Ajoy Chawla, CEO of Titan’s Jewellery Division joined us for an exclusive interview as part of NewsX India Alist. He is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Titan’s Jewellery business that houses iconic brands such as Tanishq, Mia, Zoya and CaratLane. Zoya, the exquisite diamond boutique from the House of Tata, is a luxury brand of fine jewellery, renowned for its expert craftsmanship and distinguished design.
Talking about the launch of Zoya’s new collection ‘Samave‘, Chawla said “It a signature collection from Zoya, which draws inspiration from architecture, more specifically the Indian step wells, and it is also a metaphor of a connection between the woman, her own inspiration as well as the inspiration from the feminine power of the tribe.”
Explaining further, Chawla said “If you look at the step wells, it’s a marvellous piece of architecture, very Indian. It’s layered, it’s intimate. It’s tucked away. It’s a place where women meet other women as they come in search of water. Water is a metaphor for life. And even as the woman is descending down the steps where she is in our own way undertaking a journey of self-discovery, discovering our own inspiration while connecting deeply with other women, very intimately in fact, in Sanskrit the meaning of the word summary is to unite to come together to connect intimately.”
“We thought it’s a wonderful way to kind of capture the entire metaphor. It’s an all-white diamond only collection with straight lines clean lines, both in rose gold and white coat, and the versatile collection has rings, earrings, necklaces and bracelets,” added the Intrapreneur.
Sharing insights on strategy during the lockdown and how that has worked for the brand, the CEO said “As a young brand it still has a long way to go but it’s a niche brand opportunity to grow in a country like India in itself is great. Our target customer has not really been impacted, at least economically. This time around, of course, there has been a certain humanitarian impact much more than last time. It’s been brutal, for many people. But if I look at last year Zoya grew, despite losing out the first three months, it grew for the year at about 14-15%.”
“Of course, driven by the growth of new points of sale that we added. We added a store in Bangalore during the last lockdown and it has done very well for us. Even before the pandemic broke, despite us not getting a chance to launch it in a big way because of social distancing restrictions, etc but it has done very well. We have added galleries, which are like shopping shops in select Tanishq stores in Bombay, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Kolkata. And by the end of this month in Chandigarh, the footprint of Zoya has grown beyond Bombay, Delhi Bangalore to include these other towns as well.” elaborated Chawla.
Zoya’s personalized service focuses on providing an unmatched buying experience for its exclusive products. Zoya now extends its service through video-assisted jewellery advisory, home trials, contactless delivery and interactive e-catalogues.
Speaking on digital marketing and digital sales which has become the new normal, the CEO said “For all categories of products, and even for jewellery, we have seen that customers prefer safety and convenience of digital. And during the last year in fact we saw, Zoya customers really take up to remote, shopping, as well as digital so it could be that it is initiated by the customer getting on to the website booking an appointment, or it could be from the store side. In addition to that, what we are seeing is that as people come online, they still want a personalized experience and seamless experience.”
“We are soon also hoping to launch a members-only portal and we can take this personalization story even further. We have also continued to offer curated personalized experiences at home,” added Chawla on a concluding note.
