“Consumers are our biggest inspiration and we keep changing our product designs based on their feedback” said Suparna Mitra, CEO, Watches and Wearables, Titan Company Ltd during her talk, “Nurturing Product Innovation in the Normal,” at the 17th WiseViews Interactive Webinar Series, hosted by ICFAI, for the benefit of students and working professionals
She started her talk by explaining the process of product design process and how Titan approaches it. “Meeting the aspirations of customers is the foremost goal for Titan. We are always in touch with the customers to understand how they feel about the Titan products and what changes they are expecting.”
Transformation efforts
Suparna Mitra gave a real life example of how consumers reject a product. In 2018, Titan came up with an economy range brand Sonata Act with a security feature embedded in it. They thought that the product would be a big hit with women. But, the product failed, and in the review, the officials unanimously felt that they were offering a Draupadi solution to a potential Durga .
Mitra explained that the wide range of Titan watches undergo frequent changes based on the changing needs. She mentioned some famous products — Titan Edge (slimmest watch from Titan which won the prestigious Reddot award), Fastrack (based on new themes like animals and textures), Fastrack Reflex (with a dual tone design), Raga brand for women which is promoted with a #flaunt your flaw), Titan Pay (India’s first digital payment watch powered by SBI Yono), and many more. Mitra also stated that Titan amended their Raga and Fastrack brands based on collaborations with Masaba and with Coca Cola.
Changing needs
Answering to a query in the Q&A session, Mitra observed that the immediate challenge is to address the shrinking attention span of the promotion of various brands. "The theme of the product must be communicated in the first 6 seconds of the commercial otherwise the purpose would be lost," she added.
The webinar was moderated by Prof R Prasad, Director - Academic Wing, ICFAI Group and Prof Sudhakar Rao, Director – Branding, ICFAI Group. About 250 participants including entrepreneurs, research Scholars, prospective students registered for this event, which streamed live on Facebook.