Adgully Exclusive | Riding high on Rs.1400 Cr kids accessories market: Titan's Somprabh Singh

Also as a part of their promotional activities, Titan Zoop, associated itself with India Kids' Fashion Week 2012 (IKFW), India's first ever fashion event for kids.

On the occasion of India Kids' Fashion Week 2012, Adgully caught up with Somprabh Singh, Senior Marketing Manager - Titan Industries to know more about Zoop and also about their initiatives and strategies.

Speaking about the industry size, he said, "If you look at the kid's accessories' industry it is approximately worth 1400 crores. Accessories include shoes, bags, bottles, glasses and so on, we consider ourselves to operate in the kid's accessories market. Out of this 1400 crore market, 75% is unorganised and 25% is organised. So basically we want to be one of the largest marketers in this space."

As far as branded watches are concerned, in the kid's space, they are the strongest players. He says, "There are many players in the overall unbranded market but we are the leaders in the kid's branded watches market."

Titan has been in the market since ages and yes of course an established player in the watches market and so it is fair enough to say that the "trust factor' and goodwill plays an essential role where investment is concerned. Commenting on whether the trust factor helps consumers while investing or engaging with their product that is watches, Singh said, "Yes, to some extent if we look at the overall brand collection. It is a matter of fact that today trust is no longer a differentiator. But our differentiators have been our exclusive and unique designs and our ad-campaigns. With trust, our key differentiators have captured the imagination of our consumers."

Explaining about the designs and collection in Zoop, he said, "In Zoop we have used Barbie and princess as design inspirations which are internal inspirations for kids and they are always excited for that. We also have tied up with movies, according to which we have designed our watches such as Toy Story. the watches that we designed according to such characters are really attractive and have been a success."

Now the question arises, how they reach to their audiences. Answering that and also explaining their promotional activities, he said, "Television has been a prominent medium for us. Apart from this we have also been active in BTL activities. Likewise we also organized India Kids' Fashion Week 2012, which has been our exclusive step. Also when our collection with "Shrek' was out we actually placed "Shrek' in malls so as to increase more engagement and interaction with kids."

In terms of distribution, the Zoop has robust distribution under Titan itself. Singh told us that they retail through their exclusive stores. Zoop is present in almost 1800 retail stores whereas Titan as a brand is present in around 5800 stores. He says, "We basically want to bridge that gap and Zoop is still a young brand so we are really working hard to bridge that. We want to build the brand first which will help in creating an image also. Also it would help us reaching the specific scale that we plan to."

Speaking about the collection in stores for kids in 2012, he said, "We will definitely have more attractive and exclusive collection for kids. We would also focus towards tying up more with movies etc."

In terms of growth, Singh said, "We are working towards increasing their turnover this year, which is really essential for a growing brand like ours. We would also be looking towards aggressive growth."

In this era of digitalisation and increasing engagement in social platform, when asked about their strategy for the same, Singh said, "We do engage on social media platforms such as Facebook. Also Digital media would also be our focus this year since the effort has not been so high in terms of digital medium."

Singh also told us since the plans have not been finalised for the year so getting into advertising-funded shows would also be a healthy option for them. The key objective, one, is to reach as many consumers as possible as the brand Zoop is at its native stage; then also enhancing their distribution; then working on their products and so on.

Spread across more than 95 models, 'Zoop' from Titan is a range of cool and vibrant watches that stand for fun and youthfulness. Each watch from Zoop's wide array of collections is uniquely designed to cater to a child's desire to be trendy yet stylish and is in line with the brand's unique positioning of "Be Cool". The price ranges from Rs 300 to Rs 599. Titan finds a huge potential in this segment. However, between intense competitions coming in from players in unorganized sector, it is always a challenge for a branded player to become a volume player, while providing a good mix of quality and relevant pricing.

I must say! With such clear-cut objectives and aims the brand is growing at a very systematic pace. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]