Brand Update : Is Titan's re-positioning worth it ?

The recent campaign of Titan featuring the "farewell to the professor" was very well received by the audience. Across the media, there are columns talking about the brand rediscovering the joy of gifting. As we know that the brand exploded into the market as the perfect gift that you can give to others. 

Watch the ad here : Titan Prof 

Although the theme of students spontaneously singing in the class is a not a new idea ( remember Airtel's HFZ campaign), the execution of the ad was perfect.The re-introduction of the signature tune was also well appreciated and brought in some nostalgic memories about the brand.

The interesting question is- if reports to be believed that Titan has truly rediscovered the Joy of Gifting, then what happened to 'Be More' positioning ?

In the TVC, the tagline of Titan is shown as " The Joy of Gifting" . So one can safely assume that the brand has re-positioned to its old platform based on gifting. 

I initially thought that the campaign which began during Christmas was just for the occasion but news report suggest otherwise.

Was it a right move to discard the Be More campaign ??

Be More campaign which was heavily promoted using Aamir Khan was a good proposition and matched the premium positioning of Titan. Aamir also fitted perfectly in the entire positioning campaign. After building up so much over the positioning, I think it was unwise for the brand to ditch a positioning for which it has invested so much. 

Regarding the gifting proposition, although it had helped Titan to gain a prominent position in the Indian watch market in the past, has lost its novelty.

Be More was a powerful platform which offered the brand lot of scope for creatives and also had helped to connect the brand to a higher order attribute . From that higher order attribute, the brand had slide down to a object that can be gifted. 

While 'Be More' campaign clearly talked about the user - that the user of Titan is one who wanted to grow, suddenly one finds that the brand stopped talking about the user and started talking about the object. Brands investing so much in building a positioning and then ignoring it for no reason has now become a common feature which will hurt the brand in the long-term.

Titan Company : Rebranding to a Lifestyle Brand

Corporate Brand : Titan Company

Brand Analysis # 531

Titan Industries was born in 1985 as a joint-venture between Tata Group and Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation. Titan Industries introduced Titan Quartz watches to the Indian market in 1986 and virtually transformed the Indian watch market dominated by the likes of HMT and Allwyn. 

With smart branding and some cool advertisements, Titan Watches quickly became the market leader and had created a strong premium image in the market. Titan Industries later build various brands targeting different segments in the Rs 4000-4200 crore Indian time-wear market ( source : Business Standard)

Titan Industries' brand portfolio consists of 

Fastrack : targeting youngsters

Tanishq : lightweight jewelry 

Sonata.: Low priced

Xylys : premium end

The Titan brand adopts a sub-branding strategy where various sub-brands target various segments in the market. The notable sub-brands are   Titan Raga, Titan Zoop,Titan Edge, Orion, Purple, Obaku, Tycoon, Bandhan, Octane, Automatic and HTSE series. ( source : Titan Website)

Titan Industries also diversified into jewelry with the brand Tanishq and then to eye-wear with Titan Eye+ brands.

This year, Titan Industries decided to rebrand itself as Titan Company Ltd. According to news-reports, the name change was to signify the corporate brand's movement from a watch company to a lifestyle company. The company leaders thought that the term " industries" now is not relevant in the firm's new directions.

The current corporate rebranding of Titan Industries to Titan Company has also given a new logo for the corporate brand. The new brand elements were designed by the famed agency Ray + Keshavan.

The current rebranding has also an interesting offshoot. Now there are two brands - Corporate brand Titan Company with its own logo and the watch brand - Titan with another logo. Newsreports suggest that the watch brand will retain the existing logo and the tagline - Be More. Since the Titan Watch brand is the most recognized and recalled brand, I am not sure how the name change of the corporate brand will help build a lifestyle image. 

Titan Industries started with a single brand- single product company. The initial portfolio strategy was to build a branded house where all the product ( watches ) had the same brand name ( Titan) which incidentally was the corporate brand. The brand architecture was to have sub-brands targeting various segments. This strategy was changed with the introduction of brands like Sonata , Tanishq etc. Fastrack which was launched as a sub-brand later became an individual brand.

Hence over the period of time, Titan Industries' brand portfolio became a mix of House of Brand and Branded House strategy. There were  many individual brands in the portfolio, at the same time bulk of the mid-range watches were endorsed by the corporate brand - Titan. Titan brand was also used to endorse categories like eye-wear .The company also plans to include categories like fragrances in the near future.

With the launch of a logo and name Titan Company, it is to be assumed that the company now wants to develop a corporate brand different from the watch-brand.  The issue here  is that both the brands are the same. 

Confusing isn't it !