Brand Track: Fastrack

Fastrack: Launch and Initial Positioning

By 1998, Titan was one of the most trusted brands in watch segment. But, Titan had moved up the age spectrum. The youth associated the brand with their parents and stayed away from it. It was missing out on the 450 million potential segments for which it had no market offering. Titan recognized the need in the watch market – a resonably priced watch for the youth between the age group of 15-25 years. Fastrack was launched in 1998 as a sub-brand of Titan. Then it was spun off as an independent brand targeting the urban youth. Fastrack entered the market saturated with international designer labels-like Citizen, Seiko, Swatch, Casio, Timex - but managed to carve a niche for itself in the youth accessories market, with designs that are refreshingly different, casual, eclectic and fun clubbed with prices that do not burn a hole through the pocket. Fastrack was promoted with the slogan ‘Cool Watches from Titan’.

Repositioning

During 2003-2004 the brand went in for a repositioning targeting the executive segment as well as the casual watch segment. It backfired and the brand sales came down.

In 2005 the brand went for another repositioning exercise with a new logo and a new positioning. They adopted the famous break-away positioning of Swatch and decided again to target the youth. But for this they had to break the price barrier. The brand discarded the steely look of the watches and looked at a mix of steel and plastic. It was a perfect cut copy from the strategy of Swatch.

Fastrack then promoted itself through a 360 degree media blitz through television, outdoor, events and promotons to change the perception of watches as a functional tool to a fashion accessory.

Since then it has carved a niche for itself with designs that are refreshingly different and affordable. During 2005 Fastrack also extended its footprint and in the last 4 years has quickly notched up the title of being the largest sun glass brand in India.

Fastrack has strongly associated itself with the youth. Its tagline ‘Move On’ speaks volume about its branding strategy. Targeted at Generation Next, the brand captures the essence and philosophy of today’s fun loving, free spirited youth through the new positioning encapsulated in a tongue in cheek colloquial phrase-‘How many you have’

Fastrack has now chartered into newer categories- bags, belts, wallets and wrist brands. It has now a vision to become a complete fashion brand for the youth. Fastrack has moved on to open its own stores for its young customers. The stores are positioned as a complete accessories destination with all Fastrack gear under one roof. The first store was opened in early 2009 with a vision of 50 such stores by 2010.

Strategy Analysis: (Period- 1998-till date)

So, Fastrack was positioned to bring the new and young Indian into the company fold. This would also provide an opportunity to convert them into "classic Titan customers" in the long run. The promotional campaigns showed “Cool Watches from Titan”. It marked Fastrack’s growth from being a product category to a sub-brand of Titan.

Fastrack: Digital Watches

Initially it was a steel design look targeting age group 22-30 yrs. Then the age group was reduced to 15-20 yrs. After this it came up with a digital collection which was marketed as    “Too sexy for your wrist”. But this was not it, because it was not the intention to keep Fastrack as a sub-brand. They wanted to establish it as a separate big brand which had a story of its own. This needed more penetration into the target segment. It used aggressive marketing strategies to make more impactful emotional connect with its target audience. It hit the television channels with this new mega campaign “Are you on it” using the independent brand status of Narain Karthikeyan. The main thrust of Fastrack’s branding strategy was “FASHION”. It leveraged on this by creating a range of aspirational products for the youth. It also leveraged on Titan's extensive retail network covering about 92 cities and urban centres in the country. Its media plan included music channels, select magazines and a significant online campaign.

Fastrack Watches: After re-launch in 2005

Titan as a brand does not play much in the price below 1000 because it is the brand sonata which takes care of that. But moving to lower price points of the fashionable youth brand came at a time when it wanted to penetrate more into the domestic market because its international market was eroded in by other competitors in the price segment above Rs. 5000. While Titan as a company accounted for 60 per cent of the organised market by volume, its share by value was just about 50 per cent in the wake of some erosion. Global names made an impact in the high-value segment of the overall organised watch industry pegged between Rs 1,200 crore and Rs 1,300 crore annually. So it was this huge effort to make up in the domestic market by catering to the most potential growth segment. Also higher prices put the brand beyond the scope of purchase of several youth. So the efforts continued for establishing it as an independent brand by combining the watch and eye gear business. They allowed the price to be determined by the dynamics of the youth segment rather than being guided by the imperatives of the Titan brand structure. For this it used the new evolving style icon, John Abraham, for its ad (eyewear).

Brand Track: Bingo

ITC’s Bingo brand of chips was launched on 14th March 2007 at a time when the market was dominated by the Frito Lay group. They had a plethora of brands like Lays, Kurkure and Uncle Chips which collectively held 50% of the market share. The Haldiram group had 25 % of the market share. Ten months after ITC entered the category with its wafer snack brand, Bingo, it had grabbed 16% market share in the branded snacks category across the country.

Bingo’s success story is about how a combination of leveraging synergies, building on consumer insights and high decibel advertising can win the game. The company leveraged its existing distribution network and relationship established with farmers. Its earlier foray into categories like atta and biscuits had already given it access to the supply chain.

Once this decision was made, a cross-functional team of eight individuals were sent across the country for a thorough research into the snacking habits of the Indian consumer. After travelling to 14 cities and speaking to more than 1,000 people, the team came back with an insight that Indian consumers were looking for novelty and excitement in existing snacks.

The team found that while vada pavs and samosas still sell vada pav with cheese and paneer-filled samosas, or for that matter, tomato-flavored khakra were the ones that excited the Indian consumer. Based on this information, the company decided to look at chips with innovative flavors.

For the recipes, the company went to the chefs in its hotels. The chefs came up with 16 flavors with innovative twists like bindaas masti chaas, chatkila nimbu achar and tandoori paneer tikka-flavoured potato chips, chilli and tomato-flavored mad angles — inspired by khakras — and other snacks.

Let us look at the analysis of Bingo’s branding strategy using the 4Ps: - 
1. Product - Assortment of flavours and eye catchy packaging.

2. Price - Pricing Strategy.

3. Place - Widespread availability at big and small retailers across the country.

4. Promotions - T.V. Advertisements, Viral Marketing.

1. Product 

Bingo! positioned itself with its Indian flavors such as Tandoori Paneer, Tikka, Spice Paneer etc. For the South Indian market, Bingo! had flavors such as Chatkila Nimbu Achaar, Achari Masti etc.

The segmentation was mainly done on basis of the age of the people. The primary target for Bingo is 18-30 year old people, who are willing to try out new flavors more easily than the small kids. 

The initial offerings from Bingo include an array of products in both Potato Chips & Finger Snacks segment. The Potato Chips offerings comprise of four innovative variants inspired by the snacking habits of different parts of the country as well as Masala, Salted and Tomato flavors. Additionally a dairy option has also been introduced under the potato chips offering.

The offerings under the Finger Snacks segment are equally unique presentations with innovative finger foods like the pakoda inspired Live Wires, Khakra inspired Mad Angles and the specially developed time pass snack in the form of Tedhe Medhe. Each offering under this segment is available in two variants making it a total of 6 products in the Finger Snacks portfolio. 

Packaging- ITC has done the packaging such that the product attracts the buyer. Apart from it has also launched packs with different quantity keeping in mind the specific consumer demand.

2. Price 

Initial pricing of ITC bingo is a direct frontal attack on Frito Lays with pricing of Rs 5, 10 and 20. Now Frito Lays has launched small packs of Rs 3 each. It needs to be seen whether ITC can leverage upon its huge distribution network to counter this.

3. Place 

ITC has adopted a Market Challenger strategy with the launch of Bingo! and has chosen a combination of flank and frontal attack against the market leader Frito Lay’s. The Company has distributed more than 4 lakh large racks, to display the brand at all points of sale. The racks created so much impact that even competitors like market leader Frito-Lays introduced its own version of wafer racks. Within six months of the launch, Bingo was available in more than 2,50,000 retailers across the country. 

ITC has made a strategic alliance with Future group according to which all retail stores of Future group like Food Bazaar, Big Bazaar, and Kishore Biyani’s Fair Price etc will stock only ITC’s Bingo. HORECA (hotels, restaurants and cafes), entire cigarette distribution network including betel shops are being used to distribute the product to a wide range of consumers. Initially Bingo sponsored many Bingo Remix nights in various clubs as well.

4. Promotion 

T.V. AD Campaign: Bingo’s launch was strategically timed around the World Cup to cash in on the tremendous popularity that such leisure and cocktail snacks would find among cricket lovers in the country. The idea was to get the consumer to take that first bite. Not only the flavours but also the advertising was supposed to have an Indian touch. Within a month of the launch of the initial advertisements, 70% of the viewers could recall the brand thus capturing a share of the mind of the consumers. Brand recall along with 16 flavors in three SKUs helped ITC to capture 16% of market share in just 18 months.

The advertising strategy used humour to sell Bingo. Bingo!’s advertising follows the AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action). The clutter-breaking ads with their slapstick humour and irrelevant themes garnered enough eyeballs to create awareness of the product and generate an interest towards the product in the minds of consumers. The ads are simply insane & nonsensical to the point of being bizarre & utter crap. And that is why they are so funny. This resulted in high product trials.

What’s interesting is the fact that Lays uses a brand ambassador approach with the celebrities having mass appeal such as Saif Ali Khan, Juhi Chawla & M S Dhoni whereas Bingo has managed to do well without one. It still doesn't have an ambassador.

Viral Marketing: It has recently developed its first viral ‘petkapaap.com’ for ‘Bingo Mad Angles - Achaari Masti’. In the short span of five days, this interesting viral has already got a view of 25,000!