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Titan Industries is the world's fifth largest wrist watch manufacturer and India's leading producer
of watches under the Titan, Fastrack, Sonata, Nebula, RAGA, Regalia, Octane & Xylys brand
names. It is a joint venture between the Tata Group, and the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development
Corporation (TIDCO). Its product portfolio includes watches, accessories and jewellery, in both
contemporary and traditional designs. It exports watches to about 32 countries around the world
with manufacturing facilities in Hosur, Dehradun, Goa and manufactures precious jewellery
under the Tanishq brand name, making it India's only national jewellery brand. It is a subsidiary
of the Tata Group.

The company has manufactured more than a 100 million watches till date; and has a customer
base of over 80 million. The umbrella brand Titan is one of India's leading watch brands that
brought about a paradigm shift in the Indian watch market, offering quartz technology with
international styling.

The brand Titan is committed to offering its consumers watches that represent the compass of
their imagination. Titan's customers are therefore consistently introduced to exciting new
collections, which connect, with various facets of their deepírooted yearnings for self-
expression. The new brand philosophy of Titan, encapsulated in the words "Be More", touches
this as well as all other aspects of the brand.

The Titan brand architecture comprises several collection and subíbrands, each of which is a
leader in its segment. Notable among them are: Titan Edge The world's slimmest watch which
stands for the philosophy of "less is more"; Titan Raga the feminine and sensuous accessory for
today's woman, Nebula í crafted in solid 18k gold and precious stones. Several other popular
collections like Heritage, Aviator, Regalia, Octane & WWF also form a part of the Titan
wardrobe.

Today, the Titan portfolio has over 60% of the domestic market share in the organised watch
market. The company has 247 exclusive showrooms christened World of Titan', making it
amongst the largest chains in its category backed by 700 afterísalesíservice centers. The
company has a worldíclass design studio that constantly invents new trends in wrist watches.

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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. A marketing success story, Titan is a brand that will be of interest to most of the
marketers.

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 infact changed the way watches was manufactured and
marketed in India. HMT , a public sector company seldom bothered to respond.

Since its inception OGILVY & Mather Advertising (O&M) has handled the advertising account
of Titan. 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

During this period, Titan made a big mistake. 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. It was a big costly mistake.

Titan realised this mistake and took away the Titan brand from Sonata. Now Sonata is endorsed
by Tata not Titan.

Titan realising that the market wanted something to be excited about watches began an extensive
marketing campaign. Titan carefully segmented the market and developed different subbrands
for each segment. Sub brands like Edge, Steel, Dash, Nebula , Classique, Royale, Fast Track ,
Raga, and the recently launched Wallstreet and Purple. By having various products / models and
subbrands, Titan was able to create freshness about the brand.

Titan also moved away from gifting . Titan was positioning itself as a fashion accessory rather
than a time keeping device. Titan found its persona in Aamir Khan. Aamir provided the much
needed edge to the brand. Titan was careful in keeping the brand above the celebrity.

The ads were fresh and neatly executed.

Titan also was pushing another strategy . Watches was perceived as a one time buy and
consumers seldom owned multiple watches. So Titan pushed the concept of " Matching Watches
to Clothes" in the recent commercials.

Since men are becoming more serious customers of fashion accessories, this is strategy that is
worth trying out. For Titan, even if the concept fails, It has created the much needed freshness in
the brand.
Titan also made its presence in the ladies watch segment. It have a sub brand Raga targeting the
upwardly Mobile ladies in the premium segment.

Titan also relaunched the FastTrack brand of watched aiming the target segment of 18-30 yrs
old.

Earlier FastTrack was targeted at 20-25 year olds and positioned along the line " Cool watches
from Titan". Then the company found out that the youth in the age group of 11-20 years account
for 42% of watch buying in India. Based on this insight the company relaunched the brand
lowering the target segment to 18-30 year olds with the baseline " How many do you have?".
Again the strategy aimed at promoting the multiple watch owning concept. Fasttrack also
launched a range of fashion accessories like Sunglasses trying to be a lifestyle brand.
Indian watch market is clearly segmented and lot of serious players are fighting out in these
segments . The lower volume segment has HMT, Sonata , Maxima fighting it out. The mid
segment has Titan, Timex etc and the premium segment has Titan ,Citizen etc. The super
premium segment is also coming up with lot of international brands setting shops in India.

Titan has carefully created a market for itself through careful segmentation and branding
strategies.It is a brand that showed the world that Indians are good in Branding.

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