The Hindu Business Line : A compass of one’s imagination

You’ve seen him several times in the ad on television — running on a beach, go-karting, sitting with a trucker, playing the fool with a child, meditating … so what’s Aamir Khan up to in Titan’s latest TV commercial? Be M ore, says the tag line. A watch, explains Harish Bhat, COO (Watches), Titan Industries, is a compass of one’s imagination and the ad conveys that thought — that while consumers lead a life steeped in reality and humdrum chores, their imagination could actually run amuck. “When you wear a watch you are trying to express yourself through it; you and I live many lives in our dreams. The reality is the lives we lead but in our imagination we may want to be an actor or a race car driver. A watch can perhaps make those parts of your imagination come alive,” says Bhat.

So, its recent offering Octane is designed to look like the dashboard of a racing car, while its earlier collection Aviator is redolent with memories of combat aircraft. Here design, he says, plays a crucial role since it helps express that imagination.

Suparna Mitra, Global Marketing Head, Titan, explains that the results of a nine-month consumer study to understand the soul of Titan were assimilated in the Be More commercial, shot by Prasoon Pandey of Corcoise Films for ad agency O&M. “We found that consumers, apart from a vertical progression in their careers, want to expand horizontally; they want multiple dimensions to their identity and do more with their lives.”

So, the watch, she says, while an accessory, is also a living ticking thing on one’s wrist and something a user sees many times during the course of a working day and can be the spur for a flight of imagination. Titan has used the watch dials and shapes to fuel this imagination and weave stories around its collections. “In the ad Aamir is encouraging viewers to seek more than there already is, explore the unknown, recall your childhood dreams and asks you how come you don’t dream any more?” explains Mitra.

Adds Santosh Desai, CEO, Future Brands, who undertook the study along with Titan and the resultant positioning, “A watch can be an instrument of exploration to connect with different aspects of your persona; from being a functional keeper of time it can be an expression of yourself and connect at a deeper emotional level.”

While consumers don’t express or articulate these thoughts upfront in any study, the inferences after decoding their thoughts were clear, explains Desai. “Design must tell a story and that is something we will see more often in the future,” he adds.

And a thought that will gladden the hearts of Titan’s award-winning designers such as Neil Foley and Abhijit Bansod. As Foley says, “Earlier we were trend followers but now we want to be trendsetters; design has now been integrated into Titan’s core and become very much part of business decisions.” However, as Bansod says, it’s only going to get more challenging with technology, attitudes, materials and lifestyles all ever shifting.