DEFINING BRAND FROM PARENT BRANDS

Another way to look at the Titan watch brand would be to understand how it nested within the larger scheme of the parent brands. Tata has many different brands of which Titan Company Limited is one brand. In the same way, today the Titan Company Limited has multiple brands of its own within which Titan Watches is one brand. The nesting exercise helps look at the companies from a zoomed out view and helps form an understanding of how each company is positioned within its larger parent brand.

Tata has several brand portfolios, of which Titan Company Limited is the ‘Lifestyle Product’ division. What this means is that if Tata has to make watches, backpacks, jewellery, accessories, shoes, clothes, etc then they would be made under Titan Company Limited. Essentially everything that you ‘wear’ on your body from the Tata Company comes from Titan Company Limited. Likewise, Titan watches is one out of four other watch companies within Titan Company Limited and is positioned to make the mid to high range priced watches. While each company that stems out of a parent company will have some points of similarity, it is the differences that will be most important to point out. Looking at the brand design of each of these, we get better clarity to where Titan sits.

The Tata logo was designed by Wolff Olins, and the branding design for Titan Company Limited was handled by Ray and Keshavan. By reading more into the branding design we can lay out some defining attributes. This was further interrogated, mapped and organized as shown on the next pages.

Figure 125. Titan Watches 2018 Attributes

Having aggregated a whole list of keywords on speaking to people from within Titan, it was now time to speak to people outside the organization to ask them what they felt about Titan Watches. Sometimes the stories we create within the company take on a life of their own outside, and including users early in the design process helps to get a ‘third eye’ on the design efforts of this kind.

As the keywords rolled in, an attempt was made to group them into bigger buckets. At this stage in the process, it was thought that brand ressolution, would set a tone of voice (establish a personality), be indicative of the company’s promises and reference the company’s rich history. Thus this is how the key words were grouped.

Titan’s tone is embodied by the people who work at the organization, their communication through media platforms and the feel that is designed into the experience of walking in to a Titan Store.

At the heart of the Titan promise is integrity. It is integrity that inspires trust from users. Consumers opt for Titan products because they can be relied upon. Titan entered the jewellery space and organized it to a point where a 7 step test allowed a great level of standardization and transparency. Honesty is a big part of the package - material used with be mentioned as is. One won’t think that many companies would be able to market an 18k gold watch with as much ease as Titan does.

The company’s history is testimony to the sheer tyranny of scale that Tata is known for. Tata is looked at globally as an Indian powerhouse. Having been a pioneer in different industries, Titan was also one of the first companies to introduce the 8 hour work day and medical benefits for its employees.

Having just read Lovemarks by Kevin Roberts, formerly CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, there was intrigue surrounding the the question of how one can make brands that people love. This wasn’t about thought. It was about seduction!

In the book, Kevin Roberts talk about how most successful companies fell on the left left corner of the page on the left. The products created by these companies does what it says on the packaging - they are high quality, with good performance and readily available. But their adoption was susceptible to price, innovation and new entries. Brands, he reasoned, create loyalty for a reason. Lovemarks, on the other hand, created loyalty beyond reason, discount, benefit or attribute.

Perhaps ‘love’ as Kevin Roberts puts it, wouldn’t work the wonders in the way the book talks about. However, it was about time that one began thinking of how to work seduction in the brand DNA of Titan. This was thought of by infusing the brand with mystery (through good storytelling), sensuality (by allowing for a greater experience though the senses) and intimacy (by leveraging how our species anthropomorphizes objects). This is marked by red triangles on the next page.

Figure 128. Lovemarks 2018 Titan Plan of Action