The strongest market for Tanishq, the Indian jewellery brand, has been Delhi-NCR, where they stepped foot three decades ago. Recently, they celebrated being a chosen brand for 8,11,404 families in Delhi alone. In the YouGov Recommend Rankings 2024 in India, Tanishq achieved a recommended score of 90.2.
But to achieve this great success, what has been the marketing strategy? To shed further light on this and other aspects of the brand’s works, e4m spoke to Arun Narayan, VP - Category, Marketing & Retail, Tanishq, Titan Company. “The traditional media has been a solid pillar of the marketing plan historically. But I must be honest and say that in recent times, we all know how digital has taken off and how relevant it is. Many of our consumers tell us that when work gets over at 10 o'clock, it's them and their mobile phone. So, the six-inch screen has a certain engagement and there is a lot of digital that has found its way into our marketing.”
He believes, brands have to find a new blend between different ways of reaching out to consumers and print is a solid way to do that. Outdoor in a city like Delhi where people tend to spend a lot of time out of home is relevant. Television is relevant to tell stories that need audio-visual media.
“Hence, a lot of Tanishq’s campaigns are about stories which may not be in the jewellery space but are relevant for women. Because as a brand, it's a brand that's of women, for women,” he said.
This jewellery brand, which signed Deepika Padukone as brand ambassador in 2015 last, hasn’t really had a famous celebrity as the face.
Narayan highlighted, “In a brand's journey, there will always be times when you need a celebrity and there is a role there. And there will be times when you feel that there are different narratives for which the centre stage is not a celebrity but the product.”
According to him, the minute a brand has a celebrity, the celebrity takes centre stage and the brand weaves everything around the celebrity.
“We've had celebrities in the past as well and we've had periods then without celebrities. In 2011-12 we had Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, a few years later we onboarded Deepika. Even today in the South, we have Nayanthara. There is no solid line which is drawn.”
Post Covid, another trend that the industry is seeing is the rise of lab-grown diamonds since consumers do not want to invest in too expensive items focusing on experiential living and less possessions.
“Over the last few years post-pandemic, whilst we all went through tough times, the recovery that Tanishq has seen has been quite remarkable. Despite these concerns, we don't really sense that from our customers. From our side, a lot of focus on lightweight, wearable jewellery has increased,” said the executive.
The lives today of Indians are more social than perhaps has been in the past and therefore, they need jewellery for different occasions. There is a look also people want to style these days than perhaps before. Hence, the demand for lightweight jewellery, which is also light on the pocket, is on the rise.
The foundation of this brand has always been wearable jewellery that is for everyday use, as per him. There is a certain adornment value which perhaps is of greater importance today than merely as an investment for consumers.
Be it a face for the brand or it is the collections, Tanishq’s regional focus is strongly aligned to reach out to the hyperlocal markets. On the relevance aspect, there were a lot of strides that the brand has taken in each geography, where there is a regional flavour, particularly in the east and in the south.
Out of the total SKUs that Tanishq has, which are about 60-70k SKUs, any store carries perhaps 40% of regional relevant designs.
He further added, “Our Chola collection that we launched a few years back, was coincidentally launched at the same time as Mani Ratnam launched his movie which really brought out a regional connect and identity with the Cholas, which is the golden era of Tamil. We did a Kakatiya collection in Andhra Pradesh and temples of Odisha themed collection.”
The brand opened a new store in Muscat and Singapore during Q1’25. The total jewellery international footprint stands at 16 stores currently.
In foreign countries, the brand’s focus is more on people of Indian origin. Narayan also revealed that in the US, it is said that there are 4 million Indians. Therefore, their stores are primarily looking at Indian diaspora residing abroad.
The new buyer contribution this quarter specifically for Tanishq was approximately 35%, according to the brand’s earnings call transcript. At the same time, about 10% of their business comes from the Tanishq exchange programme, where people return a product and then buy another product.
And the key to maintaining a strong business is keeping consumer loyalty a big factor in today's world, especially with brands. Nowadays, brands depend a lot on data, analytics but the real thing is the heart.
“At the end of the day, the secret sauce is the human-to-human connection. You can be as clinical in looking at analytics but if the heart is not in the right place, then there is no relationship. It becomes transactional. And I think for us what matters really is putting the customer first and ensuring that there is an ongoing relationship with her, which has nothing to do with her buying jewellery,” Narayan highlighted.
Speaking on the recent launch of new players in the organised jewellery industry, the executive said, “This industry has more than 1 lakh jewellers and we are also in it. Our market share is roughly around 7%. but we are maybe the largest, still remaining a mid-sized player in this industry because the category is very large.”
More options are therefore possible, he explained. Thus, its rate of growth and expansion will accelerate with the entry of more quality brands. There will be a rise in customer trust and also benefit the clientele.
