Name of Faculty: Dr.

Sanjay Patro
Subject: Product and Brand Management

CASE ANALYSIS: TITAN

GROUP NUMBER: 75
Chandni Sachdeva (103753)
Deepesh Saxena (104365)
Punit Bafna (103714)
 Titan India Ltd., formerly (Titan watches limited) is a joint venture between Tata group of
companies and Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) was incorporated in
1987, and within three years of inception became a market leader. By 2009 Titan is a market
leader with 65% market share and also sixth largest watch makers of the world. Also adopted
diversification in jewelry market “Tanishq” and grown its market share up to 68% in jewelry
market. Titan’s portfolio of products can be divided into three distinct price-bands which
were popular, mid, and premium. Titan first focused only on the mid and premium segment
of the watch market. At the top, the emphasis was on profits and image not volumes. At the
bottom, the emphasis was on volumes.

Situation Analysis

PRODUCT SITUATION:

Currently Titan offers following products in Indian market

 Watches : Popular Priced, Mid Priced and Premium Priced

 Eye Gear : Sunglasses, Prescription Glasses. Contact Lenses

 Accessories: Wallets, Purses, Bekts, Wrist Bands

Sub Brands of Titan

Titan’s brand architecture comprised of several sub brands. Titan offered a wide array of
products, which were positioned on the basis of function, price points, design and lifestyle.

SONATA

• After Timex spun off Titan decided to fill up the void with its own brand Sonata.

• Positioned for Sec C and Sec D customer with the price range between Rs.300–
Rs.1200.

• Sonata leverage Tata’s heritage which enjoyed enormous goodwill and trust amongst
the vast mass of Indians.

• Sold through exclusive showrooms as a TATA product.

Fastrack

• Positioned as a fashion product

• Targeted at young customers.

• John Abraham to endorse the brand

• Tagged as “How many do you have”, “move on”.

On Fastlane

• Fastrack has moved into sunglasses

• Plan to open 50 exclusive fastttrack outlets apart from Metro in other top 20 cities.

ZOOP

• Penetrated in Children’s market segment.

• Children nowadays have certain amount of disposable pocket money.

COMPETITIVE SITUATION:

Timex

• Timex has captured around 22 per cent of the Rs 1,500 crore branded watches market
in India

• It had signed in Brett Lee, the Australian pace bowler as its brand ambassador to
make an impact on the youth of India who are passionate about the game of cricket.

• Planned to set up 120 showrooms in different parts of the country.

HMT watches

• Lost significant market share and currently a shadow of its past and has a share of
about 4 percent.

Maxima

• Its range starts from Rs.350/- and wanted to reach out to the nooks and corners of the
country.

• Have 56 distributors and 5000 loyal retailers across the country.

DISTRIBUTION SITUATION:

World of Titan

• Exclusively deals in Titan watches.

• Stores are augmented as per international standards.

 • 222 exclusive showrooms christened 'World of Titan', making it amongst the largest
chains in its category.

• 750 after sales service centers.

Time Zone

• It was designed for variety seeking behavior consumers

• These are frenchise locations which agree for allocating more than 60% of space to
Titan brands.

• 1142 Time Zones across 89 towns made titan capture a big geography.

Titan Watch Care Centers

• As Parity of difference Titan had deployed quality after sale service.

ENVIRONMENTAL SITUATION:

Indian demography:

 The percentage of people below the poverty line had declined from 40% a decade
back to 23% in 2008.

 India has a staggering 51% of its population of 1.1 billion people under 25 and two-
thirds under 35.

Watch Market in India:

 40-45 million pieces annually.

  Watch penetration in India is about 27 percent with a huge potential base to be
tapped.

 Average growth in the size of the market is slated to be around 10 -15 percent per
year.

PROMOTION AND BRAND BUILDING EFFORTS

 Titan valued advertising as an investment to merchandise new models.

 Build a good-sized gift market and emotional market.

 Roped Amir Khan as brand ambassador.

 Tagline ‘Be More’ reflecting the youth’s multitasking lifestyle of the day.

 Sonata was launched as “waqt se do kadam age”

 Sonata was sold highest and Dhoni been signed as brand ambassador.

 Fastrack made use of social media like orkut, facebook, etc.

 Launched several sales promotion programmes around festivals.

 TIL received the “Reader's Digest Trusted Brand Platinum Award” for the watch
category.

PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION

 Overlapping of sub brands

 Competitors entering mid price market range (RS 1500-3500)

 Stiff competition in premium segment market by international players.

 Premium segment market are the only revenue generating market.

 Failure of launch in European market.

 How to create global brand identity like TOMMY,ESPIRIT etc.

ALTERNATIVES

 Mid price market price range (up to RS3500) and sec C & D brands can go with
umbrella branding strategy.

 Brands like Fastrack can diversify further in other accessories like MP3 players, digital
cameras.

 Repositioning Xylis and Nebula with powerful emotional attribute.

 Creating a joint ventures with the high end international brands.

a) when an international brand entering Indian market

b) when Titan is entering foreign market

 Entering new international geography by acquiring “Me too” players and positioning as
durable product.

 Endorsing the product through international events like FIFA, World Cup, Olympics,
etc.

 Establishing a chain of after sale services in international market.

Alternatives evaluation

Advantage Disadvantage

1 Mid price market price -Low cost on advertisement.

- Competitors like Timex
range (up to RS3500) and are targeting this
sec C & D brands can go - Sec C&D segment will be segment.
with umbrella branding more aware of the brand
strategy. Titan.

- sub brands overlapping can

be reduced

2 Fastrack can diversify - Marketing effort has already - Competitors are already
further in other accessories been done by other players. established players.
like MP3 players, digital
cameras - Brand positioning is already - Pricing can be an issue.
defined for youth.

- Marketing channels are

 already established.

3 Repositioning Xylis and - May increase in sales as they

Nebula with powerful are revenue generating
emotional attribute. products.

- Some Indian touch and

emotions should be mixed
with the product to give it
exclusivity.

4 Creating joint ventures - Revenue to the company. - Titan brand value can get
a with the high end a hit.
) international brands. - do not let competitors make
their supply market as Timex. - An international brand
kept next to Titan in a
showroom would enhance
(when an international variety seekers.
brand entering Indian
market)

4 Creating joint ventures - company will get a -May have to compromise

b with the high end marketing channel on margin.
) international brands.
- Less cost on advertising - Brand building
with the established players. opportunity will decline.

(when Titan is entering

foreign market)

5 Entering new international - positioning as durable - acquisition cost

geography by acquiring product can work in European
“Me too” players and and Australian countries. - Rebranding of me too
positioning as durable players will incur cost.
product. - acquiring me too players will
give an established market
universe.

6 Endorsing the product - These would give global - Other brands already in a
through international brand recognition. queue to endorse their
events like FIFA, World product through such
Cup, Olympics, Formula 1 - Giving a Titan watches star events.
racing, etc. of the game can endorse the
product better.

7 Establishing a chain of - Would develop a global trust - International after sales

after sale services in service set up may cause
 international market. in the brand. cost

- Already domestic setup is - Replacing a watch

defined hence the watches temporarily would require
can be exchanged while one more inventory
watch is under service availability.

There are some questions which TITAN needed to answer. Mentioned here are
some of the challenges which TITAN faces and though already discussed
above, here we are collating them in a Q&A manner.

Q1. Can the company look towards what brands like Seiko and Fossil have

Managed to achieve?

Ans: Definitely Yes. Seiko and Fossil are niche products targeted at those
customers

Who view watches as style statements or durables. Watches are principally

HIPS

(High Involvement Products), where the customers are more involved in the

Product’s functioning. For products like Seiko and Fossil, the Perceived Quality
is

Higher and repeat purchases naturally drive Financial Performance.

Q2. The brands in Titan’s stable range from the premium Nebula to the sporty
Fastrack. Is umbrella branding sufficient for making the brands’ value
proposition clear to the target segment? And how much of brand support
has to be given to create brand recall for a brand like Raga Diva?
Ans: Indian Watch industry is estimated to be around 1600 crores and Titan is
riding on top of it with a market share of over 50%.This is a super brand
that has changed the way we look at (or wear) watches. [1]

Titan, a brand from TATA was launched in 1987. During that time Indian watch
market was dominated by HMT. At that time watches were seldom stylish
and was catering to the basic need of knowing the time. Titan changed all
that. With its stylish watches and smart advertising, Titan took the market
by storm. Titan in fact changed the way watches was manufactured and
marketed in India. Titan initially pioneered the concept of “Gifting watches".
The ads captured the essence of gifting and along with the trendy music,
easily caught the imagination of the market. Customers who were fed up
with ugly time machines welcomed the brand and Titan had a dream run for
many years. Titan faced lot of problems later when the competition began to
eat up the lower end of the market. Besides that, there was another
problem. The brand was lacking innovation. To be more precise, the
customers were bored by Titan. There was nothing new. Gifting proposition
was no longer working.

It wanted to play the volume game. For that Titan launched another brand
Sonata. Sonata was a huge success because it was a cheap product but at
the cost of the mother brand Titan. Titan was perceived to be a premium
brand but with Sonata (at that time “Sonata from Titan") endorsed by Titan
took away the premium image from the mother brand. Titan took away
the Titan brand from Sonata. Now Sonata is endorsed by Tata not Titan.
Titan realizing that the market wanted something to be excited about
watches began an extensive marketing campaign. Titan carefully
segmented the market and developed different sub-brands for each
segment. Sub brands like Edge, Steel, Dash, Nebula, Classique, Royale, Fast
Track, Raga, and the recently launched Wall Street. By having various
products / models and sub-brands, Titan was able to create freshness about
the brand. Titan was positioning itself as a fashion accessory rather than a
time keeping device.

Q3. The question before Titan however, still remains- what is the way into the future?
What should be its roadmap for a better tomorrow?

Ans: Titan’s road map for the future needs to be based on complete market penetration in
India, which is its firm base, simultaneous to an infusion of fresh life into the international
market. The methodology of working on the international market has already been
covered in the preceding questions.

Diversification. Concurrently, Titan needs to diversify further in certain core competence

areas like manufacturing instruments for use in aircrafts, vehicles and other control
panels. With the ever expanding auto market, such instruments will find a good favor if
priced competitively.

Other products where Titan can diversify are wall clocks, mobile phones and premium
cutlery. Each of these products has a open and inviting market, with excellent potential
for expansion.

Innovation. Titan needs to innovate and come with new products, like say a quartz
mobile phone fitted to a watch (obviates the need to carry a mobile phone in the pocket
or in the hand, does not need charging etc).

Branding. In concert with the above, Titan needs to maintain its Brand Image in India
and build further on the promise. Each product launch needs to be Product Tested, then
Test marketed and then launched after careful study of the prevailing market conditions
and the timing of launch.

Thanks & Regards

Chandni Sachdeva

Deepesh Saxena

Punit Bafna