Titan, I suspect, believes strongly that people can be motivated to think and act in this fashion. And the brand's successful usage of Aamir Khan over the last year has been with a definite view to promote the ownership of several watches, subtly and overtly, causing people to match their watches with the clothes they wear.

To step back in time

Titan, to go back in time, was launched in 1987. It was arguably the most significant product launch of that time. While taking on slumbering giant HMT, Titan quite simply changed the way the product was made, sold and bought in this country. People who were used to wearing watches that looked like tawas discovered what wearing a sleek watch was all about. Previously they had to smuggle one in from Singapore, past the eyes of prying customs officials! The customer suddenly discovered he could actually buy his Titan watch in a relaxed and friendly ambience; one that he had been hitherto unaccustomed to.

And the customer also discovered the power of advertising. So much so that he would actually carry the ad with the model number and shape of the watch he desired, to show the sales person at the showroom. Yes, Titan truly changed the face of time in India in every which way.

And then the clock turned ...

Titan had a dream run for several years. Its spirit of innovation guided its fortunes. It pioneered the concept of gifting watches. People gifted watches and only watches to parents, spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends and children. The brand was the market leader by far, and dominated the category. And then, it started to lose its momentum. People got used to the stylish faces and looks of the Titan watch. Everybody seemed to possess at least one. To many, as a gift, a watch seemed to lack the element of surprise. People seemed to be travelling more often than not and were exposed to cheaper, and in some cases, better-looking, watches.

Timex broke up its alliance with Titan and entered the market on its own. Brands like Citizen that had apparently got the Indian market wrong initially, started to come into their own. Every possible foreign watch brand was in the country. Kids seemed to be fascinated with mobile phones rather than watches, and incidentally, these phones showed the time too! As Bob Dylan might say, "The times, they are a-changin' " Titan, it seemed, was becoming the Maruti Esteem of watches. Many of us remember the Maruti Esteem. It was the car that was the aspiration of the mid-'90s manager and executive. Young, successful, upwardly mobile executives drove it; others aspired to own it. And yet the Esteem lost its way amongst a sea of flashier, better-designed cars with slicker images. And the actual reality was that Titan was not resting on its laurels. It launched Fast Track for the youth and Edge, the slimmest watch in the world. Its advertising was still cute but seemed to lack the element of surprise it had earlier.

The onus of promoting the category is very often the leader's; Titan, although equal to the task, was finding the demand sluggish and the task difficult. The reasons for this were fairly simple. The young, upwardly mobile person of 1987 was now middle-aged, and though affluent, wanted to own a Swiss watch. Everyone, however, seemed to be quite happy with his existing Titan watch. This left Titan with two challenges as a leader:

If people could buy a shirt priced Rs 2,000 on an impulse, couldn't they be persuaded to buy a Titan watch in the same price range?

Enter Aamir Khan

Aamir Khan, both as an actor and as a celebrity, is different. He seems to choose his endorsements (and if one may add, scripts) with care. He doesn't do commercials in droves like Amitabh nor choose products randomly like Shah Rukh. Unconfirmed rumours suggest that the original Coca-Cola scripts of the Thanda Matlab ... ads were his. So when Titan chose Aamir Khan as a celebrity it certainly appeared to be that it had made the right choice. More significantly, Titan fired its first serious salvo of nudging people towards matching their watches with their clothes with this commercial.

Aamir, with the help of an initially bemused, and finally completely confused, assistant, demonstrates how to match a watch with the clothes one wears. The initial commercial undoubtedly created an impact. Helping it was the fact that the company had brought out a superior range of watches offering people the option of upgrading this part of their wardrobe. Aamir had clearly brought an edge to Titan advertising that had been missing of late.

Continuing the magic

Obviously, the campaign seems to be working on parameters such as brand salience and recall, not to forget market share. The more recent series of commercials feature Aamir, his now well-recognised assistant and a pretty girl trying to buy a dress. Of these, the one I like the most has a script (albeit a bit reminiscent of the scene from the Kamalahasan film Pushpak), which follows the classic Bill Bernbach formula of `Simplicity, surprise and a smile.' The star-struck girl thinks that Aamir is gifting her a watch, while he is actually buying one to give his mother who has a sari of the same colour as the girl's dress. Notwithstanding its reference to gifting, this commercial too is about matching watches with one's clothes. Titan, it is apparent, realises that selling concepts like these cannot be done overnight. It is an interesting long-term strategy and Titan obviously has hopes that it will meet with the same success as its strategy of gifting.

And what of the future?

Forecasting, as they say is difficult, particularly of the future! Will Titan succeed in its desire to move people towards ownership of multiple watches and actually prod them into matching them with their clothes?

Will people buy into the concept of owning multiple watches from Titan and actually buy some other brand of watch? Will Aamir work equally successfully in markets like Tamil Nadu where even Coke used the actor Vijay?

All of these are interesting questions and as cliché-ridden as it may sound, only time will tell. I believe though, that it is safe to predict that Titan will continue to be successful, even in the face of increasing competition.

The reason is simple. You can either claim to be innovative or actually be innovative. That means the spirit of innovation has to extend to everything your company does in marketing, product design, advertising and distribution.

These are not the best of times to sell Indian watches in India. But Titan, it seems, is more than equal to the task. And having Aamir Khan on your side is not exactly a disadvantage, is it?

(The writer is CEO of Brand-comm.)

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