As part of our new series, ‘Marketers Playbook for 2020 Post Covid-19′, Shalini Gupta, Head – Marketing – Eyeplus, Titan Company Ltd. says that innovations and creating better value for customers will never go out of fashion and Titan’s focus on these two areas will continue

The global spread of Covid-19 has impacted most industries worldwide at an unprecedented scale. Significant disruption has occurred especially in the retail sector where innovative solutions are required to ensure the safety of all customers and staff. With numerous complications in production, supply chain, and traditional marketing, we as responsible marketers must adapt to the situation and curate a safe and fulfilling shopping experience for customers. Every point across awareness, desire, interest, and action funnel has to be reimagined.

We foresee that the need for reassurance about safety will be central in a consumer’s decision. At Titan Eyeplus, eye care expertise and customer-centricity have always been at the forefront. Hence during a lockdown, we have been actively working towards redesigning our store layout for ensuring social distancing, designing tech solution for sterilizing our products after every touch, and re-crafting store processes to ensure a safe environment in all 584 of our stores. With our ‘EyeSwearToCare’ campaign, we are reassuring customers across every touchpoint that their eyes are in safe hands which is being brought alive through extra-ordinary operational efficiency in our stores and factories.

There is strong evidence globally that the silos of physical and digital worlds shall be broken post Covid and it will transform into seamless omnichannel consumer journeys. Titan Eyeplus has been pioneers in leading the omnichannel revolution and has made significant investments in digital both as a channel of sales and marketing. Our focus shall continue to be providing a seamless shopping experience to our consumers – consumers can choose to order online and get their product home delivered or order online and pick the product from one of our stores.

We are confident that consumer demand has only been postponed because of lockdown and not “crashed” like in the case of a recession. Being an essential category, we hope to see the demand for the category rise back as soon as stores open and mobility regulations are relaxed. However, consumer demand for discretionary and luxury may take some time to rise to pre-pandemic levels and will be dependent on multiple variables like successful mass production of vaccines, fear of second wave subsiding, and economy reviving. To deal with this anticipated reality of muted demand for luxury we are redesigning our portfolio to launch a wide range of stylish products at extremely affordable price points.

Innovations and creating better value for customers shall never go out of fashion. Hence our focus in leading the curve in smart eyewear, as well as cutting edge lens technology, shall continue. Our efforts in creating topically relevant products like safety glasses, and fog-free lenses which ensures a clear vision even when one has the mask on, will allow us to partner with the consumer better through this pandemic.

Expecting a growing preference for the “local over the global”, we at Titan Eyeplus are ready with cutting edge designs and technology in our frames, lenses, and sunglasses to allow consumers to pick up ‘Made In India’ products which are of world-class standards.

Finally, consumer understanding has always been the essence of marketing and in Titan Eyeplus the Consumer is central to our business model. We pride ourselves on the fact that we go the extra mile to ensure the highest satisfaction for the customer. Times like these call for this empathy even more than normal times. We have continuously engaged with the customers throughout the lockdown in solving their queries about eye health, steps for taking care of their eyeglasses, and buying online through digital assistance where physical stores are inaccessible. It is this empathy-driven strong consumer connect which is my core marketing philosophy and that shall remain unchanged even post the pandemic.