SMITA PAWAR A-41

REPORT ON
FASTRACK WATHCHES INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

Titan Industry
Titan Watches the integrated Marketing Communication Strategy Indian Watch
industry is estimated to be around 1600 crores and Titan is riding on top of it with a
market share of over 60% and 5th largest watch manufacturer in the world.
During 1987 that time Indian watch market was dominated by HMT . At that time
watches were styling was very basic and not known, very limited range of models
or limited choice for customers.
Titan saw the opportunity n it came up with quartz watches and built its line based
on quartz. Titan decided to make stylish watches and came up with 350 models in
the initial stage. 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.
Titan has kept innovation core to its strategy, realizing fully that the only way to
sustain the fashion accessory perception is by continuously coming out with
collections that make the current ones somewhat dated, thereby creating a certain
discomfort in the consumers' mind, which leads to another purchase. This impact
has shown up in every one of the collections

History of FasTrack
Timex had entered the Indian market through a joint venture with Titan and which
was their offering for the youth market.
When that JV broke off in 1997 and Timex went independent, there was a gap in
Titans portfolio and it only made sense to fill that need through their offering.
Fastrack was launched as a range of watch ware under Titan and was called Titan
Fastrack.
There is a reason why the brand story has been scripted for FasTrack. Titan, which is
15-years-old as a brand, has moved up the age spectrum. Many Titan customers
have now become parents. Their children respect Titan, but they do not buy the
brand. Titan is aware of the trap and is strategizing to attract new customers in the
market. So, FasTrack is being positioned to bring the new and young Indian

customer into the company fold. This would provide an opportunity to convert them
into classic Titan customers in the long run. FasTrack is the fashionable face of
Titan. And it is now building an identity for itself unlike Classic or Royal. The
company has identified the youth segment - youth by age and youth by attitude aged between 18 and 30 years, as the core audience of FasTrack. These customers
are bold, individualistic, non-conformist and fashionable. It marks Fas Tracks growth
from being a product category to a sub-brand of Titan.
FasTrack first hit the market as Cool Watches from Titan. It came with a frosted
steel look and was targeted at customers in the age bracket of 22-30 years. In later
years, FasTracks focus shifted further down the age spectrum, to those between 15
years and in their early 20s.

Relaunch of fastrack
However, kids didnt like to be serious and sober like their parents. Fastrack needed
to break away and hence changed the logo to bring in a youthful, spontaneous,
energetic and fun identity and also removed Titan from the upfront association in
the logo.
They however, kept it at the bottom, saying its a Titan product. This helped carry
the assurance of the trusted Titan brand. They also stopped using the Mozart tune
in advertising

Fastrack was launched with new products, a new identity, new advertising and a
new logo in June 2005.
The year took off so well that they ran out of stock very quickly and ended the year
with a 150 per cent growth and the demand was growing continuously.
Next year, they recorded another 100 per cent growth
When re-launch was started, Fastrack brand was worth about Rs 29 crore but
however they have grown almost ten times of that over the last three years.

This resulted in the Digital Collection (communicated as Too Sexy For Your Wrist)
that included big, bold and techno-kind of watches. Later, it came out with the
Fashion Collection, mainly aimed at wooing more female customers. The latest Are
You On It? campaign is an effort to showcase the subtle changes in FasTrack.

Fashion, which is contemporary, and couched in the desire to live life to the hilt, is
touted as the main thrust of FasTracks branding initiative. The company looked at
the different attributes of fashion - sexy, individualistic, irreverent - but finally
decided to build on the work hard, play hard platform. It reflects the balanced
attitude of the youth today.

If FasTrack is on a customer, it must form an impression and make others ask about
it. In terms of product attributes, FasTrack is identified as bold, bright, elegant and
as something that stands out. In its new avatar, FasTrack will reach out to the
customers differently from the way Titan does it.
Its media plan covers television music channels, select magazines and a significant
online presence. On the retailing front, it hopes to be present in youth hangouts,
which include the leading music shops, and also in some Internet cafes. This is apart
from leveraging Titans extensive retail network covering about 92 cities and urban
centers in the country.

Integrated Marketing Communication

Its very difficult to create and maintain loyalty as loyalty in fastrack target audience is a very
different construct. There is absolutely no reason for them to come back to Fastrack tomorrow if
they have bought a watch or accessory today, and if something else has caught their fancy. There
is so much of pressure on that pocket money be it tech product or fashion accessory as the
market is flooded with those. Unless each brand is reinventing product or communication
constantly, there is no reason for youth to come back to the brand.
Fastrack uses many other ways to promote itself in many other ways.

advertiis
ng
interactiv
e
marketin
g

direct
marketin
g

sales
promotio
n

marketing
communicati
on channel

word of
mouth

events
and
experien
ces

public
relation
personal
selling

Advertising

Print media: The print media have always been a popular advertising medium. Fastrack
keep giving its advertisements in lifestyle or youth magazines and sometimes when they
have a new collection or some special offers they also put it up on newspapers.
Outdoor advertising: Outdoor advertising is also a very popular form of advertising,
which makes use of several tools and techniques to attract the customers outdoors. The
most common examples of outdoor advertising are billboards, kiosks, and also several
events and tradeshows organized by the company. The billboard advertising is very
popular however has to be really terse and catchy in order to grab the attention of the
passers by. And the fastrack billboards can be found put up all over Delhi
especially at places like the north campus university area on the main
road which the company knows that it is a youth centric area and since
that is their target segment it puts up there. the brand also does trade
shows during the festival area which a key rule to their promotional
strategy through which hey engage the youth and make them aware of
the brand.
Broadcast advertising: Broadcast advertising is a very popular advertising medium
that constitutes of several branches like television, radio or the Internet. Television
advertisements have been very popular ever since they have been introduced. Fastrack,
the accessory and wrist gear brand from Titan, is unfolding its digital marketing strategy
spanning the Internet and mobile. The company has chalked out a multipronged strategy,

including the launch of an interactive website, the use of communities on social media
sites like Rout and Face book, search marketing, viral videos and mobile campaigns to
generate buzz about the brand. Fastrack did not have an official website earlier, but has
made live a new website, www.fastrack.in, which it will launch officially in January
2008. The site represents a virtual college campus. Apart from product information, the
site enables visitors to participate in various contests and polls. It will feature user
generated content (UGC) in the form of blogs, to write which visitors have to register
themselves. The objective (of the site) is to establish a dialogue with the young audience
and there are plans to roll out UGC based contests in the near future. Other than the
website, Fastrack has also ventured into social media, where it is trying to engage with
the youth. Two communities called Bikers on the Fastrack and Life on the
Fastrack have been created on Face book. Both groups feature Fastrack products and
showcase its latest Bikers Dont Cry TVC, apart from discussions among its
members.Blogworks, the consultancy which handles the social media responsibilities of
Fastrack, has developed its brand page on Facebook. The company is supporting Fastrack
related communities such as Fastrack Rocks on Orkut by sharing pictures and content
with the members. This is all part of digital marketing.
Celebrity advertising: The latest ad featuring Genelia D Souza and Virat Kohli, in the
lift and in airport showcases the wacky nature of youth. They have been appointed as the
brand ambassadors of fastrack bags and sunglasses.

Public relation
Through different mediums of publicity fastrack has found a way through which they are in
constant touch with their consumers as well as potential consumers. Fastrack which has achieved
a perfect between STP and therefore they have maintained a balance.

Titans Fastrack launches PR 2.0 campaign

Fastrack has launched a new line of new biker accessories including its Bikers range of eye gear,
and the no hands Neon disc range of watches and rugged bags. Apart from the ad campaign on
TV featuring John Abraham, they have embarked on leveraging the social media, making
Fastrack one of the few companies in India to take the lead on embracing PR 2.0.
Fastrack has come out with the Fastrack social media news room for bloggers. They are using the
newsroom to share information and news on Fastrack. It also features social media press releases

(Bikers and Neon Disk), Flicker streams of Fastrack gears, social bookmarking buttons, videos,
media coverage, product and company information, spokesperson profile, RSS feeds, and more.
For the consumers, Fastrack has launched two Facebook groups called Life on
Fastrack and Bikers on the Fastrack, which have 121 and 71 members already, as on yesterday.
The groups have attracted so many people in such a short time.
Fastrack main site not the usual corporate stiffness but an attractive and very consumeroriented featuring contests, fun stuff, opinion polls among others. They plan to follow up with a
Twitter part as well.
Its good to see corporate in India waking up to the new web 2.0 oriented media space of today,
otherwise many corporate outside the IT vertical usually do not have a clue about the whole
peer-to-peer thingy or have some vague misconception about it. Fastrack has taken a lead on this
front with this and it will be interesting to see how much benefit they are able to derive out of it.
Corporate globally have been using the social media, read these corporate blogging case studies,
to benefit for their businesses. There have been small organisations that have used the social
media as a cost-effective way of competing their rivals with huge marketing communication
budgets. In India, only a few seem to have gone on this route. Fastracks initiative is a good start
that will encourage others to follow.
It also works as gift promotions. Though titan sees watches as a gift promotion tool and provides
its customer as a gift purposes .whereas fastrack using a tag line how many do have? showcases
thats since the students who are low on income but want to be in league with the fashion,
fastrack is an affordable fashion accessory brand for fastrack target market.
It has launched MyExBox, an online campaign where users can post videos that communicate.
The month long online campaign is based on the Fastracks theme Move On and encourages
users to vent the reasons why they had to dump someone or something and move on. According
to the company, the most viewed video of the week wins Fastrack Merchandise and also a
chance to get featured in a Fastrack TV commercial. This makes the campaign go viral as users
share the videos with their friends to get more views.
Sales promotion

Sponsorship this a great tool used by the company in order to create a buzz about the
brand. They would help in sponsorship to the students during the festival time where they
have their target audience and can promote their brand at a great height .by sponsoring it
shows the customer the trust that the brand can levy upon it.

Promotion through contest they have an on going contest on facebook the most
fashionable profile picture and who ever wins it get free fastrack merchandise .this has
been a hot pick among the youth this summer .also during college fest they have contest
and games in which they distribute the merchandise as gifts.

Push strategy- Fastrack has now pushed past the horizons into newer areas - bags, belts,
wallets & wrist bands - as part of its mission to offer the youth everything they need to be
cool! Now serving up its vision in six different flavours, enough to fully packed store,
fastrack has chosen to 'move on' and throw open the doors of its own stores for its young
consumers. The brand store is all set to cater to every need of today's youth as a complete
accessories destination having all fastrack gear under one roof. The brand is using
different mediums and is pushing through the consumer through social mediums where
the youth has the most presence. Communication by the manufacturer is not only directed
towards consumers to create demand. A push strategy is where the manufacturer
concentrates some of their marketing effort on promoting their product to retailers to
convince them to stock the product. A combination of promotional mix strategies are used
at this stage aimed at the retailer including personal selling, and direct mail. The product
is pushed onto the retailer, hence the name.

Fastrack uses the pull startegy as its products are available in local retails shops as well as the
exculsive showroom of fastrack and world of titan too .

Word of mouth marketing since the brand is so youth oriented that person to person
marketing really helps .they have online chat rooms and blogs which are constantly
updating about the brand. The customers are also able to give their feedbacks through this
medium.

Communication Model AIDA

AIDA is a communication model which can be used by firms to aid them in selling their product
or services. AIDA is an Acronym for Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. When a product is

launched the first goal is to grab attention and that is what fastrack did by introducing a mid
price range of watches for the youth which were affordable as well as created a fashion statement
for the youngsters. Once we grab attention we held Interest, through promoting by getting virat
kholi and genelia dsouza as brand ambassadors and coming up with new ranges every half
yearly. The third stage is desire, to make the product desirable to the consumer which was done
by introducing new accessories by the brand like it introduced bags belts wristbands and
sunglasses at the nominal price range .The final stage is the purchase action, and the company
has been successful with its strategy and the target customer has purchase the product.
CONCLUSION
For any company to reach the peak in todays competitive era, has to use each and
every component of the promotional mix.
By understanding FASTRACK we can say it the company is using its promotional mix
in an effective and efficient manner. That is the reason why FASTRACK is the market
leader and one of the most valuable brands in the whole world.
FASTRACK has carefully created a market for itself through careful segmentation
and branding strategies. The impact of the integrated marketing communications
transformed watches to time machine, a necessary equipment to carry to a style
statement, a sophisticated machine to emotional attachment.
It is a brand that showed the world that Indians are good in Branding