Speaking at the launch of Tanishq’s latest festive collection, Ajoy Chawla, CEO, Jewellery Division, Titan Company Limited tells us that the brand is looking forward to a bumper Diwali and a far better festive season than last year
Indian jewellery brand, Tanishq recently unveiled its new festive collection – ‘Utsaah’ along with a festive campaign to celebrate the festival of life, amid the uncertainties caused by the pandemic. Ajoy Chawla, CEO, Jewellery Division, Titan Company Limited speaks at length about the new collection, the campaign and the brand’s expectations from the festive season, during the launch event.
“It has been a very topsy turvy year. Not just for all of us, but for the entire world and for humanity as a whole. But what we are seeing is, through these ups and downs, we are all very resilient. If you go back, at the beginning of the calendar year, everything was looking hunky dory and consumer sentiment was up and weddings which were deferred were getting celebrated. And we thought we had conquered the virus. And then of course, we went through what was truly a heartbreaking next few months in which we realised how fragile humanity can be in the face of these challenging times. And just when we thought that it would take a while for our sentiments to recover, we have seen India bounce back. We then saw the Olympics being celebrated and now as we speak, we have the IPL on and so many things are happening. So the uncertainty, the volatility, and the fragility of everything that we experience has only brought us closer to say the present is only real, everything else is in a way fictitious or it is yet to come.”
Sharing insights from Tanishq’s recent studies and elaborating on the objective behind the launch of Utsaah, he explains, “When we did our consumer sentiment and cultural intelligence study, we were very surprised to see the mood swing so dramatically. The one thing that stood out for us is that if last year was a lot of nostalgia then this year it was about – we don’t know about the past, we don’t know where the future will be but what we have right now is the present and make the most of it. Celebrate the ‘now-ness’ that is what customers told us. The other thing that we noticed post unlock after the second wave is that a lot of people are celebrating. First of all, there was some amount of deferred demand which we saw the benefit of. Certainly jewellery as a category gained in terms of wallet share since people had not spent on many things. And of course, there are always weddings – so there is always an opportunity to buy jewellery in anticipation for these events.”
Stating that Tanishq is for the modern and progressive Indian woman who wants to express herself in a discerning and yet in her own unique manner, Chawla articulates the features of the new collection. “Our design team has come out yet again with an outstanding collection – ‘Utsaah’ after the enthusiasm that we are seeing by customers for celebrating today. These designs are created from traditional motifs, great techniques of Karigari, of intricate workmanship, whether it is filigree, whether it’s a hint of enamel, whether it is geometric shapes, motifs, which kind of are inspired and come out from our very great heritage, Yet, all of those have to be very wearable. All of these have come together in very modern interpretations of silhouettes, so that the modern woman can express her style uniquely, in her own way. Therefore, this collection in a way captures all of that. And most importantly, it is very wearable, lightweight and exciting.”
He also observes that the sentiment of living in the present and looking at life itself as a celebration is what Tanishq has captured in the Utsaah campaign. “The campaign also picks up from the same threads. Our study said that people were finding comfort in the present reality, no blind hope of resuming pre-pandemic life but instead, a hyper orientation on the present to rebuild life. Less nostalgia hangover, and certainly finding comfort and reasons to celebrate today. So with a diminishing past and a slightly uncertain future, all of us realised the importance of celebrating the little joys of life. Finding comfort in the now and celebrating the now. And Diwali is that kind of festival which brings out the smiles, that happiness and the celebratory feel in all of us.”
Speaking about the brand’s expectations from the festive season, he remarks, “Our hope and expectation is that this season should be better than last year’s and last year’s season was definitely better than the year before. And from whatever we glean from the various reports that have been published in some leading publications where it is clearly said that a lot of customers are interested in buying gold this season, diamonds as well. But certainly the larger proportion of people are interested in buying gold. Our own consumer sentiment survey corroborates some of those findings and there is a lot of positivity. Even when I was at the India International Jewellery Show (IIJS), the sentiment amongst the entire industry was very positive. Many of the vendor partners and people from different jewellers in different parts of the country, all seem very happy with what they are seeing and what they’re expecting to see. In fact everybody probably is hoping for a bumper Diwali. We don’t know how it is going to be but the hopes in the industry are very high as well, difficult to predict but we can only say we hope to see a fantastic season ahead and we are prepared and planned so that if the sentiment continues in this positive manner, we should be in a position to fulfill the demand.”
