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MIRROR NOW in collaboration with exchange4media Group, is curating a series of video interviews, MIRROR NOW Dialogues with Vinay Tewari. In the fourth part of this series, Vinay Tewari, Managing Editor, Mirror NOW interacted with Suparna Mitra, CEO- Watches & Wearables Division, Titan Company Limited on the topic Titan: Keeping Up With The Changing Times.

The pandemic has drastically changed the way retail has traditionally panned out, and in many ways that one can imagine, be it consumer sentiment and traction or the ways brands are reaching out to their consumers. The discussion aimed at finding out what entails the new retail and how a legacy brand like Titan watches and wearables from the House of Tata is keeping up with the times.

The session opened with Tewari asking Mitra to sum up how the brand has adapted to the pandemic and is attempting a recovery. According to Mitra, the first wave was a dampener, and how and why will consumers return to a non-essential category like watches and wearables division remained a crucial question for Titan as well. Titan, a market player that enjoys a good fifty per cent market share had a slow climb back up until May this year. Mitra added We had to create reasons for consumers to come back to us. We did a theme Lets get India ticking which spread the message that the consumer class has to do their bit for the economy to recover. Apart from that we also pushed for gifting and occasional shopping. One of the biggest lessons that we learnt from this has been that people and relationships are the most important and thats what we took ahead to our consumers. Since June this year, we are seeing a good pace towards recovery.

Occasional shopping and gifting contribute to a considerable part of Titans sales, therefore, the predictions of a third wave could be a potential downturn on this front. Clearing the air on the same, Mitra shared While formal and large gatherings have come down, there are few things helping the situation. There has been an unprecedented boom in wearables like smartwatches, smart bands, and there has been a lot of interest amongst people about health in the last one and a half months. Also, with the number of people invited to weddings and functions being restricted to close family and friends, we saw about a 20 per cent uptick in the ticket size for wedding watches as people are redistributing their budgets. Overall, these are the silver linings among the challenges.

Titan, in the last year, pushed the idea of self-gifting in their advertising for consumers to make themselves feel good in the stressful times of today. Sharing insights behind the same, Mitra said It is a very evolved concept and thats why it makes for interesting advertising. Self-gifting is not a standard concept, and we also do a lot of programs around the birthdays and anniversaries of our loyalty program consumers. As far as gifting is concerned, watches make a very timeless gift.

Talking of being timeless and classic, Titan as a brand is a name that has a legacy attached to it. Therefore, reinventing the brand while also keeping that legacy intact can be challenging for the team. On this, Mitra elaborated This is an intellectual challenge that we deploy a lot of time and effort to solve. There are two aspects to it, first, in India, there is a great aspiration towards foreign brands, and in the watches category, most of our competitors are international brands. Secondly, the fact that we are known as excellent watchmakers goes in our favour. The trust and accessibility that comes with that help us a lot. We have taken cognizance of the fact that we need to premiumise our watches for the watch connoisseurs and people who look at the aspirational value. We have watches in the accessible range that starts at a few thousand to premium watches that go up to lacs. Yes, we are a legacy brand but there is an enduring quality to that legacy, its not a legacy that has an expiry date but a legacy that is building on itself.

Keeping up with the changing times also leads to the evolution of a brand over the due course. Talking about the evolution of Titan from being a timekeeper to an aspirational brand to health and fitness accessories providing brand, Mitra explained I think it is an opportunity for a lifetime to transform ourselves. We can say that we are a watches and wearables company, but at the heart of it, we are really a consumer company and we have always appealed to the vast Indian middle and upper-middle class. The changing and evolving needs of this consumer base is helping us evolve, learn new things and become more relevant and useful for the consumer and thats a big plus. We are very grateful that the pivot has happened, we are a big player in the fitness accessories category as well and we have ambitious plans going ahead.

Sharing insights on whether going ahead wearables will be a more significant part of the division as compared to watches, Mitra added The wearables growth is very monumental but the watches base is very large. Watches will continue because in India there is always an aspiring segment and they are always coming into the branded market. For example, Sonata, our economy offering that converts the unbranded to branded sees a lot of traction. It also depends on the ingenuity and the desire of the brand to arrive at newer and newer reasons to the consumers to buy watches. An Edge mechanical or a Raga are good examples that these needs will always be there, while new needs may have come up, the old needs will remain.

Mapping future business plans especially in times of a pandemic, Mitra revealed We believe in focussing on things that one can control. We have to have plans and be prepared, which we are doing by taking extraordinary safety measures in our ecosystem be it factories or stores with our staff and our consumers. The vaccination drive is giving us a sense of relief because between the two waves it was at a very infant stage. Public behaviour is difficult to predict and public memory is notoriously short. We concentrate on the things that we can do as a brand in terms of innovation, efficiency, execution, safety and planning. The first wave gave us an opportunity to do some soul-searching and to rethink our ways of doing things. We are very confident about not just recovery, but looking at this as a chance to relook, rearchitect and reimagine ourselves and craft a new future for the next 4-5 years as well.

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'Titans is not a legacy that has an expiry date but one that is building upon itself' - Exchange4Media