Category: ADVERTISING

By Santosh Jangid

In March this year, Titan Company announced that a unique watch was in the works that would offer safety for women. Sonata, the mass market, sub-Rs 2k brand of the Tata’s Titan Company was working on a relatively low-priced watch that could trigger a distress alert to pre-determined set of people.

On Friday, CEO S Ravi Kant and CMO Suparna Mitra – both of the watches and accessories division of Bengaluru-based Titan were in Mumbai to unveil the watch – called Sonata ACT, ACT standing for App-Enabled Coordinates Tracker.

The watch’s makes use of custom-made technology and will interface with the user’s smartphone to trigger distress alerts to a network of designated recipients when needed.

Sharing insights on Sonata ACT, Kant said, “The Indian woman continues to evolve with the changing times. As she faces new challenges and responsibilities, Sonata is proud to present a unique offering for the new-age Indian women. With Sonata ACT, we are extending our offering to women and girls who are seeking new opportunities and are empowered to chase their dreams.”

Sharing her views about the product, Suparna Mitra – Chief Marketing Officer, Watches and Accessories, Titan company Limited said, “Today we launched Sonata ACT. ACT stands for App Enabled coordinates Tracker. This is a different and totally unique product. It’s a great looking watch that has a safety feature embedded. It’s a regular watch but at the 8’o clock place there is a button in case of any kind of situation where the women owner of the watch needs help she can press the button twice and the watch is paired with an app and selected 10 guardians immediately get informed of the fact that she is under some kind of situation and they can reach out and help her. This watch has been conceptualised and executed over the last a year and half with a single objective of trying to do a little bit to solve the Indian women’s concern over safety  and as she goes about the world doing what she has to do as a working women and as a home maker, women need to be out and about and there are issues and concerns about safety and this watch is an enabler and a partner in her progress.”

Priced between Rs 2,749 and Rs 2,999, the watch will be available in three variants through World of Titan stores, large format stores like Central, Pantaloons and Shopper’s Stop, authorised dealers and on the company’s website.

Sonata ACT TVC Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVp_exwO7lU

We also caught up with Suparna Mitra -  Chief Marketing Officer, Watches and Accessories, Titan Company Limited on the company’s marketing strategy and more

On the product:

We have launched Sonata ACT…  ACT stands for App Enabled coordinates Tracker. This is a different and totally unique product. It’s a great-looking watch that has a safety feature embedded. It’s a regular watch but at the 8’o clock place there is a button in case of any kind of situation where the women owner of the watch needs help she can press the button twice and the watch is paired with an app and selected 10 guardians immediately get informed of the fact that she is under some kind of situation and they can reach out and help her. This watch has been conceptualised and executed over the last a year-and-a-half with a single objective of trying to do a little bit to solve the Indian women’s concern over safety  and as she goes about the world doing what she has to do as a working women and as a home maker, women need to be out and about and there are issues and concerns about safety and this watch is an enabler and a partner in her progress.

On the decision to arrive at a sub-Rs 3000 price point:

We thought of this as something that Sonata has to offer which is our mass volume brand. Sonata sells 4.5 million watches every year and so there are 4.5 million Indian consumers who are buying. Smart technology or connected watches typically are coming at very high prices but we were very conscious that this need is not a need of people or women who are at the upper end of the society but in fact the need is greater with middle class women and it is very important that if we are making such a product it needs to be at a very affordable and accessible price. We have three versions all of which are under three thousand rupees. We didn’t want a situation where a woman says, I really like the idea, this is very useful to me but I simply cannot afford because it is priced at 15,000 or 20,000. So Rs. 3000 is still a stretch for many of our sonata consumers but given the technology and utility it was something that we felt was a sweet price point that really opens up and allows a lot of women costumers to access this product.

How Sonata is different from Titan, since they are produced by the same company:

Sonata is a large volume brand. It operates at price points between five hundred to three thousand rupees. Sells a lot in both men and women in small towns and large cities. Titan is our mid market to premium brand. Its price point start from a little less than Rs 2000 and go up to about Rs 25,000. Titan is a more premium brand and has many shades of styles but it also has many sub-brands like Raga, Octane and all of these have their own unique facets.

Change in marketing strategy for various brands:

We go from the consumer out and that is the best way to keep it differentiated. We start with the Titan consumer and then we look at what the consumer’s needs are with respect to products, differentiated designs, technology, etc. Similarly with Sonata, we start with the consumer and the more clear we are about who the consumer is we are serving the more automatically the differentiation comes in both the products, marketing and communication. From a positioning point of view and from a media choice point of view it changes. In this particular TVC that we have created for Sonata ACT, it is going to be all the general entertainment channels, mass genres, regional channels, heavy investment and for Titan we advertise at the airports because that consumer is exposed to a different set of media.