Kunwarbir Singh

hi deepanshu

01:02 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

hi, i have been following insideiim for quite sometime, the good thing that you are doing is focusing on the right content. you are giving real stories and relevant information which helps people make the right choices with respect to career,

01:03 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

what you can do better is to slowly diversify, tap into the larger world outside the MBA circus, since those lines are blurring, focus on platforms like konversations. what i got from the audience at hard rock cafe was that most of them already had a good job or a profile that one would get post MBA, they dint know how to leverage it, i think we need to push that agenda with insideiim - make people see and do more with what they have currently. MBA isnt the be all and end all of the career spectrum

01:05 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

hi karan, thanks for being here

01:05 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

titan skinn was relentless work and toil man, it was a new brand, still quite new, 4 yrs old in a market which has been consuming fragrances for 100 s of years, ( will use shortform in chat, pls dont mind) - skinn was hard work, long hours, extended sessions in the market, buyers, channel partners, internal teams. took a while to build that brand typical fmcg parlance - jo dikhega woh bikega - had to ensure that product is visible and available at max stores to ensure offtake

01:07 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

luxury marketing is exploding in india at a crazy pace, we have luxury cars, luxury homes, luxury goods, lifestyle products, luxury bathroom fittings, liquor, you name it and everyone wants to come to india, the latest trend firstly is for luxury brands to cash in on the indian hype - to capture the attention of the rich indian consumer

01:08 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

in part maybe, other wise not, india is a funny country we are one of the few markets in the world that actually are a major consumer of hard spirits, a la whisky and rum and stuff. most other markets - europe, usa, latAM, are heavy on beer and wine. north prefers whisky, east is heavy on rum , south india consumes whisky and brandy and rum in equal measure, urban india drinks beer - so yeah depends on how you cut the market up, overall its a whisky market, be in royal stag or johnnie walker

01:10 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

luxury and lifestyle is quite different, at titan the overall idea was to narrate product and legacy - which is what tata and titan hold dear, here at USL - we are a lifestyle product company and we enable good experiences, - hence the communication language, tone and manner we undertake has to always depict the same luxury marketing will always be larger than life, convey the wow factor, all the comms will be about wow ing the consumer into spending way above his rationale allows him/her to

01:12 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

there are standard rules, - without divulging much since i dont know the scope in the public domain, that allows each liquor brand in this country to create a surrogate brand extension - be it soda, music and cd's, events . experiences etc that are basically used to advertise in stead of the brand. that is a regulation by the govt. for all ABOVE THE LINE communication - tv, print, etc. for all other direct communication, if you are at a point where liquor can be consumed or purchased, i can market to you, within certain constraints

01:15 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

hi, i actually have not made the strategy yet, i joined when the strategy for this year was already made, i will be making the one for next year, it is a long process, takes about 2 months, maybe in our next konversation i can tell you about it

01:15 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

so t b h, skinn is a splendid product, i think titan spent a good amount of resource in getting the product bang on , it is an excellent french made perfume and the economies of scale that they wanted to bring to india allowed us to price it at less than 1000 INR when we launched, it wasnt luxury, it was affordable premium segment, my product skinn at the time was thrashing davidoff ck etc, liquid to liquid. - other aesthetic items like comms, brand building, mental recall, takes time to build, which titan will do a brilliant job of in the years to come

01:18 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

it doesnt, we do not bother with spurious liquor sales, that is the govt s responsibility an job

01:18 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

but it is a big market, let me tell you that, there is a large part of india, huge market that is drinking spurious and shouldnt be, just from a health perspective. it will be great if the system can provide for 100% legit alcohol in the country

01:19 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

tesla marketing works on hype. tesla in 14 yrs of existence has technically only had 3 product winners - not mind blowing for any auto company - roadster , model x, model 3 . the rest of it is rub off effect of its prolific founder - elon musk

01:21 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

the derivative value benefit that tesla is delivering isnt incrementally great from any other electric vehicle car company - tesla overall does a lot more than just sell cars, so yeah, its a deep rooted product company where the philosophy market s itself

01:23 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

okay, so tesla makes cars, solar panels, automotive parts and a bunch of other things, read this sometime https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/tesla/

01:25 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

its not low cost, its optimum cost, since davidoff had other constraints the pricing in india domestic isnt right. and their scale isnt anywhere close to where skinn will operate at, that gives us a price advantage, though with a 1000 INR perfume we really want to upgrade a FOGG deo user, who wants more bang for his buck

01:28 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

marketing watches in india is really easy, flaunt value of watches here is considered to be very high, indians are used to accessorizing their wrists so there is no mental block there. in an earlier era it was easier, since there was status, fashion quotient and other factors now the product has to be the hero, each watch someone buys or wears needs to say something abot the wearer, so titan tries to improvise, narrate some story or exude some persona of the watch owner that resonates with him/her - raga is a brilliant example in this case . where the product story, in comms and the woman who buys raga, seem to go hand in hand

01:33 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

hi karan, sorry i missed this, i actually dont know, i stumbled upon luxury marketing, but whoever i know in luxury marketing today has started their career from sales, retail sales or luxury sales, in some form or the other, without sales you cannot understand the market or the consumer, or their ability to spend so much money on things you and me might feel do not matter

01:37 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

a retail role in LV, or selling luxury cars, or maybe real estate, or lifestyle products can be a good beginning i feel - luxury marketing is slow, takes time to build, results are long drawn and delayed but there is light at the end of the tunnel

01:38 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

titan, i know on good authority is competing very well with smartwatches, infact, titan already launched the fully enabled smartwatch juxt, juxt pro, and under fastrack they have launched activity band called reflex which is flying off the shelf embedding tech at the heart of watch making is what will create the perfect hybrid and that is waht all watch companies are attempting to do

01:39 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

titan cares a lot, more than you and me can imagine, they are working on some things, i forgot to mention, even sonata, which is their mass range watches are also getting tech and smart into it. they have a safety watch for women for rural and semi urban india and each of them are working more deeply to embed tech

01:41 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

not at all sir, data is the language we speak. i am talking to you in english, the marketing language we speak inside office is all data driven, not just big data, even small data, in a consumer goods company there isnt so much big data, we have consumer info, product info, and market info, thats all, but we talk data ONLY. nothing else chuck marketing, nothing can stand on its own, without data at the centre of the konversation

01:42 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

that segment has seen a tremendous explosion, there are over a 100 brands that sell watches in india, costing above 10000 going upto 50 lakhs, there is a lot of brands there but no volume, very high value but no volume, however, the market is there for the future, there is technically only one indian watch making firm and titan has a very small share in the segment, rest are all inlt brands, titan will take time to create premium watch market for themselves, till such time they will need to collaborate and win, which is what they are doing with certain brands

01:45 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

haha, well you win some you lose some. not saying its the best product, and they will need to set the tech right, but yeah, going forward it will get better, not to say the MI band doesnt have problems, i used three MI bands before moving to GARMIN who is a master in this dept of fitness bands

01:46 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

offline marketing is more important, luxury marketing in india works only on BTL - direct marketing, - you find and hunt and chase down your HNI guy, and specific targetted digital online communication, a guy who chooses to buy or ends up buying LV bag or a ferrari, doesnt do so because he saw a TV ad about the brand, he does so because he happened to experience the brand within a very personal space and thats the job of luxury marketing, to get in to that space

01:48 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

that was actually all french, it was technically india s first french TVC, not sure how well it did for them since i was not with titan when that aired, but i thought it was a fair attempt to communicate the ethos of the brand, that is is french, but is made for india the fact that you recall the same is a slight win for the ad in itself i would like to believe

01:49 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

indian daaru at month end - foreign liquor rest of the month - depends on payday. each win for different reasons. but daaru is only good and enjoyed in moderation. we should all learn to enjoy drinking. just a little bit, sometimes,

01:55 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

your consumer needs to fall in love with a story, and that story has to have your product at the heart of it, this is a constant, no matter what you are selling, even if you are selling yourself in an interview or a chat room

01:56 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

nothing as such sir, marketing terminology are dead as we see it, i read kotler in mica, in 2011, not one word from there i have used in six yrs, all words are digital now, SEO was cool in 2010, now the word of 2017 is bitcoin and block chain, so yeah, language is changing faster than we can learn, we can only catch up

01:58 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

true, product has to be 100% of the story, gone are the times when product was 50% and story was 50% - now product has got to be 100% else the consumer with the power of the jio enabled internet will rip you apart

01:59 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

cheers, appreciate the opportunity team insideiim gives me

02:02 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

dont have a drafted one for 2017, currently its tu tera dekh, i do my stuff you do yours, dont want any interference. in work, life, anything, this is subject to change basis how life transpires

02:03 PM

Kunwarbir Singh

thanks ya'll. peace, always welcome to chat up on my linkedin anytime

02:03 PM