With over 30 years in the watch business, Tissot president François Thiébaud’s experience in the sector, both from a geographic as well as a product point of view and covering high volume brands to luxury niche products, is global in the true sense of word. The chief of the luxury watch maker, the official timekeeper in the Commonwealth Games, told DNA that winning loyal consumers entails instilling brand confidence. Excerpts from the interview:
For the brand, how did timekeeping in the Commonwealth Games help?
We had good appearances, which, no doubt, will increase the brand awareness of Tissot. But, you know, we are not focusing energy only on the Commonwealth Games because the games lasted for a few weeks. The Tissot brand has been in the country for several decades. Our goal is to keep increasing our market share. Also, apart from timekeeping in the Games, we also did a lot of advertising. A day before yesterday, we were with our brand ambassador Deepika Padukone, who was proud about India being second in ranking. These are things at Tissot, which we are happy to share because we are in India.
Are you looking forward to similar response in the upcoming Asian Games?
This time we will not be the official timekeeper in the upcoming Asian Games in China. I don’t know why we did not get the timekeeping this time, although we are in China.
Any other opportunity you are looking at in the near future?
In two weeks we will have world championship in Paris and we have just completed the basketball championship. We will also be participating in some of the university events. Every time we do timekeeping we speak with the athlete and come up with new ideas. So, it is very important to do timekeeping.
How has the growth been for Tissot and what is the outlook?
In the last few years, when the economic position was down, we unfortunately slipped to single-digit growth but we have regained the double-digit growth this year. Tissot is successful not because of me. It is successful because it is the one of the oldest Swiss watch brand created in 1863. They have been very innovative through the years. This company introduced the watch having accurate compass, accurate altimeter, accurate barometer, temperature apart from basic facilities like alarm. So, innovative spirit has been there in Tissot since the very beginning. But we also do not forget that we are essentially a watchmaker brand. So, we have to respect and maintain the traditional watchmaking values and also the innovative spirit. So, we need both. We are in a world of specialists and Tissot is a multi-specialist, because we are specialists in every segment. Our goal is to convince the Tissot consumer to become a Tissot ambassador. Only then our 3 million family globally will grow.
Any market research you are planning in India?
Indirectly yes. When I talk to the management, I raise questions whether we know if people prefer automatic, big size or small size. We do not know. I will tell you why. Because India is a world country, because you him and I, we think in the same way. When the mobile technology came to India, everybody wanted to use it. It was not a matter of any barrier. To me, there is no barrier when something very intelligent comes. More than half of population in India is below 25, which uses the internet and the revolution is happening on the internet, and people are coming close.
What are the challenges in winning loyal consumers in India? Have you approached the government to address policy issues, if any?
Gaining any new consumer either Chinese, Indian or French would entail instilling confidence about the brand in consumers. We are doing good. We are doing what we should actually be doing. However, the other issues are on the policy side. In India the import duty is too high. Also, we cannot develop our own network here. We are losing time on this. Through various representations and platforms like the Swiss Federation we certainly have approached the government. But you know the government has got its own priority such as security, education, among others. But we are optimistic.
