With Sonata ACT, we have a very strong proposition: Suparna Mitra

Sonata, the watch brand from Titan Company, has launched a safety watch called ACT – App-Enabled Coordinates Tracker, designed exclusively for women. This safety watch makes use of custom-made technology and will interface with the user’s smartphone to trigger distress alerts to a network of designated recipients when needed. 

Commenting on the launch, S Ravi Kant, Chief Executive Officer, Watches & Accessories Division, Titan Company, said, “The Indian woman continues to evolve with the changing times. As she faces new challenges and responsibilities, Sonata is proud to present a unique offering for the new-age Indian women. With Sonata ACT, we are extending our offering to women and girls who are seeking new opportunities and are empowered to chase their dreams.” 

The Sonata ACT watch is complemented with a mobile application to be downloaded onto the user’s smartphone. By making use of Bluetooth, the watch will interface with the mobile to trigger distress alerts to a network of designated guardians. The alert message will provide details of the user’s location co-ordinates to be sent to the guardians via an in-app alert as well as SMS. 

Priced between Rs 2,749 and Rs 2,999, the watch will be available in three variants through World of Titan stores, large format stores like Central, Pantaloons and Shopper’s Stop and authorised dealers. 

To support the launch, Sonata has come with a campaign that showcases the ease of use of the ACT watch. Conceptualised by Lowe Lintas, the ad film is set at night in a small-town bus station, where two young female athletes meet with a couple. The athletes explain that they are on their way for national selections. Given the late hours, the couple expresses their concern on the girls travelling alone and the husband steps away to get water. When asked about their relatives worrying over them, one of the girls demonstrates the ease with which their loved ones can be alerted. She goes on to explain the features of the ACT watch, wherein the safety function can be activated by pressing a button next to 8 o’clock in quick succession, which alerts a group of designated guardians using the mobile phone through an app. 

Elaborating on the concept behind the Sonata ACT TVC, Suparna Mitra, Chief Marketing Officer, Watches & Accessories, Titan Company, said, “The Indian woman has evolved to take on more challenges and responsibilities. With Sonata ACT, we are offering these talented and multi-faceted women an enabler that allows them to courageously follow their dreams. The latest campaign for ACT is a celebration of the new-age Indian women.” 

“We started off by thinking that whatever said, we have to make sure that the functionality of the watch doesn’t get missed. This wasn’t just a watch, it’s a new concept. And it was important to communicate that. We are all so inspired by the many women in our country who remain focused on their goals, despite the everyday issues they face concerning their safety. We decided to celebrate this resilience through a simple story of two sports women,” explained Rajesh Ramaswamy, Executive Director, Lowe Lintas. 

Watch the Sonata ACT ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVp_exwO7lU

Adgully caught up with Suparna Mitra to know more about the insight behind launching Sonata ACT, promotional strategies, plans for 2017 and more. Excerpts: 

How does Sonata ACT differentiate itself from other similar offerings in the market?
For us, the fact that the safety feature is in the watch is what makes it different. Because a watch is something that people anyway wear and this is a watch which you will wear anywhere – to office or to work, there’s nothing odd about it. It doesn’t stand out by being very different. It’s always on the body and will not get misplaced. And also in case of any kind of an attack, any attacker will first throw away the smartphone. And also during an attack when you are trying to open your phone and open an app, it takes time. But the placement of this 8 ka button is such that when you press it twice, you are taken care of. So, I think it is very well placed. We think this can get a lot more production. Secondly, it is the price point. Had it been priced at say Rs 20,000, how many women who need such a watch could afford it? Thirdly, the watch has been designed as a beautiful accessory, it is something you would want to buy and need it. 

How much time has been spent on designing and manufacturing this watch?
It was almost one and a half years from the time that we identified the consumer need and said we are going to work on it. As Ravi (S Ravi Kant, Chief Executive Officer, Watches & Accessories Division, Titan Company) mentioned, the technology has been developed in-house. There has been a lot of R&D and a lot of trials, a lot of work has been done by the technology team. Then there was the app development and then the testing. So, a lot of work has happened over the last one and a half years.  

Please tell us about the promotion and marketing plans for the ACT watch. 
We have come out with a TVC which will run on mass TV channels as well as regional channels. We have one ad film where there are athletes from Haryana. We have also done a Bengali version, and then we have done a Tamil version to really bring out that regional nuance. We have made a strong push for the regional channel because that’s where our consumers are. And all this is supported heavily on digital; the same ad will also run on digital media with some innovations around the power of 8. We feel that there is a huge possibility of it becoming viral. This particular product ad is something that I as a woman would like to know what has happened to 10 of my women friends and post it on Facebook because this is something useful; I’m not just pushing an ad. This apart, we are also doing activations, and innovations on radio where we are tying up with a radio channel to have that 8 pm – 8 am, again taking 8, which is also the time that women feel most unsafe, and get the RJs to talk about this watch.  

What was the brief shared with the agency?
We have a very strong proposition in the product. We were very clear that we wanted to give out a message of positivity and progress and not something related to panic or distress. That is why the creators have chosen to show the two female athletes, who are doing what they need to do and pursuing their part and typically they might feel a little nervous. So now we know that we have to be careful, you cannot be careless. This is adding to my feeling of being able to reach out to anywhere. 

Sonata being a mass brand, how are you strategising to grow the market share? 
In the mass segment, there are many needs, many priorities, and price points are very important. We feel that we are actually the only big branded player bringing changes through product innovations. and this is one. Every innovation need not be about a technology innovation, it could also be style innovation. It is only by adding more and more value to the product that we can really gain market share and that’s what we are currently looking at.  

What are your plans for 2017 in terms of revenues, market share, sales? 
We still are working on it and haven’t fully finalised our business plans. But it is all in the area of offering differentiated products to consumers. Our products have to make sense for the consumers. For instance, the ACT watch addresses the need for safety of women. Simply loading lots of features in a watch doesn’t work; people buy into the concept and I think that is the part which requires a lot of thinking. 

Meanwhile, when asked about the growth drivers for the Sonata ACT watch, S Ravi Kant replied, “I think the biggest growth driver is the attractive price. When you launch a product, you have to create demand for it. I think the best thing about this product is that we don’t have to create demand, we only have to build some awareness. The moment the consumers, especially women, are aware of this kind of a product, they will definitely go for it.  

Continuing further, he said, “We could have easily priced the watch at Rs 5,000 and it would have still sold. But we want to reach out to as many women as we can because of their need. I think the external growth driver is really the need for a product like this which is not a safety device, because women in India have been waiting for such a product. It’s a discreet, normal looking watch and will not alert any attacker that the lady is carrying a safety device. Thus, the external driver is really a need which is already established, we don’t have to create that need, we only have to build awareness. From our side, the biggest growth driver would be the device itself.” 

Campaign credits: 

Agency:

Created by: Lowe Lintas

Chief Creative Officer: Arun Iyer

Executive Director: Rajesh Ramaswamy

Group Creative Director: Ujjwal Kabra

Account Management: Hari Krishnan, Sudhir Rajasekharan, Parshuram Mendekar, Debanooj Das, Nivedita Biswas

Planning: Ajay Ravindran

Production:

Production House: Absolute Productions

Director: Anaam Mishra

Executive Producer: Prafull Sharma

Producer: Barkha Sawhney

Director of Photography: Avinash Arun

Music: Pankaj Awasthi

Cast: Vivek John &Inhouse

Post Production Head: Jigar Joshi