kanmani.
Current scenario
Titan company share price fell below Rs 1000 in March 2020 after February 2019. Due to the cancellation and postponement of weddings in the lockdown, the company also faced a decrease in sales. The company faced losses and is doing its best to improve its situation. The company is launching campaigns and has decided to spend 50% more in Digital Marketing in FY-21 to bring the sales back on track.
During the lockdown, the company did three types of customer engagement. The first was “Empathy Calls”, done to lakhs of customers by the store staff to know about their health and safety. The company also did online concerts and made unique videos on special occasions like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. The last one was to take preventive measures so that customer is reassured that safety is the most profound concern.
Finally, Titan is one of the few Indian brands that occupy an extraordinary place in the Indians’ hearts and is loved by everyone, youngsters, old, and kids. We’re sure they will sail through these tough times, like all of us.
Author
This piece was researched and written by Prathana Fabiyani, the editing was done by the Casereads team. If you liked the piece, go ahead and share it with your best friend on WhatsApp.
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