By Saloni Dutta
Deepika S Tewari, General Manager, Marketing, Jewellery Division, Titan Company Limited, tells us about the marketing strategy for Tanishq, emerging consumer trends and appealing to the progressive Indian woman with contemporary collections of jewellery
Q] Tanishq launched the Iva 2 collection recently, along with a few others. What is the USP of these launches and what marketing activities supplement them?
As a brand, Tanishq talks to the progressive Indian woman. Our brand communication is constantly engaging with her and trying to understand her needs in the jewellery category. The emerging modern woman is wearing more Western clothes, more gowns and dresses. So the regular, traditional jewellery doesn’t necessarily fit into her occasions and events. The birth of the Iva collection was after noticing these trends. It comprises pieces made of semi-precious stones and is for occasions where a woman wants to feel and look like a glamorous diva. Its prices start at Rs 15,000. While buying a dress, women spend anything from Rs 50,000 to a lakh and to complete their look, they want to go for a coloured stone that matches the dress. The Iva range offers several colour options and it is very modern and contemporary. We kept a close eye on the Paris and Milan Fashion Weeks to understand the colour trends and remain in touch with what is happening around the world. The new Iva 2 collection succeeds Iva 1 and both the collections have a distinctly different colour palette. This time around, the collection focuses on tropical colours and jungle prints, with a lot of tourmaline, greens and yellows, as yellow is in trend this season. So, Tanishq follows the latest fashion trends in its designs.
Q] You have signed Kangana Ranaut as brand ambassador. How will it impact the brand’s prospects?
When we launched Iva 1 we had Deepika, and had clubbed it with Race 2, and we had all the leading stars of Race 2 endorsing it too. Iva to me is fine fashion, it is glitz and glamour and we need somebody who is a style icon to speak for the brand. And recently in a Karan Johar show, Kangana Ranaut was touted to be a simple girl who is emerging to be very well groomed, looking great and carrying herself very elegantly. So she was the perfect choice to wear the Iva collection, and make people understand the space and occasion to wear Iva.
Q] What are the fundamental principles of your marketing strategy? How have your marketing spends changed over the last year?
We always want to inspire and influence the progressive Indian woman, we want to lead her thinking and be part of her progress. We always question what is it in our communication that will inspire her, make her feel that we have told her something new and change her life in a way? That is our basic marketing principle. The budgets differ according to the challenges and the task at hand. Our marketing spends more or less remained the same from last year.
Q] Tanishq set up shop in India with an aim to challenge the family jeweller system prevalent here. How successful have you been?
We have been very successful. We have 166 stores in 86 cities. We are India’s largest and most well distributed jeweller today, and to be accepted and be part of cities like Haldwani, Gorakhpur, Allahabad itself says that yes, this is a journey well done.
Q] What are the brand’s plans for foray into the international market?
We are not present in international markets. We are just going to enter the Gulf and Middle East, with Dubai.
Q] What verticals are doing well for Tanishq? How do you differentiate marketing efforts for each vertical?
Diamond is doing extremely well, traditional designs in the wedding space are doing well, Inara as a collection did well. The purpose of each of these collections is different and hence the matrix of measurement of what is doing well differs. For example, Iva has to influence and is aimed at changing behaviour and introduce a whole new category, whereas the wedding collection is really to be a part of the wedding system in the country, diamond is to get people to buy more diamonds. As far as the task of each of these segments is concerned, they are doing really well and building the brand collectively.
Q] Tanishq has become synonymous with the path-breaking advertising it did last year with the remarriage ad. What do we see in terms of advertising this year?
Keep breaking paths! Each task has to be delivered well and nothing can be taken forward and imitated or repeated. If something needs to be done to deliver the task at hand, it needs to be done.
Q] Tanishq is quite active on the digital front. What are some of the latest initiatives undertaken by the brand on social media?
The brand is doing superb on digital. For our Mia collection, we do ‘Mia My Expressions’, with a lot of co-creations with the customer. There is ‘Confessions of a Bride’ that we did for wedding collections. Moreover, there is engagement and content like blogs to influence and inspire customers. Iva is going to have Anaita Shroff as a lead designer talking about the Iva look on all our digital pages. Digital now is as good as Print and Television. Recently, we did a social media campaign for our Zyra collection, collaborating with popular bloggers to run a contest called ‘Zyra Sparkle Hunt’ where readers stand a chance to win jewellery pieces from the Zyra collection itself. Jewellery pictures were posted on the blogs and the readers were asked to guess the name of the flower, design and colour which inspired the making of that particular piece. We also promoted the activity on Twitter. We asked users to pick the maximum words from a given set of words and create a rhyme with Zyra and the most creative rhyme wins. We have seen a significant response with more than 650 comments on the Tanishq blog within eight hours of the campaign going live. We also received more than 1,300 Twitter mentions for this contest.
Q] How has the customer profile evolved over the last decade for Tanishq?
There are a lot more customers. Instead of profiles, we discuss mindsets, and I really think that there is a kind of mindset that Tanishq attracts – people who are looking for transparency, purity, contemporary, modern and yet looking for something that is rooted in tradition. That mindset is evolving and increasing. So we are not really about breaking, but about re-moulding, re-forming, re-presenting and a lot of that is happening around us.
Q] What is the brand’s current marketshare in India?
It is 8% of the organized jewellery segment.
Q] How does the brand approach Tier II and smaller markets?
We are very warmly welcomed in smaller markets. We recently opened stores at Gorakhpur and Allahabad. We have done business of around Rs 50 -100 crore in these small towns. We had an article written on the evolution of Gorakhpur by somebody who had visited the city after many years and the person mentioned the opening of Tanishq store as one of the symbols of change in Gorakhpur.
Q] What are the emerging consumer trends and future opportunities for Tanishq in India?
With this stable government, people should look at investing in adornment and jewellery again. So we are hopeful. Like the country says ‘Achhe Din Aane Wale Hain’, even we are looking forward to good days. The jewellery market is one of the fastest growing segments in the Indian economy, with the consumption of gold and jewellery products in India increasing rapidly over the years. It will continue to do so over the coming years. The coloured gemstone sector is also a fast-growing segment and is evolving day by day. Change in consumer preferences have pushed jewellers to experiment with new age and every day wear designs. Women are now opting for lightweight, stylish jewellery pieces over typical gold and diamond jewellery.
CMO FILE
Deepika Sabharwal Tewari joined Titan Industries Limited in 2012 as General Manager, Marketing, Jewellery Division and is responsible for Tanishq, Mia, FQ and Gold Plus brands of jewellery. She has over 20 years of experience across various categories, tackling different marketing challenges through marketing, advertising and communication. She started her career with marketing roles at Vadilal Ice-creams and Milton Plastics and later moved to advertising. She spent most of her career with Ogilvy & Mather in the Mumbai and Bangalore offices. She was a Senior Business Head managing marquee brands like Asian Paints, Ponds, Allen Solly, IDBI Bank, etc. She is a Commerce graduate from Mithibai College and has a Masters from Welingkar Institute of Management Studies.
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