In my previous blog post on how brands are connected with companies, I had shared my thoughts on a new brand strategy for Titan wristwatches that I recommend. This is to strengthen the Titan brand and to enable it to compete better with international competition as well as to explore international markets at a later date.
In this blog post, I’d like to share my thoughts on the creative strategy for Titan wristwatches and my campaign ideas for the brand. As I said in my brand strategy document shared with the previous blog post, it is not enough to focus on international styling anymore in the wristwatches industry, even though design and styling are important factors in watch purchase decisions. Titan will have to differentiate itself from competition on a host of other factors as well, rational, emotional and sensory.
Creative strategy
My brand strategy recommendation is for Titan wristwatches to make people think about time itself in a certain way, and to position itself as the watch for people who make the most of their time. The creative strategy is that Titan wristwatches will place itself in customers’ every day lives and make them think about using their time better. This way, Titan wristwatches will not only make itself relevant and appealing to customers in India – many of whom would be buyers of international watches – but to those overseas as well.
The brand strategy and this creative strategy would require that Titan focus on product designs and styles that help people get more from their wristwatches. Besides, brand differentiation would mean that Titan also capitalize on their innovations and designs more than they are doing today. For example, now that Titan is making its own watch movements, the company should brand each of these movements and use these movement brand names in their communication as much as possible. In one of the images of the new Flying Tourbillon wristwatches that Titan just launched last year, I noticed that Titan designers have taken care to make some of the watch parts resemble the Titan logo. This is an excellent move, and more such attempts would be needed at Titan. I have in fact, used this image in my corporate gifting advert idea for Titan, as you will see later. The company must also try and innovate in creating new watch mechanisms and try and patent these in future. You may read my thoughts and ideas for Titan wristwatches advertising campaigns in the document below.
Relaunch of Titan wristwatches and the brand campaign
As I mentioned in my last blog post, it has been decades since Titan wristwatches communicated properly with its audiences. Therefore, I recommend that Titan first relaunch itself with a large print advert in mainline dailies as well as news magazines, telling people about all that the company has been busy with, in terms of product innovations and watch manufacture, as well as hinting at the new strategy for the Titan brand. This is to bring customers up to speed with Titan’s product innovations and new collections. This relaunch advert can be viewed and read below.
This should be followed by the main brand campaign in TV as well as in the print media. Here, the creative idea is to use aphorisms about time and make people think about how they can make the best use of it. Titan’s new brand positioning is captured in the strapline: Earn your tomorrows.
The brand TV advert captures a slice of life in India as we go about making time for work, home and family and connecting with the rest of the world. Although I am not an art director, nor a designer, I have created a visual device for the TV adverts that represents time itself and also resembles the Titan logo. This will help people strongly associate Titan wristwatches with time, which is what we want. In addition, I have created another visual device to be used as a wipe between sequences in the TVC. This device made up of watch gears and components will float across the TV screen in transition scenes. It hints at Indian art and craftsmanship and will be instantaneously recognised as such by the world.
The brand campaign in print uses aphorism-like thoughts in the headlines, while the copy speaks of the importance of using one’s time well. In the context of how we use our time in India, I bring in Titan wristwatches and their fine craftsmanship. The visual treatment here is of a white Titan time-band passing through what is a full-bleed image, even though in many cases it is not one single image, but two on either side of the time-band. There is no watch featured in this brand campaign, as the campaign is not for any particular Titan watch, but for the Titan wristwatches brand. While the TV advert script is in the main ideas document, you may read the print campaign below.
To illustrate what Titan product launch adverts must communicate, I have created three sample adverts for three different Titan wristwatches, and here the product is hero. However, the overall Titan brand strategy too is evident in the product adverts, because they are each presented in the context of how we use our time. Individual product launch adverts are below for you to read.
Titan World Traveller Automatic Collection
As yet another way to showcase Titan’s product innovations and to help the brand compete better with international brands, I recommend that Titan launch a special watch collection for the world traveller.
This Titan World Traveller automatic watch ought to feature three time zones on the dial that the wearer can adjust depending on where he is travelling. I have considered UK-US, Europe and Asia as the three time zones for the purposes of the communication and the campaign focuses on the cultural nuances of time and how we use it.
The idea for the TV advert for Titan World Traveller, which is in the main ideas document, uses western classical music to make the movements of the world traveller seem like those of an orchestra conductor, for that is indeed how well Titan World Traveller allows us to orchestrate our travels across time zones. In the print campaign comprising three adverts, we explore cultural differences across time zones in the ways time is used and business is conducted. Please read the Titan World Traveller Automatic print campaign below.
Titan wristwatches corporate and individual gifting
I think Titan ought to revive the practice of encouraging individual and corporate gifting as they once used to, in the days when Ogilvy Advertising was working on the business in India. This helps to strengthen the credentials of the Titan brand and maintain its image as a premium and luxury watchmaker in the midst of international competition.
I have worked on separate mass-media campaigns for Titan wristwatch gifting, for individuals and well as for corporate. These are meant to be woven into direct response communications as well, as Titan engages with customers one-on-one through e-mail marketing or traditional direct marketing, or a combination of both. You may read the print adverts for Titan gifting below, while the TV advert scripts are in the main ideas document.
For corporate gifting, Titan sales teams will also need to devise special corporate gifting programmes and then call on companies and make presentations to their decision-makers.
Titan’s Brand Experience Showroom
My thoughts on campaign ideas for Titan wristwatches and how they help connect the Titan brand with the company must, of course, conclude with the retailing of Titan wristwatches. As I had written in my brand strategy document shared with the previous blog post last month, Titan retail outlets called Titan World, must have a certain similar décor and customer service, They must also offer good after-sales customer service. This is critical in the watches category, and even more so as the company makes and retails more premium and luxury wristwatches.
Besides these, I was thinking that Titan ought to set up one large showroom in each of the four large metros in India that will offer customers and visitors a place to experience the Titan brand. In the main ideas document, I have shared my thoughts on the look and feel of this planetarium-type showroom which will help Titan share and explain first-hand their product innovations and the latest watch collections. At the same time, it will explore the many mysteries and fascinating aspects of time and share them with customers and visitors through an immersive audio-visual experience. Please take a look at the document below for an idea of what this Titanarium ought to offer.
Perhaps, this exclusive Titan brand experience centre can start with Bangalore first, as Titan Company is headquartered there, and taking the help of the Indian Institute of Science will also be easier. Depending upon the response and the visits it receives, Titan can decide whether to expand this to other cities or not. I think having this even in just one city might serve the purpose as it would then force people to make an effort to visit and experience the Titanarium.
In addition, of course, I cannot stress enough the need for Titan to be present in duty-free shopping arcades in international airports both in India and overseas. As I wrote in the brand strategy document, the latter can be the international markets that Titan intends to expand to, first.
Finally, although this article is about my ideas on how Titan wristwatches can connect better with the company, it is also about connecting better with customers of international watches through time, and differentiating Titan from other brands. What’s more, this strategy for Titan is about how each culture treats time, and how we can make the best use of it. In this sense, the two brands, Titan and Tanishq, share synergy in exploring concepts rooted in culture, although Tanishq’s strategy and campaign was based on a more direct influence that Indian culture has had internationally, as I had written in my blog post for the brand long ago.
The images used in the Titan campaigns shared in this blog post are from Unsplash, Pexels and from Titan’s own website and I am thankful to all of them.
Post scripts:
- In the pdf document on the Titanarium showroom, you will notice a photograph that is from Pexels which purports to show the solar system with the sun at the centre, but of course, this is not how planets revolve around the sun. Unprofessional and dumbing-down PR agency idiot bosses who meddle at stock image sites and with publishing, have also got a passage written in Volume 2 of Indian Philosophy by Dr S Radhakrishnan which I am still reading, where atoms and their metaphysical significance is explained through the metaphor of a solar system! I shall share this when I write about Volume 2 on my blog. The photograph on Pexels is by Antoaneta Mehandova.
- I have emphasised how important after-sales service is in wristwatches, and I must mention once again, the disappointing service at the Titan World store in Vasco, Goa, where my aged parents and I have shopped and had our watches repaired several times before. After turning into a Titan World store, they have developed such arrogant airs about them, that they couldn’t/wouldn’t replace watch straps for my aged father’s wristwatch and mine. This, when I purchased my Titan Raga wristwatch from the very same store! I had shared a post complaining about this on LinkedIn long ago, and even more disappointing was the fact that there was no response even from LinkedIn connections who were senior management at Titan and with the Tata Group.
Peripatetic Perch 