Non-stars lift Titan's tech portfolio

The fashion and lifestyle brand is eschewing the familiar world of big budget celebrity endorsers for its new smart-tech products

The ads are hip and the faces popular. But, fashion and lifestyle brand Titan, known for roping in the biggest names in the entertainment business as brand ambassadors, is not taking the tried and tested route to brand marketing for its new range of wearable tech. Instead, music director Pritam Chakraborty, film-maker Kabir Khan and actor Vir Das have been enlisted for endorsing its latest offering, the Juxt smartwatch. Although they are all from Bollywood, they would not usually have made it to Titan's endorsers list. But smart tech is all about smart professionals, as the Titan ads seem to say.

For the Rs 11,800-crore company, which is India's largest jewellery and watch maker, not only does this mark a shift in communication strategies but it also implies a big leap of faith. The company has always relied on celebrities to talk up its brands. Bollywood diva Katrina Kaif and newbie Kirti Sanon are among the recent entrants to the Titan hall of brand ambassadors, they promote the company's range of watches currently.

Deepika Padukone lends her name to brand Tanishq, the company's jewellery line. She follows in the footsteps of actors such as Kangana Ranaut and Sridevi, who have been its endorsers in the past. Titan had Aamir Khan, Rani Mukherjee and Asin lending their star power to the brand a few years ago.

The new faces that extoll the virtues of the company's smart watches are not in the same league. Bhaskar Bhat, managing director, Titan says the three new endorsers Chakraborty, Khan and Das are just the right faces that the Tata-owned company wanted. The aim was to get its smart watch, the first from an Indian company, noticed. "They are popular with the youth, quite active on social media and are working professionals, which is the kind of audience we are trying to reach," Bhat said.

Understand the consumer

Wearable tech appeals to the technologically savvy, urban community and, if the ads reflect the target consumer profiles, a predominantly male one at that. For a market that has no dearth of precisely this segment of people, a large under-35 population, many of them working professionals, Titan's assessment of going with 'non-stars' is bang-on, say experts.

"Youngsters today are not hung-up on celebrities," says N Chandramouli, CEO, TRA, which comes out with the annual Brand Trust Report, a study of the most-trusted brands in the country. "What they look for is how convincing an individual is when making a point. Advertisers are beginning to realise this."

Titan, say experts, could be one of the first brands to act on changing perceptions among consumers. By steering clear of celebrity endorsers for smart watches, a critical offering for the firm, it also seems to be setting the tone for its future communication in the category.

"Though the smart watch space in India has a few players such as Apple, Samsung and Motorola, there is room for more," Abneesh Roy, associate director, research (institutional equities), Edelweiss, says. "We expect more offerings in smart watches from Titan," he says.

Bhat alludes to this. "We are exploring possibilities of getting into other wearable products. There are a number of technology companies talking to us and we will take a call on this appropriately," he says. So making the right moves then with its first launch is critical, experts tracking the market said.

Let the product talk

There is a reason for Titan's move to let its smart watch do the talking. The wearable tech market in India is evolving and people want to understand this segment better, experts say. So, it makes sense to quite literally allow the product to be the "hero of the moment."

In a recent report on technology trends for the future, consultancy major Deloitte said that the wearable devices market was expected to touch 250 million by 2018 across the world, driven not only by North America and Europe, but also India. "Approximately 60 per cent of India's population are millennials or Gen Y individuals. We believe this demographic would actively drive the future trend of owning multiple interconnected devices or wearable tech. This demographic typically consists of young professionals and university students and are incidentally a major constituent of India's 'tech-savvy' population," the report said.

Already, smart watches and fitness bands are estimated to have crossed a million in terms of sales in India in 2015, according to technology analysts, and are predicted to gallop even further as these products evolve in terms of functionality. "Pushing the current boundaries from basic messaging and emailing will ensure that wearable devices will become the ideal second technology consumers may purchase," Deloitte said in its report.

In other words, wearable tech could mirror the evolution of smartphones in India, a segment that boomed following a convergence of features that were upgraded at regular intervals. Most big smartphone makers such as Samsung and Apple do not have brand ambassadors. It is the product that takes centre-stage in all their marketing communications, experts say. Titan is doing the same.