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Retail Management Project World of Titan and Fossil

Kshitij Varma Roll No. 39

8/6/2014

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Titan Company Ltd. (formerly Titan Industries Ltd.) is an Indian designer and manufacturer

of watches, jewellery, precision engineering components and other accessories including

sunglasses, wallets, bags and belts. It is a joint venture between the Tata Group, and

the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation. Titan is the world's fifth largest wrist

watch manufacturer and exports watches to nearly 32 countries around the world. Some of

the well known brands of Titan include Fastrack, Sonata, Raga, Edge, Octane, Xylys, Titan

Eye+ and Tanishq, Goldplus, Zoya.

With a retail footprint across 177 cities, 26 states, 3 Union Territories and a total retail area

of 1395712, Titan Company has stores for Watches under World of Titan, Helios and

Fastrack; Jewellery under retail brands Tanishq, Zoya, GoldPlus and Eye Plus for multibrand

eyewear.

WORLD OF TITAN

With over 320 stores and presence in over 130 cities, the World of Titan is India's largest

watch retailer. The world of Titan stores offer customers the finest and largest range of

Titan watches under the same roof. It has an offering for everyone - across different styles

ages, price points and brands. The wide range of watches, delightful store ambience and

unmatched service ensure customer satisfaction. In keeping with the rapidly evolving trends

in retail, Titan has also opened flagship experiences in Mumbai and Delhi. Its amongst the

largest chains in its category backed by over 700 after sales service centres. The company

has a world-class design studio that constantly invents new trends in wrist watches.

EVOLUTION OF TITAN

Back in early eighties Tata group entered the watch segment with Xerxes Desai to lead the

team of this consumer durable goods segment. Visual merchandising and store layout were

very much at the stage of "decoration" if any, and neither the brands nor the retailers saw it

as important. The watch store was narrow and not designed properly and the location

basically was in traditional markets of the city. There werent excusive showrooms,

company preferred to sell through wholesalers. Titan entered and radically changed the

retail scenario for this industry.

Accuracy of time and technology was changed lot to sell the product. Titan expanded from

200 models to 350 models for customer to choose from. Company decided to make watch

segment also a lifestyle by making different unique styles for its watch.

Back then there was no importance given to presentation, and therefore no attempt made

at it. Titan brought in the concept of retailing into the watch market, established a network

of fine showrooms which would later become the world's largest network of exclusive

watch stores. These stores not only helped Titan to gain leadership substantially, but also

irrevocably altered the retail landscape of the watch market through a demonstration effect

on the traditional dealers. Company saw Advertising as an important tool of creating sales

and brand and from day one it is been on toes and been advertising its product.

Today Titan watches account for more than 60% share of the total Indian market and are

also sold in about 32 countries through marketing subsidiaries based

in London, Aden, Dubai and Singapore. Titan offers various brands including Steel, Regalia,

Raga, Nebula, Sonata, Fastrack, Zoop, Orion, Purple, Obaku, Automatic, Tycoon, Bandhan,

Octane and the HTSE series. Titan has claimed to have manufactured the world's slimmest

wrist watch branded as Titan Edge with a total thickness of 3.5 mm and a movement of

1.15 mm.

In July 2011, Titan launched the HTSE (High Tech Self Energized) collection of watches which

run on light. According to Titan, these watches can be charged with as low as 200 lux of

light, which makes them chargeable with light even from a candle. On 16 November 2011,

Titan Industries acquired Swiss watch maker Favre-Leuba for Euro 2 million.

RETAIL FORMATS

The World of Titan is a Speciality Store selling watches however the product offering also

includes Fastrack Sunglasses, wallets and leather belts. Titan launched its first retail format

for watches in 1987, which is now called World of Titan; the company operates 475 retail

formats across watches and jewellery. Besides the new formats, Titan operates Tanshiq,

Gold Plus, World of Titan and Titan Eye+.

Further, in each category, the company has catered to every consumer segment by

launching different retail formats. For instance, in watches, World of Titan outlets cater to

mass-middle class segment, Helios will cater to premium market and Fastrack is for the

youth.

STORE POSITIONING

The World of Titan store has watches for every segment: Titan for the premium segment,

Fastrack for the trendy youth, Sonata for the mass market and Xylys, the Swiss made watch

for the top-end market. The store also sells two international fashion watch brands, Tommy

Hilfiger and Hugo Boss, along with the Fastrack range of sunglasses.

There are watches of every possible style from those featuring the latest Swiss designs to

those with an Indian heritage pattern, to those intricately set with gemstones and gold. The

amazing range of watches and eyewear, the store ambience and the knowledgeable

customer relations officers ensure that not only do you buy what you need but also leave

the store feeling good.

Over the past two decades, the World of Titan chain of exclusive watch showrooms has set

new standards in retailing. It has midmarket stores with wide appeal, catering to middle-

class and upper-middle-class Indians. The store stocks the finest and largest range of

watches. The company is very innovative in presenting new products and launches new

collections from time to time. In the past one year, it has brought out the Heritage

collection, inspired by heritage buildings of India; the Aviator series, inspired by World War

II aircrafts, and the Octane series, the chronograph, multifunction and retrograde watches

with international styling. Older collections such as Edge and Raga continue to have a strong

presence.

VISUAL MERCHANDIZING

Visual merchandising can be defined as the display of products in order to sell the products.

Visual merchandising includes various aspects to be effective such as store floor plan, store

windows, merchandise display, space design, hardware fixtures and many more. Visual

merchandising helps in educating, attracting and informing the customer about the

product/service being provided in an effective and creative way. It makes a customer roam

around the store to find novelties. It helps in building a store image. The arrangement gives

easy access to merchandise.

The shoppers are affected by the atmospherics created at a store. The customer can be

displeasured if he/she did not like the atmospherics created. The customers sometimes tend

to decrease their arousal for buying a product based on factors like music played in the

store. So the retailers have to be extremely careful while creating store atmospherics. In the

service environment the interior colours of the store create great deal in the nature of

mood to be created. Visual merchandising may sometimes tell too much about itself making

the customer form his own opinion towards the product. In order to avoid such things a

retailer has to be very careful on the visual display based on the product or service.

The coverage of VM can be divided into four main segments, which are:

Exterior Presentation: If we talk about Exterior Presentation, most World of Titan

stores use exterior signs, billboards, Awnings and Displays as it can be seen from the

image below.

Store design and layout: If we talk about store layout, it is using Angular, Geometric

and Mixed floor plan for most of the stores.

Store Interiors: As a store theme, World of Titan is characterized with light music

background, odour, lightning and colour scheme.

Interior Display: As an interior display, Titan is using Fixtures & Hardware and

Mannequin.

Although the visual merchandising done is self explanatory the company has to concentrate

on making it easy for the customers to differentiate each series and sect of products which

will be based on various factors. We could find from the analysis that the customers were

not able not able to understand the differences.

ADVERTISEMENTS

Through the 1990s, the company introduced several collections and sub-brands for different

segments of the market. Though innovative and appealing, the marketing and

communication efforts of these sub-brands were not integrated. Initially, they were

advertised under the mother brand, but with the development of the market, it became

necessary for TIL to develop separate communication and marketing campaigns for its sub-

brands.

When the first Titan quartz range was launched in March 1987, it was accompanied by

heavy advertising. The first advertisement described the Titan quartz as the international

watch one could pay for in rupees. Later campaigns emphasized that to find such watches it

was not necessary to go to Europe, Japan, America, or a duty-free shop.

Titan's advertising campaign has complemented its products. The company advertised

watches as a style statement and was the first to publish their prices. The campaign brought

home the fact that people need not go abroad and pay in dollars to buy a good watch. Titan

also made the shopping experience for its customers exciting and interesting by introducing

well-designed showrooms. This was a retail innovation which has helped protect the

company against competitors.

To a large extent, Titan has been successful in enhancing the presence and acceptance of

most of its sub-brands. The varied offerings to diverse segments with a clear cut positioning

strategy have been instrumental in sustaining the market share of the brand. Titan's

strategy to project watches as part of one's personality, and not just as a functional product,

had also gone down well. Titan has always followed a strategy of serving the entire watch

market by offering different variants/sub-brands to each market segment.

The above image is a print ad created for the Titan Raga series for women, by Ogilvy

Bangalore for Titan. This ad campaign was launched in early 2012. The TVC shows Kaif in her

usual vivacious avatar gearing up for a weekend trip when she gets a text from her

counterpart which reads that the trip will have to be postponed since his flight has been

cancelled. Kaif's face turns morose for a bit but she soon gathers herself up, wears a Titan

Raga on her wrist,picks up her luggage and storms out in her car, with much elan. She goes

to her mother's place and asks her if she has any weekend plans. Surprised to see her

daughter at her doorsteps, the mother agrees to accompany Kaif for a road trip where the

two share cherishing mother-daughter moments with a track, 'I don't know where I'm going

but I like the direction', setting the right mood. The car swooshes by, leaving the tagline -

Life is Now!

EXPANSION PLANS

The Indian market is estimated at 25 million watches a year, with 50 per cent being sold by

the organized sector. Titan is the runaway market leader, with domestic sales of 6 million

watches a year. There are 190 million watch-owning Indians; between them they own about

210 million watches. Urban India accounts for 120 million of these watches and 90 millions

are on rural wrists. More men than women own watches in India, and more working women

than housewives own watches. It is the rural segment within this diverse market that Titan

is now looking to tap. The key to success is getting into the rural market on a larger scale.

The companys Sonata range is targeted at rural customers, and is part f a strategy where

the alignment of price and reliability are crucial. The rage costs betweenRs.495 and Rs.1200

has showrooms exclusively for it, and is sold mainly in small-town India.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Fossil Inc. is an American designer and manufacturer of accessories and clothing,

predominantly into watches and jewellery but also into other complementary products like

handbags, wallets, belts etc. Fossil Inc. has a number of other brands under their umbrella

like Relic, Abacus, Burberry, and Emporio Armani.

Two brothers Tom Kartsotis and Kosta Kartsotis, the founders of Fossil, hold 30% of the

companys stock. They named the company after their fathers nickname. Founded in 1984,

the Fossil brand was the springboard for everything the company has become for more than

a quarter of a century. Fossil has a commitment to American vintage inspiration. This

commitment has allowed for a strong retail presence globally, with more than 400 retail

locations, 4,000 wholesale locations and 13,000 employees worldwide.

Alongside the Fossil Brand, the company is constantly developing its multi-brand portfolio.

Their diverse portfolio of world-class brands gives them a unique position in the global

marketplace. This global foundation has allowed for sustained growth which propelled Fossil

into the S&P 500, marking its place among the 500 leading publicly traded companies in the

United States.

PORTFOLIO BRANDS

The following brands are under Fossils portfolio in its multi-brand operations:

MICHELE

ZODIAC

RELIC

BURBERRY

EMPORIO ARMANI

MICHEAL KORS

MARC BY MARC JACOBS

DKNY

KARL LAGERFELD

TONY BURCH

DIESEL

ARMANI EXCHANGE

ADIDAS ORIGINALS

WATCH STATION

SKAGEN

RETAIL FORMAT

Fossil sells products through a diversified distribution network that includes department

stores, specialty retail locations like travel retail, specialty watch shops like Watch Station as

well as e-commerce/e-tailing. Domestically, they sell their products through a diversified

distribution network that includes department stores, specialty retail locations, specialty

watch and jewellery stores, Company-owned retail and outlet stores, mass market stores

and through the FOSSIL website.

Internationally, their products are sold to department stores, specialty retail stores and

specialty watch and jewellery stores in approximately 150 countries worldwide through 25

Company-owned foreign sales subsidiaries and through a network of over 60 independent

distributors. Internationally, our network of Company-owned stores included 214 retail

stores and 87 outlet stores as of December 28, 2013. Their products are also sold through

licensed and franchised FOSSIL retail stores, retail concessions operated by us and kiosks in

certain international markets. In addition, we offer an extensive collection of our FOSSIL

brand products on our websites in certain countries.

STORE POSITIONING

The Fossil brand has carved a niche for itself in the minds of the consumers as a premium

brand providing high quality watches at affordable prices in multiple locations across the

world. Fossil watches are a very exciting product on the market in terms of both fashion and

technology that they incorporate into their designs. Fossil watches are designed with the old

school or retro look which works extremely well for the brand and this has been its driving

force over these many years of existence.

BRANDING

Over the years Fossil has changed its brand image; however the globally-recognized Fossil

brand is rooted in authenticity and a

distinctive Modern Vintage design

aesthetic. At the heart of Fossil Inc.'s

success is a commitment to fostering

creativity and delivering the best in

design through its core businesses.

In 2001 a brand strategy team was put

together with the goal to collect research

data internationally as well as

domestically. The research goal was to determine consumer impressions of the brand,

confirming points related to relevance, positioning, quality, appeal, and overall knowledge

of the brand. Also it sought to find out what the important underlying touch points were

among the targeted consumer group in each country. The deliverable was to develop a new

direction that did not belie the strength of the established branding but rather redefined

that heritage in a new, relevant way that took current cultural and fashion trends into

consideration as a way to unite and communicate the diversity that the brand now

represented.

Thus the current brand was created with the vintage and retro look which was the signature

style of Fossil watches. The tag line read "What vintage are you?" and several combinations

of the same brand image, logo, tagline, graphics, colours etc gave the brand a very retro

look.

ADVERTISING

Fossil has their own in-house advertising

department which works on design and execution

of advertising, packaging and sales promotion. They

use extensive computer programs in order to make

their ads more creative and less time consuming. As

far as advertisement goes, Fossil's theme is "aim at

evoking nostalgia for the simpler values and more

optimistic outlook of the 1950s through the use of

images of cars, trains, airliners, and consumer products that reflect the classic American

tastes of the period. These images are carefully coordinated in order to convey the flair for

fun, fashion, and humour which the Company associates with its products"

Fossil developed advertising programs with all

its major retailers and developed visual

support through its fixtures and signs.

Consumers were given multiple promotional

items like T-shirts, unique tin boxes, pens etc.

In many locations Fossil started a

"shop-in-shop" which included

promotional merchandise and Fossil products

as part of its sales promotion strategy.

VISUAL MERCHANDISING

Fossil's style draws its inspiration from vintage creative culture and mid-century modern

design. The atmosphere is described as comfortable and inviting, with an ambience

reflective of Fossils authentic and friendly personality.

The music in the shops background was playing evergreen music from The Beatles to Indie

or upcoming singers or groups like Snow Patrol, Hoobastank or fun music from Sheryl Crow.

All these choices of music are just like their fashion style/ design Evergreen, Upcoming and

Fun.

The flagship for the American

lifestyle brand features a fluid

sequence of spaces that are

differentiated by lighting,

materials and fixtures.

In this store alongside, the interior

is organised around a central five

metre table, composed of steel,

glass and white lacquered wood. The table defines the mens and womens areas, and

supports flexible displays for both sides.

The 'watch room' is located beyond a white powder-

coated steel wall and is visible through panels of fritted

and frosted glass.

Special attention is usually given to the watch display

strategy. The result is an atmosphere of understated

luxury and warm natural materials, featuring exposed

cedar planks, fabric covered drum light fixtures, and a

ceiling of corrugated metal deck.

The stores faade features cold-rolled

steel with maple infill panels, materials

that project a warm industrial face to the

street and convey the sense that the

storefront is in fact a fixture itself.

EXPANSION PLANS

Globalization is our first key enabler to the growth of Fossil, and central to their strategy,

with Asia being integral to their growth strategy. Last year, Fossil grew its Asia business by

more than 20%. Their strong performance in key markets like Japan, Korea and China, and

the success of their concession business is an indication of the current strength they have in

the Asian marketplace. In 2014, they have plans in place to continue our expansion. Asias

rapidly growing middle class has an affinity for watches and jewellery, and in particular,

their portfolio of brands. This opportunity in Asia, combined with the significant talent and

infrastructure they have developed, has them well-positioned to meet their goal to

eventually grow Asia to one-third of their total sales. As Asia also represents their highest

margin region, it is a high return opportunity for Fossil as well.