CII Retail Summit: Brand experiences, the Titan Raga way

At the summit held in Mumbai recently, Harish Bhat and Vandana Bhalla of Titan Industries spoke of the Titan Raga story, which leveraged a single consumer insight across multiple touch points

Sometimes, mass media works magic for brands. But if the consumer sees any kind of disconnect between the brand promise in mass media advertising and the ground reality in stores, poof goes the brand. At the CII Retail Brand Summit organised in Mumbai recently, Harish Bhat, chief operating officer, Titan Industries, along with the company’s brand head, Vandana Bhalla, made a case study presentation on Titan Raga, the company’s range of watches for women, and particularly, how the brand made use of multiple touch points to get the brand message across.

Titan Raga was launched in 1992 as the only watch brand meant solely for woman back then (although there were watches available for women, they were mostly mere variants of watch brands for men). The changing socio-economic needs of women, and their greater literacy and lifestyle enrichment ensured that there was a need to revamp Titan Raga’s brand image. “Firstly, we studied the TG more specifically and came up with some interesting findings,” said Bhalla. For one, Titan Raga consumers felt a strong connect with the brand – an almost romantic, intimate and sensual bond had developed over time. Some women even felt that their relationship with Titan Raga was almost similar to what they shared with their husbands. Essentially, the brand made them feel ‘more of a woman’. This became the insight for Raga.

Rani Mukerji at the Titan Raga
relaunch conference

However, the category left enormous scope for expansion. So, Titan Raga came up with a two-fold promise. The functional benefit of the brand was to be revisited: Now, the Raga was to become a piece of jewellery, rather than just a watch. The emotional premise, too, was beefed up: The brand was to be positioned as a self-expressive, intimate one. Thereafter, the brand values were arrived at: feminity, intimacy and beauty. The brand personality needed to be graceful, alluring, sensual and beautiful.

“To create salience in the market, we then roped in actor Rani Mukerji as our brand ambassador as she encompasses all these attributes,” said Bhat. The product range was also redesigned to look like tasteful, classy pieces of jewellery. A TVC was released around the thought, ‘Ek Khoobsoorat Rishta’, highlighting the bond a Raga wearer shares with the brand.

Once the range was launched and the mass media campaign took off, retail level activation took place. Titan stores across India were revamped with a new look and feel. Special ‘mood windows’ were created, displaying life-like images of Mukerji sporting the range. Further, display kits made use of feminine colours to add to the effect. A huge direct marketing effort – the Raga Carnival – was organised in 70 Titan stores in India, wherein consumers got to experiences the brand through prizes, contests and Internet and SMS activities. Further, leaflets were distributed in catchment areas around stores, while print ads about the Carnival were released on the theme of ‘pampering’ oneself. There were contests launched on the Titan website as well.

This was followed up with timely collections from Raga, and apt window displays and in-store experiences – for instance, a collection inspired by nature had shells, leaves and other natural elements put up on window displays as a backdrop for the collection.

The result was an increase in consideration scores from 25 to 40, while sales of the brand increased by 42 per cent. In addition, sales of all ladies’ watches from Titan went up by 31 per cent.

“We created an intimate statement on a wrist,” concluded Bhat.

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