FASTRACK Watches
Titan entered into youth segment watches market with its sub brand christened as Fastrack in 1998. The Company has changed the utility of watches in India from a time device to fashion accessory. The launch of fastrack was to bring stylish, trendy and affordable watches for young generation. It hit the market with campaign `Cool Watches' from Titan’. Initially it came up with steel look targeting age group of 22-30 years. Next year the age bracket was reduced further to 15-25 years. Then Digital collection was launched which was marketed as `Too Sexy for Your Wrist'. After this fashion, collection was launched to attract more female audience. For this communication was “Are You on It?’ With the new launch, company comes up new communication mix to appeal to its target audience. This strategy was adopted by company to lure new customers towards brand.
Initial two–three years the brand fastrack had shown positive growth. But in 2002-2003 the growth was stagnant, price was a major concern as brand was targeting youth and they don’t have so much disposable income to buy watches in the price segment fastrack was catering to. That time company decided to target executive class, which was a big disaster as watches didn’t possess executive looks. Therefore, in 2005 company re-launched campaign to capture market. This was done as to rebuild brand image that was diluted with the various experiments done previously by the company. At that time Fastrack was marketed as India’s first youth oriented watch brand.
Previously when titan fastrack was launched it was targeted to youth but in 2004 when company launched sunglasses their focus was diverted and fastrack’s revenue declined. Then fastrack came into new “AVTAR”, (a new model) in which looks and style were given more importance instead of material used in the watch. In their re-launch, price bracket was reduced to Rs 500 – Rs 2000. Huge expenditure was spent on advertising of brand promoting to youth. For brand building fastrack sponsored many college festivals. This helped company in gaining popularity in youth. It also carried out co-branding exercise with youth brand MTV. The new logo and new watches truly presented picture of younger avatr of fastrack.
Recently company came with the campaign The ‘How Many You Have’ this was aimed to target youth nature of seeking constant change, wants more. Then in 2008 company came up with campaign ‘Shut up and Move on’ which appealed to youngsters of not staying committed towards one thing but ready to explore. These campaigns showed how the youth segment is clearly targeted through these advertisements. In this way, company is able to do proper communication to its target audience.
Youth market size of watches makes up to 70% in total of all segments. Therefore, Fastrack is always in the process of bringing something new, stylish and innovative in its segment .In January 2009 it came up with new Army Collection. Iin this segment 20 different styles are launched by company inspired by the grenade, tanks, the sniper etc depicting truly Army image. The company correctly uses its communication mix( use of TV, blogs and outdoor media) to appeal to its target base. By making its watches more affordable, it has proved its corrective implementation of marketing mix.
